Grass skirts, 'Grins & Lies,' baseball clowns

Posted on August 4, 2011 |

• Sports Column

By Karl Lindholm

Imagine: black men, barefoot, wearing grass skirts, shirtless, with war-painted faces, uttering gibberish, affecting a crude stereotype of African tribesmen, straight out of Tarzan movies. These were the Zulu Cannibal Giants, African-American baseball players in the 1930s, making a living, clowning, barnstorming the country, delighting white patrons.

Later, this team evolved into the Ethiopian Clowns, and finally the Indianapolis Clowns. The Clowns were a powerful force in black baseball from 1935 to the mid-1950s.

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