When Rubinoff & the Globetrotters came to Tracy
When I was growing up in Tracy during the 1950s and ‘60s, our Box Car Days celebration was the biggest annual event in town. However, every once in a while, a major attraction would come to town that today you would only see in larger cities.
In an earlier column, I covered when Gene Autry, the famous country western movie star visited Tracy in 1940 as part of the Hollywood Theater’s grand opening. My dad talked about this event on several occasions but it happened before I was born. I can remember as a young child the time when the circus came to Tracy.
I can’t recall if it was Ringling Brothers but they had clowns, trapeze artists, trick horseback riders and other circus animals. They set up a big tent supported by center poles on some vacant land on the west side of town off of South Street near the current co-op.
They put on several shows over a couple of days and attracted families from all over southwest Minnesota.
I also remember the Harlem Globetrotters coming to town on a cold winter day in February 1960.
I was in fifth grade at that time and my dad took me to the game while mom stayed home with my younger brother and sister.
The Globetrotters played in the brand-new Armory with the basketball floor and movable bleachers on the west side court with enough total seating for 2,500+ fans.
The game which was really a big show, featuring court jester Meadowlark Lemon playing with the rib-tickling (really funny) Harlem Globetrotters against the ever-losing opposing team, the Baltimore Rockets. According to reporting by the Tracy Headlight Herald, the world-traveling Globetrotters team also featured the following hardwood comics and magicians: dribbler Murphy Summons, set shot artist Clarence Wilson, verbal clown Tex Harrison, and the redoubtable comedian Bob ‘showboat’ Hall.
The show also featured 4 variety acts including a tennis match between 2 world famous professional women tennis stars, a table tennis match between 2 Japanese stars, a trick Japanese bicycle ballerina act, and direct from Germany, the head and hand balancing “Carmenas Duo,” a brother-and-sister act.
The show was sponsored by the Tracy American Legion and drew over 2,500 ticket paying spectators including 600 students from area schools, some from as far as 60 miles away who traveled on dozens of school buses to the event.
The American Legion members and many other volunteers helped organize the event, manage ticket sales and parking, and staff the concessions booth in the armory.
The show was a tremendously successful promotion which showcased the new spacious auditorium between the Tracy armory and municipal building. I remember how entertaining and funny the event was. It was definitely a big deal for Tracy which had the only venue large enough to hold such a large indoor event in Southwest Minnesota at that time.
It’s interesting to note that the Harlem Globetrotters were founded in 1926 when black players were not allowed to play in the NBA. They played and beat the NBA Minnesota Lakers in 1948 when the Globetrotters were monopolizing the entire talent pool of the best black basketball players in the country. Today, they continue to entertain crowds around the world and are currently selling tickets for this year’s Harlem Globetrotters 100-Year Tour (unfortunately there isn’t a game scheduled in Tracy).
The still successful Harlem globetrotters are now being copied and reimagined in baseball with the recent ascent of the Savannah Bananas baseball team. Like the Harlem Globetrotters before them, the Savannah Bananas are now playing Banana Ball to sellout crowds all over the world.
In many cases, they are filling major league baseball stadiums with more fans than the local National League teams that normally play in their own stadiums. As with their predecessors, they are selling a mix of baseball skills with different rules, intermixed with more humor and action than typically occurs in regular baseball. The Bananas are off to a roaring success, so stay tuned!
Another big attraction that came to Tracy in January 1962 was the world-famous violinist, Rubinoff, with his equally famous Romanoff Stradivarius violin insured for $100,000 which was a lot of money at that time. The concert was sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club and held in the old Central High School gymnasium.
This show was part of a tour to schools and colleges across the country that Rubinoff did as a way to introduce students to the art of music and inspire them to pick up a musical instrument during their youth. Rubinoff himself became a child prodigy at the age of 13 and graduated with distinction from the world-renowned Royal Conservatory of Music in Warsaw. He soon became famous throughout Europe and immigrated to the United States in 1911. His fame spread quickly across the states during the 1930s and ‘40s, largely due to the new medium of radio with many popular programs of the era featuring Rubinoff and major concerts where he performed as a soloist accompanied by major symphonies.
During his concert in Tracy, he was accompanied by another well-known pianist of the time, David Burk. I went with my grandmother, Amanda Hubbard, who was a piano teacher and I was her “young prodigy” who needed to practice a lot more if I was ever going to be as good as my younger sister Debbie. The concert was on a Saturday evening and the High School gym was filled to capacity with floor seating which included over 1,000 attendees. Rubinoff and his piano accompanist performed on the elevated stage which was quite an eloquent setting for a high school gym. There were drawn curtains and backdrops used for staging class plays. It also featured floor, ceiling and projection lights from the back of the gym, all controlled by big rheostat dimmers in the back section of the stage. It was a stage from the art deco period and would immediately remind you of the old Hollywood Theater which was just across the street.
The performance was quite long and included an intermission. Rubinoff played many classics and some modern pieces that appealed to the younger kids in attendance such as the “Ballad of Davy Crocket,” performed in 15 Characteristic Styles. The concert was undoubtedly the best performance of classical and modern music in the history of Tracy!
Next month: Planning a 1971 trip to Europe as college students.
