Zulu Cannibal Giants
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The Zulu Cannibal Giants were a Baseball team (they referred to themselves as a Baseball "tribe") formed in the 1930s by Charlie Henry in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Zulu Cannibal Giants gained notoriety for their propensity to turn a baseball game into a comedy performance, much in the same way that the Harlem Globetrotters did with basketball many years later. The Zulu Cannibal Giants decorated their faces with African tribal paint, wore grass skirts, used special custom-made baseball bats crafted to supposedly resemble Ethiopian war clubs, and often played barefoot.
Although the team was extremely popular with the public, some black athletes disapproved of the Cannibals because of the stereotype. [1]
At some point in their career they were managed by New York promoter Syd Pollock, who also managed a similar novelty team called the Indianapolis Clowns (also known as the Cincinnati Clowns, and the Ethiopian Clowns). [2]
Popularly regarded as a Negro League team, they technically were not accepted members of the formal league.
