A requiem for the Washington Generals, the worst sports team of all time

The Washington Generals are done losing. After over 60 years of playing -- and losing -- to the showboating and basketball tricks of the Harlem Globetrotters, the Generals are folding, according to Joe Posnanski of NBC Sports.

They close up shop with the worst record in sports history: Against the Globetrotters, they won one game and lost more than 16,000. Their name has become a synonym for losing, so much so that Krusty the Clown can bet on the Generals to win and we're all supposed to get the joke.

The team's coach/owner/manager/everything man John Ferrari got the call that the Globetrotters didn't need their help anymore in July, with the team playing its last game Aug. 1. The Generals' website features a sad note thanking the fans -- were there any? -- for their decades of support.  Purportedly, the reason for their demise is that the Globetrotters figured out a better financial deal than splitting their earnings with the Generals, who have long operated as a separate company. It's not particularly surprising to hear that times are tight in the novelty basketball business.

Although the Generals are finally free from the Sisyphean cycle of failure, it's a sad day. Despite the losses on losses on losses, the Generals took pride in what they did: Providing the necessary straight man to one of the most famous sports shows on the planet.

The Generals were actually pretty good at basketball

You might think that because they lost every game, the Generals were comprised of terrible basketball players. You'd be wrong.

The Generals' job was to make the Globetrotters look like the best team on the planet. If you grabbed five scrubs from the Y, what the Globetrotters did wouldn't look impressive. It would look like they were playing five scrubs from the Y. The Generals were real basketball players. They don't have a current roster listed anywhere, but the one listed on Wikipedia features a mix of players from low-major Division I schools, plus DII and DIII guys.

On offense, the Generals played legit basketball, with the goal being to score as frequently as possible. When the Globetrotters played legit offense, the Generals were supposed to play legit defense, with the goal being to stop them as often as possible. But unfortunately, the Globetrotters only play real offense about 40 percent of the time, with the other 60 percent being "reams," as Joe Posnanski described. On these plays, the Generals had to let the Globetrotters do whatever they wanted -- pull their pants down, pull off intricate passing displays, dunk it, hit shots worth 4 or 10 or 100 points, whatever.

Are the Generals as good as the Globetrotters at legit basketball? We'll never know. All we know is the Globetrotters are pretty good at gag-free basketball --  they used to play exhibitions against college teams, often demolishing rather good ones, like reigning champ Syracuse in 2004 -- and the Generals were meant to look just as good as the Globetrotters when nobody was fooling around.

The Generals beat the Globetrotters once

All that legit basketball paid off once -- on Jan. 5, 1971, in Martin, Tennessee.

Accounts of the game differ, but what's generally agreed upon is that the Globetrotters were missing their best player, Curly Neal, and were generally in a funk. They weren't hitting shots, their opponents were. As often happens, everybody stopped looking at the scoreboard to watch the fun things the Globetrotters were doing -- until with a few minutes left, the Globetrotters realized they were down 12.

The thing they should've done was do their funny basketball tricks, the ones their opponents were not allowed to defend. Instead, they tried to win straight up. That ended with the ball in the hands of Generals owner/player/coach Red Klotz with a few seconds left -- and he drilled a shot to give the Generals the win. Martin was a dry town, and the Generals didn't travel with champagne (for obvious reasons) so they poured orange soda on each other in the locker room.

Klotz would say dozens of times over the years that the stunned fans looked at his team as if they had "killed Santa Claus."

Their longtime owner lived an amazing basketball life

Klotz died at 93 last year. Perhaps the Globetrotters waited until his passing to end their association with the Generals. Klotz dedicated decades of his life to leading the Generals through thin and thin, proud of his role in the show.

Klotz grew up a sharpshooter in Philly, earning a scholarship to Villanova. Professional basketball was just starting out at the time, and he found a gig with the Baltimore Bullets of the BAA, the forerunner to the NBA. He played in 11 games in 1947-48, helping the Bullets to a championship. At just 5'7, he remains the shortest person ever to win an NBA title.

With a team called the Philadelphia Sphas, he beat the Globetrotters. They angrily said they'd never lose again ... and then Klotz beat them again the next day. After that, their owner asked Klotz to build a team to play them every day, and the rest is history. I sincerely urge you to read Posnanski's profile of Klotz from 2011, it is worth your time.

They weren't always the Generals

Over the years, the team losing to the Globetrotters was called the Boston Shamrocks, the New Jersey Reds, the Atlantic City Gulls, the New York Nationals, International Elite, and Global Select. None of these were real teams: Just costumes the Generals wore to give the appearance that they were playing a slew of opponents rather than just the same retreads.

And of course, there are multiple Generals: The Globetrotters play over 400 shows a year, so there are often multiple groups of Globetrotters out globetrotting at any given point in time. So there are 2-3 sets of Generals losing to them across the globe.

They had the best logo in sports

Just a tiny white dude flailing aimlessly with a ball held over his head:

I sincerely wish more teams that lose a lot had honest logos of their team getting destroyed. The Cleveland Browns' logo should be a diving tackler falling to the ground as an opponent sprints into the end zone untouched.

Long live the Washington Generals, getting pantsed and smiling about it until eternity.