Sam Wheeler
Samuel Wallace Wheeler, Jr., nicknamed "Boom Boom," was an American athlete who played both basketball and baseball. He batted and threw right-handed. He played basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters and the Harlem Magicians, and he was an outfielder in the Negro leagues for the New York Cubans.
Wheeler was born November 15, 1923, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He went to Dunbar High School and Philander Smith College, where he was a star in basketball. In baseball, he played for the New York Cubans in 1948 and hit a grand slam in his first game. He joined the Harlem Globetrotters in 1950 and spent several years with them.
He married Betty McNeal, the daughter of Theodore McNeal, the first African American Missouri state senator and a union organizer. Wheeler died on April 16, 1989, in St. Louis, Missouri, at age 65.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:31 (CET).