Pee Wee Reese

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Harold Peter Reese (July 23, 1918-August 14, 1999) was an American professional baseball player.

He appeared in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958.

Reese, a ten-time All Star, played in seven National League championships for the Dodgers and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984.

Jackie Robinson, the first modern African American player to play in the major leagues, has also been known for his help with his teammates, particularly during Robinson's difficult first years.

Early life

Reese's nickname began in his childhood as he was a champion marbles player (a "pee wee" is a small marble). Reese was born in Ekron, Meade County, Kentucky, and was raised there until he was almost eight years old when his family immigrated to Louisville. Reese was so small in high school that he did not play baseball until his senior year, when he weighed only 120 pounds and played only six games as a second baseman. He graduated from duPont Manual High School in 1935, where he worked for Ralph Kimmel, a legendary HS coach. He was employed by a cable splicer for the Louisville phone company, but only played amateur baseball in a church league. The minor league Louisville Colonels accepted Reese's team to play the championship game on their field as part of the league championship championship. Cap Neal, the Colonels' owner, was impressed by his performance, who agreed to a $200 bonus. While playing for the Colonels, he was affectionately referred to by his teammates as "The Little Colonel."

Later life and death

Reese worked at Hillerich & Bradsby, the manufacturers of Louisville Slugger baseball bats, in his later years. He battled prostate and lung cancer in the last five years of his life, and died on August 14, 1999 at his Louisville home. He is laid to rest at Resthaven Memorial Park Cemetery in Louisville.

Personal life

Dorothy "Dottie" Walton married Reese on March 29, 1942, and she outlived him by nearly 13 years. They had two children. Dottie died on March 7, 2012, just 22 days away from what would have been the couple's Platinum wedding anniversary. Mark, his son, has been producing sports documentaries in Los Angeles for the past 25 years.

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Baseball career

Reese, the Colonels' regular shortstop and one of the top prospects in the minors, by 1938, he impressed Boston Red Sox farm director Billy Evans that he had recommended the Red Sox buy the team. Joe Cronin, the Red Sox's regular shortstop, and owner Tom Yawkey knew it was approaching the end of his career.

However, Cronin was also the Red Sox's boss, and he still thought of himself as a good shortstop. Cronin realized he was scouting his own replacement when Yawkey sent Cronin to Louisville to scout Reese. Cronin deliberately played down Reese's skills and recommended that Reese be traded indefinitely. Since the other teams had to find someone to be dissatisfied with Reese, the Red Sox decided that something had to be wrong with him if the Red Sox wanted to get rid of him, it took a long time. Reese was sent to Brooklyn on July 18, 1939, but he was not named until later. This trade is now one of baseball's most lopsided trades. Cronin was only a part-time player before 1941, as it turned out.

Reese remained in Louisville for the remainder of the 1939 season before being summoned to Brooklyn in time for the 1940 season. In an ironic twist, he stepped into a situation where his boss, Leo Durocher, was also the regular shortstop. Durocher, on the other hand, was able to trade his place in the lineup to Reese.

Reese's rookie season in 1940 was halted due to a fractured heel bone that limited him to 84 games in what seemed to be a promising season (.272batting average with 58 runs scored). He had a thrilling moment this year, winning the New York Giants with a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning. He hit.229 and led the league with 47 errors in 1941. Reese's win in the five-game World Series was forgettable, as he batted.200 and made three mistakes. It was in 1942 that he truly established himself, leading National League shortstops in both putouts and assists.

He missed three seasons due to military service, like many players of his time. In 1943, Reese was enlisted in the United States Navy and sent out to fight in World War II's Pacific theater. Although Reese was in the service, the Dodgers sank, finishing no better than third place and worse than 42 games out, placing seventh place (in seventh place) in 1943. Reese immediately righted the ship as the Dodgers defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in a close pennant fight upon his return to action in 1946. The two teams finished the season tied for first place and met in the 1946 National League tie-breaker series for the first time. It was the first playoff tiebreaker in Major League Baseball history. To capture the National League pennant, the Cardinals won the first two games of the best-of-three-game series.

Reese, the first black Major League baseball player, was a strong supporter and a good friend of Jackie Robinson, the first black Major League Baseball player. When Robinson's news of his signing broke, he was serving a stint in the Navy. Despite the fact that he had no or no knowledge of minorities—according to Reese, Robinson's meeting Robinson marked the first time in his life that he had shaken hands with a black man — he had no particular prejudices. According to reports, his father made him acutely aware of racial injustice by showing him a tree where a lynching took place. Reese, a modest Reese who often played down his pioneering role in assisting with the breaking of the 60-year-old color line, said that his biggest fear in relation to Robinson's arrival was that he might lose his shortstop job. Robinson was selected to serve as the team's first baseman, but Reese retained his position.

When word broke that Brooklyn wanted to pick Jackie Robinson up from their farm team in Montreal in 1947, several Dodgers players began circulating a petition. Reese, who grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, was expected to sign, but the players hoped he'd stay. According to sportswriter Roger Kahn, who later became close friends with Reese, "If you bring up the nigger, trade us." We won't play again." The Reese, the most popular, refused to sign the petition, and it died.

When a sportswriter asked Reese if he was threatened by Robinson's taking his position as a shortstop, he answered simply, "If he can take my work, he's entitled to it." Reese was one of the few people to welcome Robinson, who suffered with ferocious taunts from the crowds and colleagues, including pitchers who screamed directly at his head and players who slammed him with racial insults. "Robinson is the loneliest man I've ever seen in sports" after spending a day with the Dodgers in 1947.

Fans in Cincinnati booed Robinson when he joined the Dodgers in 1947 and went with them on their first road trip. Reese, the team's captain, went over to Robinson during pre-game practice at Crosley Field (the then-home of the Cincinnati Reds), and the crowd was silenced. (Brian Cronin, according to a 2013 ESPN article, argues that the incident took place in 1948 in Boston.)

Reese said, "Well, that's true, but Jackie is getting special hell because he's the only Black player" in reaction to Dodgers teammate Pete Reiser's comment about how democracy legally guarantees that everybody's equal." According to American journalist Lester Rodney, the time of yel for Robinson and Reese in Cincinnati sparked a gradual decline in vile fan behavior by 1948. "You started to get the feeling that the racists were aware of their race, and they may now be racist to the point, but at least their mouths were shut," Rodney says. And you've never heard them again."

The gesture is portrayed in a bronze sculpture of Reese and Robinson, created by sculptor William Behrends and unveiled on November 1, 2005, and was displayed in MCU Park in Brooklyn. In a 2005 column, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert referred to Kahn's comment that Reese's gesture to Jackie Robinson is "Baseball's finest moment."

Reese helped Robinson maintain his sanity amid all the abuse during his first year in the major leagues. There was tacit recognition of the fact that the blacks were now playing big league football and were clearly there to stay as the 1947 season progressed. Reese became a good friend with Robinson and was able to use humor to defuse some of the tension and make Robinson laugh. Robinson also got pitches thrown at him, but Kahn told him, 'You know Jack, some of these guys are throwing at you because you're black." However, others are doing it simply for the love of their own.'" Robinson, who was in charge of raising Jackie Robinson aside, 1947 was a memorable year for Reese, as he batted.284 with a league-leading 104 walks. He had a.426 average on his career. Shortstop Reese and second baseman Robinson soon became one of the sport's most effective defensive pairings. In Roger Kahn's classic 1972 work, The Boys of Summer, the friendship between Reese and Robinson is prominent.

Reese was one of the pallbearers at Robinson's funeral in 1972.

Reese had his first league victory in a significant batting division in 1949, leading all National Leaguers with 132 runs scored. The Dodgers won the pennant for the second time this year, but the Yankees continued to dominate in the World Series, winning in five games despite Reese's.316 Series average and team-leading five hits.

In 1950, Reese became the Dodgers' team captain. He made his career in RBI with 84. He led the National League in stolen bases with 30 bases in 1952. Reese had his best Series in that year, batting.345 with 10 hits, one home run, and four RBI. In Game 3, Robinson and Reese made a double steal; they then scored on a passed ball.

The 1953 Dodgers captured the National League pennant with a record of 105–49 for a.682 winning percentage. Reese was a mainstay for the team, with 108 runs scored and a.271 batting average. The Yankees did not win in the 1953 World Series, four games to two. Reese was the Dodgers' boss early in the season, but the Dodgers fired Walter Alston, the Dodgers' former boss, after Reese left the position, for more than two decades.

Reese's first season in 1954 was.309, the lowest he had ever seen over.300. Despite being 36 years old, he was still going strong during the 1955 season, scoring 99 runs. The Dodgers won their first World Series in that year. In Game 2, Reese had two RBIs. In Game 7, he singled out and scored an insurance run. Gil McDougald out of first base while on the field, after Sandy Amorós caught a spectacular grab of a Yogi Berra fly ball in left field and relayed the ball to Reese to help save the game.

Reese's career was handed over to Charlie Neal, another black ball player. Reese joined them as a backup infielder after scoring.224 in 59 games. He worked with the Dodgers in the 1959 season, earning his second World Series ring.

Career statistics

Reese played in 2,166 games, with a.269 batting average, 885 runs batted in, and a.366 on-base percentage. He retired with a 962% fielding rating. He batted.272 (46-for-169) in 44 World Series games, with 20 runs, 2 home runs, and 16 RBI.

Reese played at least 140 games in a year from 1941 to 1956, other than his Navy service from 1943 to 1945. He made at least 75 runs from 1942 to 1956, his highest performance of any Dodger, and his highest output was 1,338 lifetime. Despite the fact that he never received a Most Valuable Player Award, eight times he ranked in the top ten of the Most Valuable Player Award ballots. He was also a home run risk during a time when shortstops rarely reached home runs. In a period when robbery was not an integral part of the game, Reese looding bases. He was an excellent gloveman, leading National League shortstops four times in putouts and ranking in the top ten all-time in putouts and double plays.

The "Little Colonel," the Dodgers' team captain, and not the manager, brought out the lineup card at the start of their games, making him one of the most popular players among both his teammates and fans. Reese and Elston Howard have the unfortunate distinction of being on the most losing World Series teams (six each). During Howard's first World Series appearance as a player, Reese's only World Series victory as a player was against the Dodgers in the 1955 World Series. No other non-Yankee ballplayer has appeared in the many World Series for the same team.

Broadcasting career

Reese, a former player, had a blast as a baseball play-by-play announcer and color commentator. From 1960 to 1965 (with Dizzy Dean) and NBC from 1966 to 1968 (with Curt Gowdy), he referred to Game of the Week telecasts on CBS from 1960 to 1965 (with Dizzy Dean). Reese also appeared on NBC Radio's 1967 and 1968 World Series, called Cincinnati Reds telecasts, from 1969 to 1970, and he served as a part-time television analyst for the Montreal Expos in 1972.

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