Pee Wee Reese
Outside MCU Park in Coney Island, there stands a statue of two baseball players. Both are famed Brooklyn Dodgers. Both are Hall of Famers whose legends transcend batting averages and fielding percentages. One is a white Kentuckian. The other is an African-American from California. They are Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson.
The statue depicts a simple act that was extremely brave for its time: 1947, when America was a separate but unequal society and Robinson became the first of his race to play major-league ball in the 20th century. That May, according to legend, the Dodgers were battling the Reds at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, located about a 90-minute drive from Louisville, Reese’s hometown. The crowd was mocking Jackie during infield practice. The opposing players were razzing him. The scene was growing uglier by the second. In a display of support for his teammate, Pee Wee calmly strode from his shortstop position toward Jackie on the right side of the infield and placed his left arm around the black man’s shoulder: an act that is commemorated by the statue.
This demonstration quieted the fans, and the Reds. It was a crucial moment in Robinson’s evolution from outsider to big leaguer. Just as significantly, it defined the character and career of Pee Wee Reese, the quietly forceful captain of the postwar Brooklyn Dodgers.
Reese always loved playing baseball—even though his size prevented him from earning a starting job on his Louisville Manual High School team; he admitted he got into only five games during his senior year. The youngster earned his nickname not for his diminutive size—he was five feet nine inches and weighed 140 pounds when he signed his first professional contract at the age of twenty, and added one inch and twenty pounds when fully grown. Instead, he was called Pee Wee because of his predilection for playing marbles. As a pre-teenager, he was runner-up in a Louisville Courier-Journal pee-wee marbles competition.In fact, in 1956, The Sporting News ran a 1934 photo of “a Louisville amateur team” that featured Pee Wee’s older brother, Carl, Jr., in uniform. Fifteen-year-old Pee Wee was in the shot, but was dressed in street clothes. He was the team’s batboy.
In 1937 the Louisville Colonels of the American Association signed him to a professional contract. He was given a $200 signing bonus, and his starting salary was $150 a month. In 1938, Reese hit a solid .277 and stole twenty-three of twenty-four bases. His fielding percentage was only .939, but he impressed with his steady play and maturity, and it was while playing in Louisville that Reese earned a second nickname: The Little Colonel.
At the time, the Colonels had no major-league affiliation. But in September Tom Yawkey, owner of the Boston Red Sox, was part of a group that purchased the team for $195,000. Reportedly, the deal was completed so that the Red Sox would be guaranteed the rights to Reese. According to The Sporting News, “the deal was guarded with such secrecy that some officials of the Louisville club actually did not know that [the Red Sox] were interested in the Colonels.”
Pee Wee might have become the Red Sox shortstop if not for the presence of Joe Cronin, the team’s player-manager. Cronin, who was to keep playing for another six seasons, showed no interest in relinquishing the shortstop position. So midway through the 1939 campaign, the Red Sox sold Reese to the Brooklyn Dodgers for $35,000 and four players to be named later, each of whom was valued at $10,000. Upon consummating the deal, it was decided that Reese would finish the season in Louisville and come to the Dodgers training camp the following spring.
At the time, Pee Wee was anxious to play in Boston and was disconsolate upon learning of the sale, which was consummated while he was in Kansas City, playing for the American Association All-Stars. When a newspaperman told him about the deal, he reportedly responded, “Oh, not Brooklyn!”9 Reese’s reasoning was that the Dodgers then had a well-earned reputation for on-field ineptitude. Their record the previous season was 69-80, good for seventh place. In 1937 they were a sixth-place club with an even worse record: 62-91. “I was crushed,” Reese recalled years later. But he readily admitted that the deal “turned out to be the greatest break of my life.”
It was in spring training 1940 in Clearwater, Florida, that player-manager Leo Durocher, the Dodgers’ incumbent shortstop, hit grounder after grounder to the baby-faced rookie. After one such session, an exhausted Durocher quipped, “He’ll do. I’ll be the bench manager.” Leo also mentored the young infielder. “Leo could be tough,” Reese recalled. “He fined me $50 one day for being out of position on a relay, but he taught me a lot, including to be myself, not try to be Leo Durocher.”
Pee Wee made his Dodgers debut on April 23, 1940. The Boston Bees (as the Braves were then called) were in Brooklyn, and Reese went 1-for-3 with a walk and a run batted in. He also made a throwing error.
Reese immediately distinguished himself as a slick fielder and first-class base runner. He was particularly adept at turning his back to home plate and scooting into left field to nab a popup, and dashing from his shortstop position to second base to scoop up a grounder headed toward center field and fire the ball to first for the out. However, due to injury, his rookie season proved to be tough going. On June 1, in a game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, hurler Jake Mooty tossed Reese a high inside pitch. Pee Wee was temporarily blinded by the white-shirted fans in the center-field bleachers, and he froze. Mooty’s pitch hit Reese in the head. He was carted off to the Illinois Masonic Hospital, where he remained for two and a half weeks. Upon his return to the lineup, on June 21, Reese promptly singled, doubled, and tripled.
Then a broken heel bone, which he sustained while sliding into second base in Brooklyn on August 15, ended his season. These injuries kept Pee Wee out of all but eighty-four games, in which he hit a respectable .272. He began the 1941 campaign with a brace on his ankle, yet he still played in 152 games. His average, however, dropped to .229. Reese felt he contributed little to Brooklyn’s first National League pennant-winner since 1920.
Reese enlisted in the United States Navy and spent most of the next three years in the Pacific Theater with the Seabees, the Navy’s Construction Battalion.
Reese returned to the Dodgers for the 1946 season, during which he played in 152 games and hit a solid .284. The following year, he also hit .284 and walked 104 times, leading the National League. But his notoriety that season transcended these or any other stats.
At the outset of the 1947 season, the Dodgers promoted Jackie Robinson to the majors. Reese was well aware that some teammates and fans, neighbors and friends, and even family members vehemently opposed his playing with an African-American. The shortstop was, after all, a product of a segregated Southern culture, and he had never had a catch with an African-American, never had a close relationship with an African-American, and reportedly never had shaken the hand of one. But he was aware of racism American-style. In his youth, Pee Wee’s father reportedly had pointed out to him a tree with a long branch in Brandenburg that had been used for lynching black men, and implied that such actions were unjust. So a sense of fairness had been instilled in him and he was determined to accept his new teammate, no matter what. When several Brooklyn players began passing around a petition protesting Robinson’s presence on the Dodgers, Pee Wee rebuffed them, declining to sign it.
It was this expression of solidarity on that one May day in Cincinnati that is best remembered today. Robinson could not recall what Reese said to him—if he said anything. According to Ralph Branca, their teammate, Reese’s gesture communicated to the players in the opposing dugout, “Hey, he’s my friend. It says Brooklyn on my uniform and Brooklyn on his and I respect him.”16 Years later, he explained his action by telling Roger Kahn “I was just trying to make the world a little bit better. That’s what you’re supposed to do with your life, isn’t it?”
On the field, Robinson spent the 1947 season as the Dodgers’ first baseman. He then was switched to second base, where he and Reese developed into an outstanding double play combination. In 1949 Branch Rickey, the Dodgers’ president and general manager, named Reese the team’s captain, telling Pee Wee, “You’re not only the logical choice, you are the only possible choice; the players all respect you.” Afterward, Reese’s teammates began referring to him by a third nickname: The Captain. One of his duties was to remain atop the Ebbets Field dugout steps prior to the beginning of each game and wave the starters onto the field.
As the 1950s progressed, a debate raged in New York over which of the city’s teams had the best players. Just as Brooklyn fans favored Duke Snider in center field, while Giants aficionados chose Willie Mays and Yankees rooters preferred Mickey Mantle, there were also endless debates comparing the prowess of Pee Wee versus the talents of Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto. Which one was the slicker fielder? Which one was the superior bunter? Which one was better in the clutch? Which one was the more inspirational team leader? Meanwhile, by 1953, Branch Rickey had left Brooklyn and was running the Pittsburgh Pirates. He attempted to trade for Reese, to captain the punchless Pirates. Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers’ new owner, flatly refused.
What was inarguable, however, was the Dodgers fans’ adoration of their shortstop. He was a special favorite in Brooklyn, with Pee Wee Reese fan clubs sprouting up across the borough. The ballplayer was particularly attentive toward youngsters. Unlike so many other major leaguers, he won a reputation for never brushing them off and for honestly and thoughtfully answering their questions.
On July 22, 1955, just before his thirty-seventh birthday, Pee Wee Reese Night was held at Ebbets Field. It was quite an event. A pregame ceremony took almost one hour to complete, during which Reese was presented with $20,000 worth of gifts, including a new Chevrolet, $3,000 worth of United States Savings Bonds, 200 pounds of food in a freezer, and honorary membership in the Teamsters Union. A hoarse-voiced Pee Wee told the crowd, “When I came to Brooklyn in 1940 I was a scared kid. To tell you the truth, I’m twice as scared right now.”24 After the top half of the fifth inning, two vast birthday cakes were wheeled onto the field. The ballyard’s lights were lowered, and the 33,000 fans on hand lit matches or turned on cigarette lighters and serenaded their shortstop with a hearty “Happy Birthday.”
That season, the Dodgers yet again made it to the World Series. And yet again, they faced the New York Yankees, who had defeated them all five previous times they had battled. Pee Wee had a solid series, scoring five runs and hitting .296. As usual, his contributions transcended what might be culled from a box score. In the bottom of the sixth inning of Game Seven, Billy Martin walked, Gil McDougald bunted safely, and Yogi Berra bashed the ball into the left-field corner. Surely, this would be an extra-base hit, and would net the Yankees a pair of runs. But left-fielder Sandy Amoros snared the ball before it hit the ground. Reese, meanwhile, ran out to short left field to take Amoros’ cutoff throw. He quickly spun around and fired a strike to Gil Hodges to double McDougald off first—and preserve the Dodgers’ shutout.
Appropriately, it was Reese who fielded the final ball hit by a Yankee in Game Seven. The date was October 4, 1955. The time was 3:43 P.M., and the Dodgers were beating the Bronx Bombers, 2-0. Pee Wee’s toss of Elston Howard’s ninth-inning, two-out grounder to Hodges closed out the Series, and the season. Finally, the Brooklyn Dodgers were the world champions.
Reese now was a veteran major leaguer, but he still was a first rate player. In its 1956 season preview, Sports Illustrated listed Reese as the team’s number-one “mainstay.”25 Regrettably, he twisted his back early in spring training, and there was some concern as to how this would impact his season. He ended up playing in 147 games, 136 at shortstop and twelve at third base.
The 1956 season, however, was Reese’s last as a regular. In 1957 he got into only 103 games, with his batting average shrinking to .224. He played shortstop in just twenty-three contests; most of the time, he patrolled third base. Twenty-five-year-old Charlie Neal, then being groomed as Pee Wee’s replacement at short, played the position in 100 games.
In 1958 the Dodgers abandoned Brooklyn for Los Angeles. That season Reese got into only fifty-nine games. His .224 batting average was identical to his 1957 mark. His poor showing paralleled the fortunes of the Dodgers, who finished the year entrenched in seventh place.
From 1946 through 1956, the final year he was the team’s regular shortstop, Reese’s batting averaged generally was in the .270s or .280s. His highest home run total was sixteen, in 1949. That season, he led all National League shortstops with a .977 fielding percentage and topped the NL with 132 runs scored. His highest RBI total was eighty-four and his highest hit total was 176, both in 1951. In 1952 he topped the senior circuit with thirty stolen bases.
Reese’s lifetime batting average was .269. All told, he appeared in 2,166 games, had 2,170 hits, and is the Dodgers’ all-time leader with 1,338 runs scored and 1,210 walks. He hit .272 in forty-four World Series games. In the 1955 Fall Classic he established a mark for shortstops by taking part in seven double plays in a seven-game series, a record he equaled the following season.
These generally unspectacular statistics obscure Reese’s value to the Dodgers. Even though he hit .300 just once—in 1954 when, at age thirty-six, his average was .309, with a career-best slugging percentage of .455 and second-best on-base percentage of .404—he finished in the top ten in the National League MVP voting on eight occasions.
After spending the 1959 season as a Dodgers coach, Reese seguéd into a new career as a color man on televised baseball broadcasts. First he replaced Buddy Blattner as Dizzy Dean’s partner on CBS-TV’s Game of the Week. He worked at CBS from 1960 to 1965; during his final season there, he and Dean broadcast twenty-one New York Yankees home games on Yankee Baseball Game of the Week and the two were partnered on Sports with Dizzy Dean & Pee Wee Reese, a chat show.
In 1984 Reese’s uniform number—which, appropriately, was “1”—was retired by the Dodgers. That same year, the veterans committee elected him to the Baseball Hall of Fame. His Hall of Fame plaque reads: “Shortstop and captain of great Dodger teams of 1940’s and 50’s. Intangible qualities of subtle leadership on and off field. Competitive fire and professional pride complemented dependable glove, reliable base-running and clutch-hitting as significant factors in 7 Dodger pennants. Instrumental in easing acceptance of Jackie Robinson as baseball’s first black performer.”
