Pee Wee Reese

Harold Henry Reese got his nickname from a marble, not from his height. As a boy in Louisville he competed in the Courier-Journal's marbles tournament, where a "pee wee" was the smallest marble in the ring, and the name stuck for the rest of his life. Reese played 16 seasons for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, captained seven pennant-winning teams, made 10 All-Star rosters, collected 2,170 hits, walked 1,210 times, stole 232 bases, and fielded the final out of the 1955 World Series, a ground ball from Elston Howard to shortstop that Reese threw across the diamond to Gil Hodges at 3:43 in the afternoon on October 4, 1955, giving Brooklyn its only championship. His Hall of Fame plaque credits his "intangible qualities of subtle leadership" and calls him "instrumental in easing acceptance of Jackie Robinson as baseball's first black performer." The Veterans Committee elected Reese in 1984.

Louisville

Reese was born on July 23, 1918, on a farm between Ekron and Brandenburg, Kentucky, about 45 miles south of Louisville. His father Carl worked various jobs, and the family moved to Louisville when Pee Wee was seven. Reese delivered newspapers and sold box lunches to earn money, played only five games during his senior year at duPont Manual High School, and after graduation worked as an apprentice cable splicer for the telephone company. He played shortstop for his church team, the New Covenant Presbyterians, and led them to the 1937 Louisville city championship.

The Louisville Colonels of the American Association signed Reese for $200 and $150 a month, and his play there drew attention from Tom Yawkey's Boston Red Sox, who purchased the entire Colonels franchise in 1938 for $195,000 largely to acquire Reese's rights. But Red Sox manager Joe Cronin, who played shortstop himself, deliberately downplayed the young player's abilities to protect his starting job. In mid-1939 the Red Sox sold Reese to Brooklyn for $35,000 and four players, a deal that ranks among the worst in Boston's history. When Reese learned where he was going, he groaned. "Oh, not Brooklyn!" The Dodgers had finished seventh in 1938 and sixth in 1937.

The Captain

Reese debuted on April 23, 1940, and by his third season he was an All-Star. He missed three full years to serve in the Navy during the Second World War, serving in the Navy in the Pacific Theater and playing ball at Aiea Naval Hospital in Hawaii. Reese returned for the 1946 season, and in 1949 Branch Rickey named him team captain with words that left no room for negotiation. "You're not only the logical choice," Rickey said, "you are the only possible choice; the players all respect you." As captain, Reese brought the lineup card to the umpires before each game and stood atop the Ebbets Field dugout steps waving starters onto the field.

When Dodgers players circulated a petition in spring training 1947 opposing Robinson's promotion to the major leagues, Reese refused to sign. The petition, as Roger Kahn later reported, read in part, "If you bring up the n-----, trade us." Reese was the shortstop from Kentucky and the team's most respected white player, and his refusal helped kill the petition before it reached management. When someone warned Reese that Robinson might take his job, Reese answered, "If he's man enough to take my job, I'm not gonna like it, but, dammit, black or white, he deserves it."

The story of Reese putting his arm around Robinson's shoulder during a game in Cincinnati in 1947 became the most famous gesture in baseball's integration history, but the evidence for that specific moment is thinner than the legend suggests. No reporter covering the game wrote about it at the time, and the Cincinnati Enquirer noted that Robinson "was applauded every time he stepped to the plate" that day. Robinson himself, in his own writings, described a similar gesture occurring in Boston in 1948. When Reese was asked about it decades later, he said, "Sounds right." Something happened between the two men that involved a public show of solidarity, and the friendship that followed was real and lifelong. They played tennis and golf together on road trips, formed one of the league's best double-play combinations after Robinson moved to second base, and when Robinson received a death threat before an exhibition game, Reese cut the tension by telling him, "Don't come near me. I don't want to get shot." When Robinson died in 1972, Reese served as a pallbearer.

Brooklyn's Shortstop

Reese played in seven World Series between 1941 and 1956, losing the first six before the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees in 1955. On Pee Wee Reese Night at Ebbets Field on July 22, 1955, 33,000 fans lit matches and lighters while singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Reese hit .272 across 44 World Series games, and on the afternoon the Dodgers won their only Brooklyn championship, he fielded the final ground ball at 3:43 p.m. and threw to first.

Reese played 59 games during the Dodgers' first season in Los Angeles in 1958 and retired at 39. He finished his career with eight top-ten finishes in NL MVP voting, though he never won the award. Joe Black, who spoke at Reese's funeral, captured what he meant beyond the stat lines. "When Pee Wee reached out to Jackie, all of us in the Negro League smiled and said it was the first time that a white guy had accepted us. When I finally got up to Brooklyn, I went to Pee Wee and said, 'Black people love you. When you touched Jackie, you touched all of us.' With Pee Wee, it was No. 1 on his uniform and No. 1 in our hearts."

Louisville Again

Reese spent nine seasons broadcasting baseball for CBS and NBC, partnering with Dizzy Dean on the Game of the Week from 1960 through 1965. After broadcasting he worked for Hillerich and Bradsby, the company that makes Louisville Slugger bats, in sales and college baseball operations. The Dodgers retired his number 1 in 1984, and in 2005 a bronze statue depicting Reese and Robinson was unveiled at KeySpan Park in Brooklyn, with Rachel Robinson and Reese's wife Dottie both in attendance.

Reese was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997 and fought it for two years. He died on August 14, 1999, at his home in Louisville, at 81. Two thousand people attended the funeral at Southeast Christian Church, including surviving teammates Joe Black and Don Zimmer. "I was just trying to make the world a little bit better," Reese once said. "That's what you're supposed to do with your life, isn't it?"