Ties That Bind - A Baseball Story | WesPac | Securing America Community

In 1947, a petition was being passed by some of the Brooklyn Dodgers stating they would not play with
newly arrived Jackie Robinson. President Harry Truman's efforts to desegregate the US Armed Forces was not yet official. Robinson was chosen by team owner Branch Rickey to be the first African American player to play in the major leagues. It was spring training and Robinson had been sent up from Montreal where he had excelled the previous year, leading the International League in batting and fielding. The petition was passed to the team captain and star shortstop, Harold Henry "Pee Wee" Reese. Reese, a son of the South from Kentucky, refused to sign it. In his typical modest fashion, Pee Wee deflects any credit of any of his contributions toward his lifelong friend, Jackie Robinson. Without Reese, the petition meant nothing and was effective in ending the possibility of a boycott by Dodgers players.

"I'm not signing that," Reese told the ringleaders, who included Dixie Walker, Kirby Higbe and Bobby Bragan. "No way."

Reese, the soft-spoken but respected team captain, with a Southern upbringing, perhaps surprised the petition-carriers. "I wasn't thinking of myself as the Great White Father," Reese says now. "I just wanted to play baseball. I'd just come back from serving in the South Pacific with the Navy during the Second World War, and I had a wife and daughter to support. I needed the money. I just wanted to get on with it."

But there was more to it than the money.

And Reese's refusal to sign the petition, many believe, meant the end of the matter. It was Reese who would be the first Dodger to shake Robinson's hand at spring training.

Source: Ira Berkow, New York Times, Mar. 31, 1997

Jackie not only had to endure numerous racial slurs, insults and threats from "fans" but it also came from fellow players from opposing teams and his own. Owner Branch Rickey had told Robinson that he would receive this kind of treatment but strongly believed Robinson was up to the task. He was. And Jackie had a temper, too.

ESPN recalls.

A shorthand version of their fateful conversation in August 1945:

Rickey: "I know you're a good ballplayer. What I don't know is whether you have the guts."

Robinson: "Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?"

Rickey, exploding: "Robinson, I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back."

Robinson experienced a particularly rough round of hateful epithets in Cincinnati in 1947, (Robinson would be named Rookie of the Year) Pee Wee stared at the hostile crowd, quietly walked over to his team mate and put his arm around his shoulder. This simple gesture quieted the crowd and many consider it a breakthrough moment. Not only for the game of baseball - but for our nation.
There is a famous statue of the two in Brooklyn, by sculptor William Behrends, commemorating this event.

On Oct. 24, 1972, Jackie Robinson succumbed to heart disease and diabetes and was buried in New York. Pee Wee was a pall bearer.

"I took it," Reese said, "as an honor."

On Aug. 14, 1999, Pee Wee passed in Louisville, KY. At his funeral - friend, former Negro National and major league player, Joe Black eulogized "Pee Wee helped make my boyhood dream come true to play in the Majors, the World Series. 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."

Two Hall of Famers - Reese and Robinson, one of the great classic shortstop/second base combinations.

I didn't know those things about Pee Wee. I knew him mainly as Dizzy Dean's sidekick after Buddy Blatner (?) left the "Game of the Week."

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark -- Make America All It Can Be!

later Pee Wee teamed with Gowdy. Thanks Stan.

"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."

Gen. Omar Bradley

And it is greatly appreciated.

We've come a long way, yet we still have miles to go in this nation.

MLK had a dream. One day it will be truly realized.

I assure you. Thank you for the kind words, justcallmeohio.
p>"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."

Gen. Omar Bradley

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I am asking you to come together and make sure Barack Obama is our next president. This is a critical mission. - Wes Clark

Thank you, WesDem.

"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."

Gen. Omar Bradley

it seems that my dad, (a great fan of baseball, bless his heart) may have been the one to tell me something of the Reese/Robinson friendship...many many years ago.

Thanks for this. Thanks for the details.

(And thank you too, Dad)

Sybil. Who was your Dad's team?

"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."

Gen. Omar Bradley

He cheered most any good team Taters. He just liked good games. He played himself, for many years, in a small local city league. When I was a kid he took me to the minor league Oakland Oaks games sometimes, at the old stadium. Later on of course, they were franchised as the Oakland A's.

to Detroit. (12 years now)Oakland was home for 20 plus years. I still carry a spot in my heart for them.
A few years back, we were travelling on the road and I had my A's cap on. We were sharing a bus with Tito Puento and his band - all Yankees fans. (During their drought.) Some of the guys were giving me grief about my cap. Eventually, I was asked who my favorite ballplayer of all time was - I said Roberto Clemente - I was made welcome into the fold. My dad was a Pirates fan.

"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."

Gen. Omar Bradley

that is to say, do not capitulate

Let us not forget the first black man to play in the American League: Larry Doby

Doby became the first African-American player in American League history almost 60 years ago in 1947. Doby was a standout player for the Negro League Newark (NJ) Eagles prior to being signed by then Indians owner Bill Veeck on July 3, 1947. He made his Major League and Cleveland Indians debut 2 days later in Chicago. Doby was an anchor on the 1948 Indians World Championship team and went on to lead the American League in home runs in 1952 (32) and 1954 (32). His #14 was retired by the Indians in July of 1994 and he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998. He passed away at the age of 79 in June of 2003.

Terrence Mann was sage:

Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

- Terrence Mann - "Field of Dreams"