Rachel Robinson Recalls How The Late Pee Wee Reese Helped Jackie Robinson Integrate Baseball

Jet, Sept 13, 1999

Rachel Robinson, widow of baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, was among the mourners who attended the funeral of baseball great Pee Wee Reese and recalled his role in the integration of baseball and his friendship with her husband.

Mrs. Robinson said Reese's leadership helped hold the Brooklyn Dodgers together in 1947, the year her husband broke Major League Baseball's color barrier.

Reese, who was captain of the team, first refused to sign a petition that threatened a boycott if Robinson joined the team. Then, as Robinson was being heckled by fans in Cincinnati during the Dodgers' first road trip, Reese went over to Robinson and put his arm around his shoulder in a gesture of inclusion and support.

"I thought it was a very supportive gesture, and very instinctive on Pee Wee's part," Mrs. Robinson recalled at Reese's funeral services in Louisville, KY. "You shouldn't forget that Pee Wee was the captain, and he led the way."

Mrs. Robinson, who embraced Reese's widow, Dorothy Reese, after the services, remembered, "When Jack first entered (the Major Leagues), there were still a lot of people who didn't know if it was the right thing to do. Pee Wee used all of his leadership skills and sensitivity to bring the team together... Pee Wee was more than a friend. Pee Wee was a good man."

She said of the poignant moment when Reese hugged her husband as a show of support, "I wanted to hug him. For everything he did for Jack, and for my family."

Reese was an eight-time All Star who played on seven pennant winners and one World Series champion in Brooklyn. He died at age 81 after a two-year fight with lung cancer.

The book, Teammates, the stow of Reese and Robinson's friendship, is used in elementary schools today, to teach children about racial tolerance, said the Rev. Bob Russell, who eulogized Reese at services at the Southeast Christian Church in Louisville.

Carl Erskine, a pitcher on the team, also remembered Reese's role in helping Robinson break the color line in baseball. "Think of the guts that took," he said. "Pee Wee had to go home (to segregated Louisville) and answer to his friends...I told Jackie later that (Reese's gesture) helped my race more than his."

Joe Black, a former Brooklyn pitcher and one of the first Blacks in Major League Baseball, said, "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."

He continued, "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. I on his uniform and No. 1 in our hearts."