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It was only the 13th of May (1947), but it was already blisteringly hot. It looked like they were in for a long, hot summer.
The scene was the Cincinnati Reds’ baseball field. The Reds were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers, who had arrived for the first game of their second road series.
It was the bottom of the first inning, and the Dodgers poured out onto the field for the game to begin.
As the players took their positions the crowd in the stadium became noisy. Along with jeers and catcalls, several yelled racist insults. Soon there was a loud, hostile chorus from the stands.
The focus of the anger and hostility was the first baseman. He was Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to break the color barrier in major league baseball, and this was his first season.
As the hostility and insults from the stands steadily increased, the pitcher started limbering up on the mound, preparing for his first pitch.
Suddenly the shortstop broke from his post near the pitcher, and began purposefully striding toward the first baseman.
The stadium crowd, which moments before had been so noisy and raucous, suddenly became completely silent. All eyes were completely riveted on the shortstop as he proceeded on his momentous journey to first base.
What was he going to do?
It was such a short walk, but such an immense distance. As he moved toward first base, the shortstop, Pee Wee Reese, was clearly filled with strong intention. It seemed almost dreamlike, playing out in slow motion.
When Reese reached first base his actions were brief and simple. He put his arm around Robinson’s shoulders in a hug. He held the hug for a couple of seconds, and looked up at the audience in the stadium.
Then he dropped his arm, returned to his position at shortstop, and the game began. The stands were quiet for the rest of the game.
The physical distance between shortstop and first base is quite short, just a few yards. But in terms of American history the distance between shortstop and first base that day was almost infinite.
Reese’s gesture of support for Robinson at such a trying time has become one of the famous stories of baseball, and has been commemorated by a bronze monument outside the Brooklyn Cyclones’ home field. The monument reproduces the original event, showing Pee Wee Reese with his arm around Jackie Robinson. The statue was dedicated in 2005 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with an acceptance speech by Jackie Robinson’s widow, Rachel Robinson.
After the original event, at the game in Cincinnati, people often assumed the reason Reese showed such support for Robinson was because they were close friends off the field. But in fact, they weren’t.
They became great friends later on. But at the time of the game in Cincinnati, they barely knew each other. Robinson had only recently joined the team, and that year’s baseball season was just beginning.
People also often assume that Reese was a northerner, acting on long-held beliefs in racial equality. But in fact, Reese was a southerner. He had grown up in Kentucky, and had been very popular there, before he joined the major leagues. And many of the fans in the stadium at the Cincinnati game that day, had come from near-by Kentucky, to watch one of their favorites, Pee Wee, play.
Through the years people often asked Pee Wee about the story, but he tended to downplay it. But once, in an interview, the great baseball historian Roger Kahn mentioned the incident and asked Pee Wee what he was thinking about when it happened.
Pee Wee replied, “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?”
Yes, it is!
Pee Wee Reese lived in a divided America. At that time, the country was just beginning to struggle out of the grips of segregation. Pee Wee Reese’s response to his Divided America was to reach across that division in a gesture of friendship and support
Today we live in a Divided America, split apart by race, politics, ethnicity, culture, class and ideology. Pee Wee Reese provides a wonderful role model for the rest of us, to show us that we can all reach across our divisions, and embrace whoever is on the other side.
© 2019 David Evans
