Oct. 15, 2001 | He stood just 5 feet, 10 inches tall, weighed just 160 pounds. He was called Pee Wee and The Little Colonel. He never hit for power and rarely for a high average.

But by any real measure of an athlete — teamwork, leadership, contribution to his sport — Harold Henry Reese was a giant.

During his 16 seasons, Reese led the Dodgers to seven pennants and one long-awaited World Series championship, a victory over the hated Yankees in 1955. He played the three most important positions on a baseball team: captain, shortstop and lead-off man.

Reese finished in the top 10 of the NL MVP voting eight times. At shortstop, he was a Gold Glove-level fielder. From the lead-off spot, he drew 80 walks nine times and stole 20 bases five times.

“Talk about your ultimate team player,” former teammate Dick Williams said. “He was it.”

The Dodgers didn’t win before Reese joined them in 1940. They didn’t win when he was in the Army for three years. And they fell apart at the same time he did in 1958. Today’s Dodgers are a corporate disaster devoid of character. They stand for none of the things that Reese did.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were known as The Boys of Summer or Dem Bums, depending on who you asked. They were filled with great players with great character like Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella and Pete Reiser. Reese was their leader.

	Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson.

“He was like an older brother — and for some guys, he might have been a father figure,” former teammate Ralph Branca said. “He personified the spirit of Brooklyn and the Dodgers. He did everything right.”

But Reese is best remembered for his friendship with Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947. While Robinson proved a black man could compete in the white major leagues, Reese showed a white man from Ekron, Ky., could treat Robinson as an equal.

When a petition against Robinson was circulated during spring training, Reese refused to sign it. Just like that, any rebellion was quashed, and Robinson was promoted to the majors.

Then came May 14, 1947, when the Dodgers played the Reds at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The fans booed Robinson, then a first baseman, mercilessly. Then Reese walked over to Robinson and put his arm around him.

“I don’t even remember what he said,” Robinson wrote later. “It was the gesture of comradeship and support that counted.”

Reese said: “When I look at it, I think he ended up helping me more than I helped him. He taught me about life.”

The next season, Robinson moved to second base, where he and Reese formed one of the best double play combinations of all time.

Reese survived two cancer operations before his death in August 1999. He was 81. Not long before his death, a reporter asked Reese what should be written about him.

“Just the usual stuff,” he said. “That I’m a hell of a guy.”
— Kevin Brewer