A Lesson From Pee Wee Reese

In Roger Khan's great baseball book (heck, you don't even need the baseball disclaimer, it's just a great book all around) Boys of Summer, he has this paragraph in the book about Pee Wee Reese, the Brooklyn Dodgers shortstop of the 1940s and 1950s. [Note: in case you don't know, Jackie Robinson was the first black player to play in the MLB).

"As the Dodgers moved into infield practice, taunts began. Fans started calling Jackie Robinson names: 'Snowflake,' 'Jungle Bunny,' and worse. Very much worse. Some Cincinnati players picked that up and began shouting obscenities at Robinson from their dugout. There Jackie stood, one solitary black man, trying to warm up and catching hell. Reese raised a hand and stopped the practice. Then he walked from shortstop to first base and put and arm around the shoulders of Jackie Robinson. He stood there and looked into the dugout and into the stands, stared into the torrents of hate, a slim white southerner who wore number 1 and just happened to have an arm draped in friendship around a black man, who wore number 42. Reese did not say a word. The deed was beyond words. 'After Pee Wee came over like that,' Robinson said years afterward, 'I never felt alone on a baseball field again.'"

This just makes me think of all the times that I do NOT stand up so well for the things that I believe in, either in word or in deed. All of the times I don't comfort the lonely, or worry what others might think of me if I do something that might be seen as unpopular.

We could all learn a little bit from Pee Wee Reese.