Jimmie’s 50 Should Stay in Anaheim

At first I was thinking they should name Anaheim Stadium after Jimmie Reese.

But Anaheim Stadium, at age 28, is past its prime, out of date and out of fashion, which is something Jimmie, in all his 92 3/4 years, never was.

Jimmie deserves better than that.

Maybe they can name the new stadium after him, if and when it is built. Jimmie Reese Park has a nice ring. Fungo Field. And play some Jimmie Reese highlights on the scoreboard every game--Jimmie autographing baseballs down the left-field foul line, Jimmie joshing with the players, Jimmie lofting fungoes into the right-center field gap and dropping them, like magic, into a plastic bucket.

Beats watching on-the-field Angel highlights from the last 22 years.

Or maybe they can start on something right away, get it done yesterday.

Take Jimmie’s uniform number, old No. 50, and paint it on the right-field fence, right next to Gene Autry’s 26 and Rod Carew’s 29 and Nolan Ryan’s 30. Let everyone who walks through those turnstiles know what No. 50 meant to this franchise.

That he represented grace and class for a team that too often went 0-for-2 in those departments.

That he elevated the status of those around him simply by his presence.

That he generated more goodwill and publicity for this team in a single day than a thousand spin-doctoring press conferences.

That he was Jimmie Reese, the most valuable person the Angels ever had.

A reporter threw out the idea to General Manager Bill Bavasi shortly after Jimmie died Wednesday morning.

Bavasi nodded.

“I was just thinking about that,” he said.

Jimmie belongs on that wall, if for no other reason than the fact he managed to last 22 consecutive seasons with the banana republic of major league baseball.

Jimmie outlasted 11 Angel field managers, six Angel general managers, three Angel uniform styles, 10 Angel youth movements, 10 Angel go-with-experience movements, 10 Angel let’s-buy-us-a-pennant budgetary programs, 10 Angel we-better-tighten-our-belts budgetary programs and a couple of hundred players who were absolutely going to turn the Angels around and never did.

For more than two decades, Jimmie served in the official capacity of conditioning coach and the unofficial capacity of spirit-lifter for the Angels. In retrospect, he might have been better suited to be general manager.

Jimmie’s two closest friends on the Angels were Nolan Ryan and Jim Abbott. This is no accident. Jimmie had an eye for quality, be it personality or the ability to paint the corner.

GM Jimmie would have never let Ryan and Abbott out of his sight, let alone out the door.

In a way, it is surprising the Angels never made it to the World Series, because Jimmie gave the Angels an unfair advantage over the competition. He was a performance-enhancing additive, an emotional upper. Anabolic steroids for the soul.

Five minutes spent with Jimmie put a spring in your step and a smile on your face. Whether he was playing willing victim for a clubhouse prank or winning a Coca-Cola bet with his fungo-hitting accuracy or retelling tall tales of rooming with Babe Ruth--or Babe Ruth’s suitcase, as Jimmie loved to put it--Jimmie always managed to improve life with the Angels.

And for that, he deserved a dozen lifetime contracts.

During the grim years of the early and mid-1980s, when the Angels laid claim to the surliest clubhouse in the big leagues, Jimmie’s locker stall was a happy oasis amid the snarling and the sniping. Often, Jimmie’s locker stall was the only one occupied after a tough Angel loss. Or victory. Writers needed quotes for their stories, so there was Jimmie, setting the record for most postgame interviews granted by a conditioning coach.

And what a source for those stories he was.

Want to know how Ryan compared to Walter Johnson? Jimmie could tell you. Jimmie saw them both.

(Ryan threw harder, Jimmie said, but Johnson won more because he had better support.)

Jimmie was a world-class yarn spinner, and he was sharper with a one-liner in his 90s than most of the twenty- and thirtysomethings around him. A simple “How you doing, Jimmie?” would elicit a wink, a sly smile and “Well, I woke up today. So I can’t complain.”

Jimmie would razz players young enough to be his great-grandchildren and the players would give it right back to him. The players loved that about Jimmie. Don’t let up on Jimmie just because he was born six months after the American League. Give me your best stuff, he would goad them. Let’s see some heat.

So Bo Jackson would eat a banana, poke his head out of the players lounge and hit Jimmie with the peel when he wasn’t looking. By the time Jimmie turned around, Bo was out of sight, heading through a side exit and strolling out the trainer’s room on the other side of the clubhouse.

Bo would then tap Jimmie on the shoulder and say “Hey, Jimmie,” pretending to be oblivious to the hit job.

This went on for weeks before Jimmie finally caught him in the act.

Jimmie was steaming.

“I’m not mad at you,” Jimmie told Bo. “I’m mad at myself. All this time, I’ve been cussing out the wrong people.”

When his health began to fail him last year, Jimmie had to sit out the second half of the season. At the same time, the Angels plunged into a tailspin that took them from first place to fifth. Some of the players blamed Jimmie’s absence for the slump, an excuse that struck many outside Orange County as fairly lame.

But Jimmie had that kind of effect on a person. Players grew attached to him when he was around and concerned when he wasn’t. It was a sad day for everyone last month when Jimmie hung up No. 50 and checked into a nursing home.

Everyone feared that would be the last time No. 50 would be making an appearance at Anaheim Stadium.

The obituary in Thursday’s newspaper said Jimmie left no survivors. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Jimmie Reese is survived by every player, coach and manager who came to know him; by every fan who shook his hand and heard an encouraging word; by every beat writer who walked away from Jimmie’s locker a little smarter than he or she had been before.

Jimmie Reese is survived by baseball. So put his number on the outfield fence, for all his family members to see.

That way, No. 50 can make an appearance at Anaheim Stadium every day.

* ANGELS LOSE

Orioles hit consecutive homers in the eighth inning and hang on to win, 3-2. C4

* REMEMBERING JIMMIE

Jimmie Reese’s legacy lives in the memories of the people he befriended. C12