Angels May Have Dropped Ball on Reese

Jimmie Reese left no (immediate family) survivors, so the Angels kindly provided him with a Christian (memorial service). However, it would seem that Angel errors are not limited to the playing field because I believe Jimmie Reese was Jewish.

A Times article several years ago contained an anecdote about a celebrity baseball game in the 1940s. Songwriter Harry Ruby was pitching and told his catcher to dispense with the signs and just call out the pitches in Yiddish, since the batters would not understand this language. When Jimmie Reese came to bat, he looked at the catcher and said, in perfect Yiddish: “S’vet dir nit helfen . “ (It ain’t gonna help).

Perhaps the Angels did not know Jimmie Reese as well as they thought.

PHILIP R. BLUSTEIN

Beverly Hills