Reese Touched Robinson and Many Others in His Life

The Aug. 15 photo of two young ballplayers says eloquently that the Dodgers have a history no other team can touch. Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson played solid baseball and took it beyond being a game. I hope the photo and the articles about Pee Wee will be posted in the Dodger clubhouse as a reminder that being a Dodger means something, that teamwork is more than being on the same page, and that millions of dollars can’t measure a man’s worth.

DAMIANA CHAVEZ

Los Angeles

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As a skinny, redheaded and freckled 8-year-old the year the Dodgers arrived from Brooklyn, I had the opportunity to meet the great Pee Wee Reese. While attending a welcome to Los Angeles reception, I was among the crowd seeking autographs from our new team. Pee Wee, sitting on a small stage, spotted me and immediately had me brought through the crowd to sit on his lap as I received his autograph. Although I never met Pee Wee again, I was left with a lifetime memory from one of the last genuine heroes of sport. For me, Pee Wee truly represented all that is good about baseball.

CHUCK BRAUER

Irvine

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As the baby boom generation moves to middle age, the adults of our youth are now heading off the stage of life into the sunset. Through the magic of recording, this century is the first that can keep its giants of the past forever waving at us. Previous generations heard only the memories of others or read accounts of them by the great writers from Herodotus and Plato to Grantland Rice, Shirley Povich and Jim Murray. Now those who dominate the center stage of fame can leave their images and sounds with us forever (witness the Christmas songs played every year from those singers long gone), but occasionally there is a writer who surpasses those very images and sounds to remind us why the great ones were Giants who really are no longer around and why there is a little less light in the world each time one of them leaves. Roger Kahn is such a writer and the essay on Pee Wee Reese [Aug. 19] shows it. Thank you, Roger, for capturing the essence of Pee Wee Reese and the Boys of Summer.

CHRIS CHABOT

Redondo Beach

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Pee Wee Reese is a giant? Finally, one of the cute little headlines your resident punster conjures up each day has exploded big time. Nobody who knows the slightest history of the New York baseball teams would ever conceive of eulogizing a Brooklyn Dodger by calling him a giant.

SANDY MARONEY

Del Mar