Not many people will even know who these two guys are, and even fewer will understand the phrase “Time to go out and get an Ice Cold Falstaff, Podnah!”
I make no bones about it, Pee Wee Reese is my all-time favorite baseball player. The strange thing is that the only memory I have of seeing him play is from old news reels and old black and white TV Footage. I do have some vivid memories of his second career.
After Pee Wee’s major career ended, He was paired with Dizzy Dean in the TV Booth to broadcast the Major League Game of the Week. One of the Sponsors on the Game of the Week was Ice Cold Falstaff Beer.
When his TV Stint ended, Pee Wee returned to his hometown of Louisville Kentucky where he took a promotional job for Hillerich & Bradsby, the makers of Louisville Slugger.
For more than 50 years I have chased autographs. This Hobby has allowed me to meet some wonderful people and a couple of not so nice people. Back in 1990, I spent close to a month driving from California back to Virginia. Toward the end of the trip, I stopped in Louisville and took the Louisville Slugger Factory Tour.
At the end of the tour I waited until everyone left and asked my Tour Guide if I left a baseball card could some one asked Pee Wee to sign it and mail it back to me. She told me that she would have to ask her boss and asked me to wait.
I waited, and waited, and was getting ready to leave when I got the shock of a lifetime. Walking into the lobby was the man himself, the Great Dodger Captain, Harold Henry “Pee Wee” Reese. He walked over and shook my hand and said he understood that I had something that I wanted him to sign.
From a self-addressed stamped envelope I pull a 1955 Pee Wee Reese baseball card. 1955 was the year I was born and the Year that Dem Bums from Brooklyn finally won the World Series.
We walked into a little room off the main lobby and sat down at a table where he not only signed my card by also a miniature Louisville Slugger Bat. But that was not all, for the next 45 minutes, the Great Pee Wee Reese sat there and we talked about Baseball in Brooklyn and that Little Ballpark on Bedford Avenue, Ebbets Field. Actually, he did most of the talking and believe it or not I sat there quietly soaking up every word.
I listened to stories about the Duke, Preacher, Jackie and Campy. I listened to stories about Hilda Chester and her Cowbell, the Dodger Sym-Phony Band, and living with the Fan in Brooklyn.
For 45 minutes, he answered my questions and shared stories about his life in baseball and his road to the Hall of Fame. As I was finishing my visit, I shook his hand and thanked him for his time, He said “No thank you for taking the time and making the effort to come by and visit with and letting me remember those wonderful times in Brooklyn.”
One of the things that I ask him during our visit was, “What was it like working with Dizzy Dean.” He simply replied, “What you saw was what you got, It wasn’t an act. Ole Diz was as genuine as they come.”
So, If you could still buy one, I would go out and buy me an Ice Cold Falstaff and raise a glass to Pee Wee and Ole Diz.
