This is a 1947 photograph of Brooklyn Dodgers star Pete Reiser in full uniform and taking a few hacks in the batting cage before a spring training game in Cuba.
Harold P. "Pete" Reiser. "Pistol Pete". Outfielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1940-1942 and 1946-1948 and for the Cleveland Indians in 1952. 786 hits and 58 home runs in 10 MLB seasons. Phenomenal talent cut down by injuries resulting from reckless play, including MLB-record 11 times taken off the field on a stretcher. 3-time All-Star. 1963 World Series champion. 1941 NL Batting champion. 2-time NL stolen base leader. His best season was 1941 for the Brooklyn Dodgers as he posted a .406 OBP with 117 runs scored in 601 plate appearances.
The reverse of the photograph has a caption: International News Photos. Pete Packs a Wallop. Havana, Cuba . . . . . . During a warm-up game at the Dodger camp, Pete Reiser is shown winding up to hit one in the bleachers (he hopes). Catcher is Homer Howell. The Brooklyn team opens a three-day exhibition series against the Boston Braves here tonight. D.2.28.47.
Homer "Dixie" Howell had a "small" MLB career with 224 hits across 8 seasons, but he was a 1955 World Series champion and played a larger role in MLB history. In 1946, he had just returned from the war and was playing for the Montreal Royals. The 1946 Royals, led by second baseman Jackie Robinson, won the league championship and the Junior World Series, but are famous as the first racially integrated team in "organized baseball" since the 1880s. Howell witnessed Robinson's constant battle against intimidation—especially in the form of brushback pitches.
"I was with Jackie on Montreal", Howell told Roger Kahn in 1953. "The way he was thrown at that year was unbelievable. Unbelievable and disgraceful."
"You never saw anything like it", Howell said in a Los Angeles Times interview published eight months before his 1990 death. "Every time he came up, he'd go down!"
According to Robinson biographer Arnold Rampersad, Howell was one of two Southern-born Montreal players (with Marv Rackley) who personally wished Robinson well on his promotion to the parent Dodgers in April 1947, breaking the baseball color line.
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