Quote:
Originally Posted by btcarfagno
1927 PCL Champion Oakland Oaks Team Signed Ball with Jimmie Reese, Buzz Arlett and a rookie Ernie Lombardi...
Tom C |
Tom,
I agree with Scott that that really is a great ball. Congrats on your pickup!
BTW, Jimmie Reese was sure a great guy to know. For those of you that don't know this, Jimmie was famous for being one of Babe Ruth's roomies (1930-1931) when he played on the NY Yankees. He used to joke about the fact that he actually only roomed with the Babe's suitcase, but he never saw Ruth because he was always out on the town carousing...
I personally got a chance to talk to Jimmie for many years as a season ticket holder with the California Angels, where he was an absolute wizard with a fungo bat all the way into his 90's. The things that he could do with that magic fungo bat would make your head spin!
He was regarded as the most prolific fungo hitter in baseball history.
To say that Jimmie Reese was an absolute baseball treasure is a major understatement. He had many friends throughout baseball in every city as Jimmie was involved in baseball for over 78 seasons. He broke into his baseball career as a batboy for the Los Angeles Angels of the PCL in 1917 and was on the Cal Angels payroll as a conditioning coach until he passed away at 93.
I knew him well enough that I attended his funeral in Santa Ana, CA in 1994. The amount of active and retired baseball players in attendance was staggering; a true testiment to how many people he touched in his life! Not surprisingly he was extremely close with many of the players that played for the Cal Angels through the years. Nolan Ryan, Reggie Jackson and Jim Abbott were some of his personal favorites...
In my own collection I have saved a number of special Jimmie Reese momentos. My most prized piece related to Jimmie is one of his fungo bats from the 1980's which he personally gave to me. I was also given all of his Christmas cards from the last couple of years that he was alive. Several of the letters that accompanied these were very personal and discussed baseball. Many years ago I was given a copy of the first audio interview of Nolan Ryan and Jimmie Reese in early 1972 when they first bonded. Here are a couple of other items that I saved in his memory:
1) A B/W signed photo of Jimmie in action in 1972 at Anaheim. This was the year that Jimmie joined the Angels coaching staff and Nolan joined the Angels after being traded by the NY Mets for Jim Fregosi. Nolan Ryan credits Jimmie as being influential in having him realize how hard he really needed to work to get into the physical condition to be a consistent winner in baseball.
2) A rather grainy photo (sorry, I'm not a great photographer) of Ryan and Jimmie catching up during batting practice and workout prior to the All Star game in Anaheim in 1989. Despite its lack of clarity, I do love this photo because it shows the enduring great friendship between Nolan and Jimmie Reese. As a side note, Nolan's 2nd born son was named Reese after Jimmie. That's my Ryan game used mitt from 1989 that Nolan is holding in the photo. I've shared photos of this mitt on net54 a couple of times.
3) The memorial program that I received when I attended his funeral in 1994