With the end of October, we’ve got the World Series going on. As a kid, following the World Series was a big deal. Part of the reason was that my buddies and I were big into collecting baseball cards. For a nickel you’d get three baseball cards and a stick of bubble gum. What a deal!
There was one baseball card that I always wanted and finally got. It was Pee Wee Reese’s card. I wish I still had it. Today it might be worth some good money. By the way! If anyone has a Pee Wee Reese I’ll to trade you for a Micky Mantle.
Anyhow, Pee Wee Reese was a colorful shortstop for the old Brooklyn Dodgers. And so the story goes, it was the opening day of the baseball season. The year was 1947. What was about to happen at Ebbets Field would go down in the annals of baseball history and it had to do with Pee Wee Reese.
Jackie Robinson, the first African American in major league baseball, was about to take to the field. As he trotted out to take his position at center field, there was loud booing from fans in the stands right by center field. And then it gradually picked up momentum and spread to the whole stadium.
As time went on the booing grew louder, and louder, and louder. It was then practically unnoticed the team’s shortstop Pee Wee Reese made his way out to Robinson who stood at centerfield.
As they met, Reese embraced his teammate. There they stood, the two of them, a black man embraced by a white man. What made that gesture of brotherhood even more unlikely was that Reese was from the Deep South, and at that time the South was a place where dislike of blacks was especially widespread.
Meanwhile the booing continued. But Reese wouldn’t let go of Robinson and it was clear that he was not letting go of Robinson until the booing stopped. And gradually it did. The booing subsided until all in the stadium was quiet. Wow! I wish I could have been there.
That was the day that racism in America showed itself for what it is. That was also the day that white America was shown what is needed for healing the wounds of racism.
Do we of white America have the courage of a Pee Wee Reese? Do we have the courage to drop our prejudices and embrace our black brothers and sisters for who they are? Do we have the courage to embrace all the other minorities that are now part of America? Only when we do this can we heal the wounds that have made us strangers to each other for way to long..
Those people we wish weren’t around, those people we are most disgruntled with, those people we are most afraid of, in the Gospel passage today Jesus identifies those people. Those people are our neighbors.
Of course, we have a right to protect ourselves from the bad element in society. But in the process let’s not target those we think are the based element. In the meantime, what do we see? With the nastiness that we sometimes see on social media, the booing from the fans in the stands of today continues as loud as ever.
Do you and I have the courage of a Pee Wee Reese? Do you and I have the courage to stand with those whom some people wish would go away? Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Neither are easy. But then maybe that’s why we’re here at Mass today.