Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

Has anyone ever heard of Jimmy Reese? Was he discus throw specialist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmie_Reese

Legendary Angel. Retired number too. He's one of Rob's favorites.

JD

Should be some stuff on the internet on Jimmie. He was a master fungo hitter and Angels coach. Seems like he and Nolan Ryan were close.

Yes, he was one of my all-time Angels even though he was only a coach. I grew up bicycle distance to Anaheim Stadium and was always out there getting autographs and attending batting practicves. The Wikipedia link above is pretty accurate and thorough. He is most known for hitting fungos, rooming with Babe Ruth, and taking Nolan Ryan under his wing in the early days (they remained very close through his life). With his fungo bat he would hit balls to the outfielders -- and bored pitchers -- like they were football receivers running post patterns, or just over the fence homer-denial sessions. He was deadly accurate similar to some of those You Tube trick shots videos where you would have to see it to believe it. Not so much a one time thing, but a 30 times in a row being 1-3 feet above the homerun fence from 40 yards out, from a guy who looked like he was 80. Anyway I have all kinds of stories where he either tossed me BP baseballs, lineup cards, or prompted players to sign autographs.. He didn't know me for anything but when he was a ceremonial addition to the All-Ster festiviites in San Diego he waved to me because I was wearing an Angel hat. The pretty much sums up my experince with him.

I've owned two Reese gloves over the years and will trade heavy for another that emerges (or nice endorsed bat). Here's my Reese endorsed three finger which was found in Oakland and may be a gamer (no way to prove but there are pictures of him with a 3-finger and he played for the Oakland Oaks at one point).

Here's the Rolls Royce of Jimmie Reese gloves - seriously!

Thanks Brett ... that is a very cool ad that I had never seen. NEED that Rolls Royce of a glove! It's interesting that they are playing up Jimmie's $75,000. Anyone know what that's about, signing bonus? Another interesting piece of trivia about Jimmie is that he and Lynn Lary were known as a great SS/2B double play combination for their PCL team, so much so that the Yankees acquired both in the same deal.