An Angel Remembered : Jimmie Reese Was Known for His Love of Baseball--and People

Four months ago, on a sweltering day during the Angels’ spring training camp, Jimmie Reese stood on the practice field, hitting grounder after grounder to pitcher Julio Valera.

Reese, who could work wonders with his fungo bat, had Valera moving to his left, to his right, back and forth.

“Jimmie, aren’t you getting tired?” he moaned.

Said Reese: “I’m doing just fine, son. You keep standing there, and I’ll keep hitting them.”

Valera, 25, hung his head in disbelief.

Reese, 92, simply chortled, and then hit another.

“I’ll always remember that moment, because that’s how I want to remember Jimmie,” said Angel owner Jackie Autry. “He loved the game like no one else.”

Reese, who died Wednesday morning of respiratory failure, always told friends that he wanted to leave this world wearing his baseball uniform.

Today at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, Reese will be lying in a casket, wearing his Angel uniform, No. 50. His fungo bat will be to his side.

“Sometimes an organization is judged on all of the players that have left,” said Tim Mead, Angel assistant general manager, “but the greatest Angel in history finished his career right here.”

The Angels, who provided Reese a lifetime contract six years ago, have already decided to retire his number. The players will wear patches in commemoration over their hearts--above the letter E on their uniforms--reading: No. 50, Jimmie Reese. They also made a vow that no one will ever again use Reese’s locker.

“God, how he loved the game,” said former Angel manager Gene Mauch, his voice cracking on the telephone. “And how the game loved him. Baseball was his life, and like a lot of us, it was a religion.”

When the players arrived Wednesday for their workout--preparing for the season’s second half, which starts tonight against the Baltimore Orioles--they looked toward Reese’s locker. There was a picture frame with his jersey inside it. His fungo bat was lying in the locker.

“It’s a sad day for baseball,” Angel left fielder Bo Jackson said, “but I don’t think we should mourn his death. We should celebrate for all he’s done. He would have wanted it that way.

“The guys are in good spirits because we knows he’s in a better place, and all we can say is, ‘We miss you mullion.’ ”

Mullion was the word that Reese lovingly called everyone. It was slang for ugly, and no matter if your name was Nolan Ryan, Reggie Jackson or Julio Valera, you were called a mullion.

“I tried to make it a point every day to spend at least five minutes with him,” first baseman J.T. Snow said, “because he was such an inspiration. He’d rag us, and we’d rag him right back.”

It was a miracle, of sorts, that Reese was even with the Angels this spring. He missed the second half of the 1993 season because of poor health, but there he was the opening day of spring training, showing up at 8 a.m. sharp each day, hitting fungos by 10.

“He mustered everything he had to be back this spring,” said John Sevano, Angel vice president. “He wanted to be around everyone one last time. I think it was his way of saying goodby.”

Reese spent the entire spring with the Angels and attended every home game in April. Then, suddenly, he wasn’t around. Soon, word came out that he was in a convalescent home.

There was no family to take care of him, and he never qualified for any player-pension program, but the Autrys made sure that he was always provided for.

Reese’s greatest trait was that he never had an enemy. He may be the only man in the history of baseball that everyone loved, and even more enigmatic, Reese loved everyone he met.

“I think his only family were the people he knew in baseball,” said Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann. “He brought love into everyone’s lives.

“You can only hope that when your times comes, you will be remembered like Jimmie Reese.”