Teammates (A Voyager/Hbj Book)

Teammates is about 2 men named
Pees wee Reese and Jackie Robinson. Both of them were baseball players on the same
Team called the dogers. Pee wee
Reese was white and Jackie rob-
Inson was black. They were both
Friends and helped each other out. The players on their team
Came mostly from the south, men
Had been taught to avoid black
People since childhood. They moved to another table
Whenever Jackie sat down next
To them. Many opposing players
Were cruel to Jackie, calling him mean names from their
Dugouts. A few tried to hurt
Him with their spiked shoes.
It was bad for Jackie. Pitchers
Aimed for his head, and he
Received threats on his life,
Both from individuals and from
Oramizations like the Ku Klux
Klan. Jackie avoided all of it,
And made the team. Jackie and
Pee wee became really great
Friends and baseball legends.


Awesome!   December 3, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book teaches you alot about how blacks were treated back in the day. When Jackie Robinsion was signed to the Dodgers the fans and players treated him really badly. People threw stuff at him. Then a young teammate stood up for him and saved him from being ban from the team. So you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.


classic   August 29, 2002
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

A simple telling of how Jackie Robinson came to play in the major leagues, this book portrays the prejudice he faced in a basic way that children can understand. And it shines a bright light on a quiet moment: PeeWee Reese's brave public declaration of solidarity with his teammate. This book has been my son's favorite for the past two years, since he was five.


Brooklyn Dodger Teammates: Jackie Robinson & Pee Wee Reese   April 1, 2002
 14 out of 15 found this review helpful

"Teammates" tells the story of one of the more moving moments in the history of baseball that occurred during the 1947 season when the Brooklyn Dodgers traveled to Crosley Field in Cincinnati to play the Reds. Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play in the major leagues, was playing first base and being the target of hostility and abuse from the fans. At shortstop was Harold "Pee Wee" Reese, who born in the South, but who had refused to join other Southerners on the team in signing a petition to kick Jackie off the team. That day in Cincinnati, Reese did something that remains one of the bright moments of that historic season and which deserves to be more than a minor footnote in baseball history.

"Teammates" is written by Peter Golenbock, who heard the story of what happened that day from Rex Barney, who pitched for the Dodgers that day. Usually when the story of Jackie Robinson breaking the "color line" in baseball, the other key person in the story is Branch Rickey, the Dodger general manager. But Rickey could only support Robinson from the front office and not on the field, where it was Pee Wee Reese who decided to do something about that. Consequently, it is Reese who emerges as the hero of this particular story. Certainly it is safe to assume that anyone who reads this book knows something about Jackie Robinson; Golenbock talks about how Rickey needed somebody special to be the first, but does not get into the reasons why Robinson was that man (e.g., All-American football star at U.C.L.A., Army officer). But clearly "Teammates" is not intended to be the first book a youngster reads about the story of Jackie Robinson. Paul Bacon, as he did for the exquisite "Susanna of the Alamo," does both the design and illustration for this volume, combining historic photographs and items with his own watercolor paintings to tell the story.