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The captain is gone, dead at 81, and with him goes the heart of the Boys of Summer of the ’40s and ’50s. And that’s what Pee Wee Reese was–the heart of those Dodgers, just as Jackie Robinson was their soul. For all we know, Robinson would have made it on his own in breaking baseball’s color line. But as he said on numerous occasions, he might never have succeeded were it not for the support and friendship of the Dodger shortstop and captain from Louisville, Ky. . . . Said veteran baseball writer and longtime Hall of Fame Veterans Committee member Bob Broeg: “Pee Wee hit over .300 just once, but he scored just at or 100 runs eight times and three times hit over .300 in the World Series. But when you add in what he did for Robinson, well, he might have been called Pee Wee, but he was a true giant in the game.”