Branch Rickey III, grandson of the Brooklyn Dodgers executive who'll be played by Robert Redford in an ESPN film about the signing of Jackie Robinson, has a Philadelphia story.
Seems that in 1949, when he was about 4, he accompanied his father, who worked for the Dodgers, on a road trip. They were staying at Philadelphia's Warwick Hotel, and getting ready to leave when the older Rickey discovered he'd forgotten his wallet. A couple of the Dodgers were in the lobby, and Rickey asked them to watch his son.
The wallet having fallen behind a piece of furniture, it took him a while to find it, and in the meantime, the players brought the boy out to the steps, where they bounced a ball with him until his father returned.
The players?
Jackie Robinson and PeeWee Reese.
They were, Rickey said, the first Dodgers, indeed the first professional ballplayers, he'd ever met.
- News | Sports | Business | What's Happening | Restaurants & Food | Entertainment | Living | Marketplace | Jobs
