Pee Wee gets a lot of credit for putting his arm around Jackie Robinson when the fans were giving Robinson a hard time. A hard time for Robinson is worse than 99 percent of us well ever get. Pee Wee put his arm around Jackie, basically telling the world “This is my teammate, and I am going to stand by him no matter what you do.” I’m sure some people back down. One of the things I found out reading Pee Wee’s SABR (Society of Baseball Research) biograph was that Pee Wee and Jackie played golf and tennis against each other. I would have loved to see a tennis match between those two.
Pee Wee was above average in everything according to baseball WAR. For hitting he was above average for his career despite some poor years at the beginning and end of his career. He was an above average base runner and fielder almost every year. The first 11 years after he came back from WWII he received MVP votes every year. It was 12 years in a row when he played as he received MVP votes in 1942 and didn’t play again until 1946 due to the war. He was in the top 10 8 of those years. The man just helped his team get to the World Series 7 times.
A few more interesting things about Pee Wee. He walked a lot for a shortstop who wasn’t a big hitter. He twice had over 100 walks, once leading the National League. He is 59th on the all time walk list with 1,210. His walks help lead to him scoring 90 or more runs 8 straight years. He had over 100 twice leading the league in 1949 with 132. The other was Pee Wee was a little over 50 percent stealing bases. However, in 1948 the stolen base percentage went way up. He had only one more season where he had double figures in caught stealing. He made up for it the next year stealing 30 bases in 35 attempts. This was the only year he stole 30 bases in his career. It was at the age of 33. He would do what it would take to win.
