REESE SAYS BROOKLYN ERA WAS `BEAUTIFUL TIME'.

Byline: Hank Kurz Jr. Associated Press 

Pee Wee Reese endured more than his share of heartache during a 16-year career when a player's unwavering loyalty to his team sometimes meant a bond to its failures.

Reese and his teammates had such a bond with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In 1951, they had to elude the crush of fans streaming onto the field at the Polo Grounds after Bobby Thomson's ``Shot Heard 'Round the World.'' The three-run homer in the ninth inning gave the New York Giants the National League pennant - and Reese the low point of his career.

``That was a killer, the worst,'' he said recently, shaking his head.

The worst, but certainly not the only time the Dodgers came up short.

All through the 1940s and '50s, Brooklyn suffered from poor timing. The Dodgers often were the best the National League had, but not good enough to beat the New York Yankees. Seven times the teams met in the World Series; six times the Yankees prevailed.

``There was always something little that happened to change the outcome,'' Reese said. ``We were as good as the Yankees, and we didn't fear the Yankees, but something always happened that made them win.''

Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984, Reese will be among featured players in a five-part ESPN series about the Dodgers beginning Tuesday. Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella and Duke Snider also will be featured, followed by a retrospective on the Dodgers' rich history.

The series, entitled ``The Original America's Team: The Brooklyn Dodgers,'' was written and produced by Mark Reese, Pee Wee's son.

The younger Reese said about 250 hours of interviews were taped for the series. There also was extensive research, and a bit of recollection, too.

``All the stories he told me, he didn't think I was listening,'' Mark Reese said of his childhood in a home of a baseball great. ``But I was.''

Pee Wee Reese, 78, still wears the ring he earned during the magical season of 1955, when Brooklyn finally beat the Yankees and won it all. And he's quick to note that it was his play on a ball hit by Elston Howard that clinched the championship, allowing next year to finally arrive.

``It was a beautiful time,'' he said, speaking not just of the championship but of the entire era, ``a beautiful time to play ball.''

These days, Reese still watches baseball. He sees a game that has changed a lot from the one he played, the one that took a Kentucky native named Harold with a good glove, clutch bat and the leadership of a colonel and let him come to be known by fans everywhere simply as Pee Wee.

``It's a different game, but I can still recognize it,'' he said.

Reese's father and son choose not to consider their memories of how baseball used to be as anything more than that, memories they both share in the series that recalls a simpler, more passionate age.

``From the hard, cold eyes of the '90s, it's kind of hard to imagine (the way it used to be),'' Mark Reese said. ``But I guarantee that if you asked them, the players wouldn't trade what they had back then for anything.

``It was special.''

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Photo: Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984, Pee Wee Reese w ill be a featured player in an ESPN series about the Dodgers beginning Tuesday.

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