April 17, 1955: Roberto Clemente records first hit and scores first run with Pirates

Roberto Clemente, the first great Latin American baseball star to enter major-league baseball and make it into the Hall of Fame, debuted for the Pittsburgh Pirates in right field as a 20-year-old on April 17, 1955.

This was only one year after the Pirates’ acquisition of Curt Roberts, the African American second baseman from the Kansas City Monarchs, broke the team’s color barrier. Roberts helped the young Clemente, one of only four boricua, or Puerto Ricans, in the major leagues at the time, to learn the ropes. No one could see into the future that day, but according to Puerto Rican broadcaster and journalist Luis Mayoral, “Clemente was our [Puerto Rico’s] Jackie Robinson. He was on a crusade to show the American public what a Hispanic man, a black Hispanic man, was capable of.”1

The 1955 season had just begun. Brooklyn was undefeated at 4-0. The 0-3 Pirates had yet to win a game. Since fielding some great players in the 1930s and ‘40s, among them shortstop Arky Vaughan and slugger Ralph Kiner, from 1938 to 1955 the Pirates rarely finished closer than eighth and last, and came in second only once, in 1944. In 1952 the club sank to its worst record ever, finishing 54½ games behind the Dodgers. In the five seasons since 1950, they had finished last four times and seventh once.

On this spring day in 1955, working the first game of a Sunday doubleheader at Forbes Field was Pirates pitcher Jake Thies. He had gone 3-9 for the Pirates in his 1954 rookie season. Young lefty Johnny Podres, now in his third season, started for the Dodgers. The 22-year-old was just months away from becoming a Dodger hero forever. On October 4, he threw a 2-0 shutout to win Game Seven of the World Series against Brooklyn’s archrival, the New York Yankees.

Dodgers outfielder Sandy Amoros and catcher Roy Campanella also played vital roles in that Series win, and all three were on the field for Clemente’s inaugural game. Still, Pittsburgh’s rookie right fielder wasted no time in showing glimpses of what was to come in his own stellar career of 18 seasons in a Pirates uniform.

Before stepping to the plate for the first of four chances against Podres that afternoon, Clemente chose his bat, a typical Hillerich & Bradsby Louisville Slugger, from the rack. On the barrel of the bat, the manufacturer had etched his signature, Momen Clemente – a name based on his childhood habit of telling family and friends to wait a moment, un momentito, when they wanted his attention. This name was on every bat he used through 1960.2

After two outs in the bottom of the first – a fly ball by Earl Smith and a line drive to deep center field by Gene Freese – Clemente, batting third, lined Podres’ pitch off Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese‘s glove for a single. Frank Thomas belted a triple to right field, bringing Clemente home, so that in his first major-league inning, Clemente achieved the first of 3,000 career hits and scored his first run. Thomas followed by scoring on a fielding error and the Pirates took a 2-0 lead, their only lead of the day.

The Dodgers scored in the second when Gil Hodges doubled to left, moved to third on Amoros’ fly ball, and headed home on Jackie Robinson‘s sacrifice fly. The Pirates had no action in the second, with only a walk.

In the third inning the Dodgers scored another run. Jim Gilliam walked, Reese moved him to third with a line-drive double to left, and Hodges drove him home with a fly to center. The score was tied, 2-2.

Brooklyn added four more runs in the fourth, the first thanks to an error by Pittsburgh’s Gene Freese and the second on a passed ball by catcher Jack Shepard. Duke Snider‘s two-run homer to right field off reliever Nellie King made it 6-2, but not before Clemente had a chance to impress the crowd with his skills in the field. In what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called “a heart-stopping catch,” he leapt high to grab Gilliam’s hard-hit fly to right and returned it with a bullet throw home.3 This superb skill in the field endeared him to Pittsburgh fans throughout his career and earned him 12 Gold Gloves, one for every season from 1961 through 1972.

“Momen” developed the skill and strength in his right arm by playing baseball and softball at an early age, as well as by excelling in throwing the javelin for his hometown track and field team at Julio Vizcarrondo Coronado High School in Carolina, Puerto Rico.

Still in his teens, Clemente played in the Puerto Rico winter league, alongside major leaguers like the New York Giants’ Willie Mays and Rubén Gómez, the first Puerto Rican pitcher to start and win a World Series game. Only three years older than Clemente, Mays had much more professional experience, having played a year with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues at age 17, as well as three years with the Giants. Mays took time to advise Clemente on fielding and throwing techniques in the outfield, since Clemente’s early experience had been in the infield.

After the Pirates added a run in the sixth inning when first baseman Preston Ward doubled to left field and catcher Shepard drove him home with a single to right, the Dodgers followed by scoring three times in the seventh. Dodgers All-Star catcher Campanella, at the start of a phenomenal comeback year from hand and knee injuries the previous season, capped the ninth with a solo home run off Pirates pitcher Vern Law.

Clemente’s history-making on the field mattered little to the final outcome; the game ended with a score of 10-3.

Later, in the nightcap, Clemente hit leadoff and continued to show skill and potential. He doubled in the sixth and rapped out a single on a fly to short center in the eighth. He raced past first, tapping his tremendous speed, but had to scramble back. When Don Zimmer‘s throw went astray and the ball sailed into the dugout, baserunner Dick Smith was allowed to score and Clemente was given third. Dick Cole scored him with a single to center.

The final score of 3-2 was more even-handed in the second game, but still went down as a loss for the Pirates. Clemente was left standing in the on-deck circle, with the tying and winning runs on base when Gene Freese hit a game-ending popup.

The 1955 Pirates, managed by Fred Haney, finished last. Clemente’s rookie numbers were not exceptional, either; he batted only .255 with 121 hits and 47 RBIs. But Pittsburgh fans were hungry for a hero. Bobby Bragan took the helm in 1956, but was replaced in midseason 1957 by Danny Murtaugh, who eventually led young Clemente and the Pirates on a steady climb out of the cellar and toward a first-place finish in 1960.4 Along the way, Clemente adapted and learned, creating his own style and perfecting the skills that took him from Momen to el Magnifico.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com, Retros​heet.​org, Total Baseball (1989 edition), and the following:

Maraniss, David. Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).

NOTES

1 Harold Friend, “Roberto Clemente: Prejudice, Pride, Boasting, and Greatness,” b​leach​errep​ort.​com, September 23, 2011. h​ttps:​//ble​acher​repor​t.com​/arti​cles/​86228​3-rob​erto-​cleme​nte-p​rejud​ice-p​ride-​boast​ing-a​nd-gr​eatn​ess. Accessed April 14, 2022.

2 Stephen Tsi Chuen Wong, “Roberto ‘Momen’ Clemente 1960 Louisville Slugger Professional Model Game Used Bat,” Smithsonian Institution National Postal Museum Blog: Baseball: America’s Home Run. April 6, 2022. h​ttps:​//pos​talmu​seum.​si.ed​u/rob​erto-​“m​om​en”​-clem​ente-​1960-​louis​ville​-slug​ger-p​rofes​siona​l-mod​el-ga​me-us​ed-​bat.

3 Jack Hernon, “Unbeaten Bums Sweep Winless Bucs, 10-3, 3-2,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 18, 1955: 18, 20.

4 Frederick Ivor-Campbell, “Team Histories,” in John Thorn and David Reuther, eds., Total Baseball (New York: Warner Books, 1989), 89.