Roberto Clemente’s Year in the Dodgers Organization

Roberto Clemente with the Montreal Royals in 1954. (Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

 

This article focuses on Roberto Clemente’s season in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization – his first in a major-league organization. The subject of the Dodgers “hiding” Clemente from other major-league clubs has been researched and debated by baseball scholars and writers.1 This article does not break any new ground on that topic; rather, the goal is to provide a glimpse into Clemente’s season, from signing a contract with the Dodgers in February to being selected by the Pirates in the minor-league draft in November – nine important months in Clemente’s career and life.

A short article in the Montreal Star on February 25, 1954, announced the signing of a young outfielder to the Montreal Royals, one of two Triple-A affiliates of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The headline read: “Royals Sign Bonus Boy Clemente.” Just below was a drop head that referred to the signee as a “Cuban Outfielder.”

And finally, the body text: “Outfielder Roberto Clemente, a Negro bonus player from Puerto Rico, has been signed by the Royals, [general manager] Guy Moreau announced today.”2

In those few lightly fact-checked column inches, 19-year-old Roberto Clemente was introduced to the city where he would play his first season under contract with a major-league baseball club. He was a Royal; the youngest player on a roster that during the 1954 season boasted more than two dozen players who had or would have major-league experience.

Just a short time before, the young Clemente had a breakout season with the Cangrejeros de Santurce in the Liga de Béisbol Profesional de Puerto Rico (now Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente). Scouted by several major-league teams, he was offered a salary of $5,000 and a signing bonus of $10,000 by the Dodgers – the largest bonus paid by the club since Jackie Robinson in 1945. On February 19 Clemente’s father, Melchor, accepted the offer on behalf of his son, and both signed the contract.3 Clemente was sent to Montreal for spring training.

Clemente biographer Bruce Markusen wrote about the contract’s potential ramifications:

On the surface, the move made sense, given Clemente’s still raw and unrefined talents, but it created a future problem for the Dodgers. Under the rules in place in 1954, any player receiving a bonus of $4,000 or more who was assigned to the minor leagues would then be subject to a special draft at season’s end. Under the new rule, which would eventually become known as Rule 5, such a player could be taken by another major league franchise at the cost of only $4,000. Al Campanis, working as a winter league manager at the time, warned Dodgers vice president Buzzie Bavasi that he was taking a huge gamble by not putting Clemente on the major league roster for the entirety of the 1954 season.4

The Dodgers’ top affiliate, the Royals were part of the International League, which featured eight teams in 1954: the Royals, Buffalo Bisons, Havana Sugar Kings, Ottawa A’s, Richmond Virginians, Rochester Red Wings, Syracuse Chiefs, and Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Royals played in Delorimier Stadium, located east of downtown Montreal. The steel and concrete ballpark featured bleachers in right and left fields with a capacity of around 20,000. Its rectangular shape created dimensions that favored left-handed hitters: 341 feet down the left-field line, 441 feet in center field, and 293 feet down the right-field line, with a 12-foot-high wall surrounding the outfield.5

Among Clemente’s teammates was pitcher Joe Carbonaro, from San Jose, California, who was back from serving in the Korean War and trying to resurrect his baseball career. In a story by Canadian baseball historian Kevin Glew, Carbonaro fondly recalled playing in Montreal with the Royals.

“It was a very colourful town,” he said. “We had good players there. Clemente was there, Tommy Lasorda, Sandy Amoros, Gino Cimoli – all the guys that made it to the majors later on. Ed Roebuck, Ken Lehman, Chico Fernandez, they were all good ballplayers. It was a good time.”

Carbonaro recalls living in an apartment above a grocery store on Belanger Street with his wife.

“It was like being in Little France because the papers were in French and the people spoke French,” he said. “I went to church there and the church was done in French. It was a whole different experience.”6

Another of Clemente’s teammates in Montreal was Joe Black, who was the National League’s Rookie of the Year in 1952 with the Dodgers but was sent down after the 1953 season. “The thing that amazed me,” Black said as he remembered Clemente, “is that sometimes one of his legs would be up in the air (while he was hitting), and the ball would still go out of the ballpark. He was just strong.”7

In a phone interview with the author in 2021, Carbonaro provided further details about what it was like to have Clemente as a teammate.

“(Clemente) had a lot of the ability – he was very athletic, a good runner, had a good arm, and hit well,” he recalled. “They used him primarily against left-handed pitching. Back then, you might see one left-hander a week compared to right-handers. At first, he was very easy to strike out with the slow stuff, because he looked for a fastball all the time. But he turned out to be a better hitter than I thought he would be.”

Carbonaro remembered a game in Toronto against the first-place Maple Leafs, when Clemente was angry about being removed from the lineup before an at-bat because Toronto brought in a righty reliever. When he walked back to the dugout, he expressed his frustration.

“There was some metal piping along the box seats next to the dugout,” Carbonaro said, “and he hit that pipe with his bat so hard that people jumped out of their seats.” He added: “He didn’t understand why he couldn’t play every day. He was so strong and yet so raw.”

Always the pitcher, Carbonaro added: “You didn’t want to pitch outside in batting practice to Clemente – he’d hit it right back through the box!”

Carbonaro described Clemente as quiet most of the time. “He was a little overwhelmed,” Carbonaro said, adding that Clemente’s closest friends on the roster were outfielder Sandy Amoros and shortstop Chico Fernandez, both Cuban; Black; and third baseman Bob Wilson.

“Amoros and Clemente were the quiet guys,” Carbonaro remembered. “They may have felt strange being in this country and not speaking English or French, but they both did okay.”

“When we were on the road, in New York and Virginia, these guys ate and stayed together,” Carbonaro said. “They couldn’t eat or stay with us. In Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and in Havana, this wasn’t a problem.”8

In June the Montreal Star, reporting on a game in Richmond, added this to a short column after the game story: “Amoros, Fernandez, and Clemente, Royals colored players, stop at Slaughter’s Hotel, a negro establishment.”9

Slaughter’s Hotel and Cafe, on North Second Street in Richmond’s Jackson Ward, was part of what was known as the “Harlem of the South.” Slaughter’s was across the street from the Hippodrome Theater. The National Park Service notes that many performers who played at the theater – including Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, and Duke Ellington – also stayed at Slaughter’s.10

In spring training, Clemente showed a glimpse of what was to come. On April 2, his first game with the Royals, he hit an inside-the-park home run and two singles to lead Montreal to a 12-2 win over a team of ex-servicemen.

The next day, local beat writer Lloyd McGowan praised Clemente: “Roberto Clemente, new bonus outfielder for the Royals, is a more spectacular player than Sandy Amoros.… Clemente is a right-handed batter, a flash in the field with a bullet peg.…”11

McGowan was skeptical of Clemente’s hitting prospects, however: “But he is only 18 years old and might not murder International League pitching, exactly.”12 Clemente was 19, not 18, and four games into the season he led the Royals in hitting with a .500 average (4-for-8).

The day after the season opener, Star reporter Baz O’Meara made sure readers knew Clemente’s potential: “(The Royals) seem to have a new star coming up in Roberto Clemente the Puerto Rican outfielder. He had three singles, bunted in smart style, caught on with the fans, was complimented by (manager Max) Macon.”13

Clemente announced his arrival loudly and clearly in a doubleheader sweep against the Sugar Kings in Montreal, with a game-winning 10th-inning home run in the opener and two hits in the nightcap. The Star featured Clemente prominently in the next day’s sports pages:

The man getting on the tram outside the park was Harry Simmons of the International League office.

The Royals had won two games from the Havana Sugar Kings, 7-6 and 4-1. Homeward bound, the 4,252 customers were satisfied, chatty, and cheerful.

“They have a new idol, a new star,” Harry Simmons said. “Roberto Clemente.”

No truer words were spoken on the weekend. Clemente’s clout over the left-field wall yesterday, his first homer of the campaign, won the opening game Hollywood style in the tenth inning.

Clemente is a player with potential greatness. He is what they call “showboat” in diamond dialect. But yesterday he delivered in very surprising style, indeed.

At the start of the season Max Macon said that he didn’t expect Clemente to prove much help to the club. He was too young and inexperienced, the manager had said.

It was noted, though, that yesterday Macon sent (Clemente) back into the second game. He smashed a double on his first try in that event. The rain-defying throng hooted derisively when they walked him intentionally on his next trip.14

In his SABR biography of Clemente, Stew Thornley captured the rest of the young star’s season:

For the rest of the season Clemente started every game in which the opposition started a left-handed pitcher. He had a few more highlights during this time. Near the end of July, he came to bat in the top of the ninth inning of a scoreless game in Toronto. Clemente doubled and went on to score to put Montreal ahead. The Royals won the game, 2-0.

The next time the Royals were in Toronto, three weeks later, Clemente helped them win in a different way. Montreal had an 8-7 lead over the Maple Leafs in the bottom of the ninth. Toronto had a chance to tie the score, but Clemente threw out a runner at home plate to end the game.

Late in August he had two triples and a single at Richmond, although the Royals still lost the game. A week later he hit a home run to win the game for Montreal and give the Royals a sweep of a doubleheader against Syracuse.

Teammate Jack Cassini said, “You knew he was going to play in the big leagues. He had a great arm and he could run.” When Clemente began playing regularly against left-handers, the Royals rose in the standings and finished in second place. Clemente batted .257 in 87 games in his only season in the minors.15

By the end of the season, Thornley writes, it was clear that other teams were interested in Clemente. Bavasi hoped that a gentleman’s agreement with Pirates general manager Branch Rickey, who ran the Dodgers before coming to Pittsburgh, would keep Clemente with Brooklyn. However, Rickey and Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley got into an argument, and the agreement was off.16

In an article written for the National Baseball Hall of Fame website, Bruce Markusen reported that Rickey traveled to Puerto Rico and personally scouted Clemente, who had returned home after the Royals’ season to play for the Santurce Cangrejeros. Not only was Rickey impressed with Clemente on the field: “He also took time to talk to him during his scouting trip. Rickey found the young prospect polite and respectful.”17

Clemente’s career as a Dodger ended on November 22, when the Pirates made him the first selection in the minor-league draft. The Montreal Star reported: “The Royals lost two of their most promising young baseball players to Major League clubs in the draft session in New York today. Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rican outfielder who batted .257, was claimed by the Pittsburgh Pirates and Glenn Gorbous, a Canadian, goes to the Cincinnati Reds.”18

Under the rules of the draft, Clemente cost the Pirates just $4,000. Markusen called it “some of the best money the Pirates ever spent in the long history of their franchise.”19

 

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed a file provided by the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library as well as R​etros​heet.​org, and B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com.

 

STATISTICS

Roberto Clemente’s 1954 Montreal Royals stats:

 

Notes

1 In his biography Who Was Clemente?, Phil Musick titled his fifth chapter, “Hidden in Montreal,” While Bruce Markusen’s Roberto Clemente: The Great One uses the same three words for the title of his second chapter. Stew Thornley, in Clemente’s SABR biography, uses the same three words in his title. See Phil Musick, Who Was Clemente? (Garden City, New York: Associated Features Books, 1974) and Bruce Markusen Roberto Clemente: The Great One (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, 1998). See also Stew Thornley, Clemente’s Entry into Organized Baseball: Hidden in Montreal? h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/jour​nal/a​rticl​e/cle​mente​s-ent​ry-in​to-or​ganiz​ed-ba​sebal​l-hid​den-i​n-mon​tre​al/.

2 “Royals Sign Bonus Boy Clemente,” Montreal Star, February 25, 1954: 54.

3 David Maraniss, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks 2007), 37.

4 Bruce Markusen, “Clemente’s Lone Minor League Season Put Him on a Path to Pittsburgh,” h​ttps:​//bas​eball​hall.​org/d​iscov​er/ba​sebal​l-his​tory/​cleme​ntes-​lone-​minor​-leag​ue-se​ason-​put-h​im-on​-a-pa​th-to​-pitt​sburgh, accessed February 20, 2022.

5 William Brown, Baseball’s Fabulous Montreal Royals (Montreal: Robert Davies Publishing 1996), 28.

6 Kevin Glew, 1954 Montreal Royals Team Photo … Joe Carbonaro, h​ttps:​//coo​perst​owner​sinca​nada.​com/2​014/1​0/04/​1954-​montr​eal-r​oyals​-team​-phot​o-joe​-carb​ona​ro/, accessed February 21, 2022.

7 Glew.

8 Author interview with Joe Carbonaro, October 12, 2021.

9 “Macon’s Royals Register,” Montreal Star, June 2, 1954: 36.

10 National Park Service, “The Hippodrome Theater and W.L. Taylor Mansion,” h​ttps:​//www​.nps.​gov/p​laces​/the-​hippo​drome​-thea​ter-a​nd-w-​l-tay​lor-m​ansio​n.htm, accessed February 27, 2022.

11 Lloyd McGowan, “The Batter’s Box,” Montreal Star, April 3, 1954: 26.

12 McGowan, “The Batter’s Box.”

13 Baz O’Meara, “The Passing Sport Show,” Montreal Star, April 30, 1954: 34.

14 Lloyd McGowan, “Clemente’s ‘Arrival’ Pleasant Surprise for Macon, Royals,” Montreal Star, July 26, 1954: 28.

15 Stew Thornley, “Roberto Clemente,” SABR BioProject, h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/biop​roj/p​erson​/robe​rto-c​leme​nte/, accessed February 21, 2022.

16 Thornley.

17 Markusen, “Clemente’s Lone Minor League Season Put Him on a Path to Pittsburgh.”

18 “Royals’ Clemente Gets ‘Pirate’ Call,” Montreal Star, November 22, 1954: 34.

19 Markusen.