(Les Banos photograph courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

About Roberto Clemente, Ozzie Guillén, the three-time All-Star shortstop, outspoken World Series-winning manager, and fellow Latin American, said, “He is the Jackie Robinson of Latin baseball. … He lived racism. He was a man who was happy to be not only Puerto Rican, but Latin American. He let people know that. And that is something that is very important for all of us.”1 Guillén, a native of Venezuela, captures what so many like him hold dear: Roberto Clemente, the man as much as the myth, emboldened all Latino ballplayers coming to America after him.

Clemente debuted almost exactly eight years to the day after Jackie Robinson first stepped on the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Between those dates, dozens of Black players signed with major-league baseball clubs and all but three teams were integrated. Clemente faced not only the still-present difficulties of being a Black man in a deeply segregated nation, he also was acclimating himself to a new environment, experiencing high expectations and off-base stereotypes.

“There was a largeness to Clemente’s persona that transcended baseball,” said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.2 Like Robinson, representation and acceptance by Anglo United States only tells part of the story and, at times, reduces the complexities of the man. Clemente was full of contradictions, often belying the tidy version of an exotic Latin star that people, especially the media, wanted him to be. As such, he confronted both similar and uncommon issues compared with players who came before him, but his charisma and dominant play allowed him to pave a path to better prepare the many Latino superstars who followed.

The first Latino major leaguer was Colombian second baseman and outfielder Lou Castro, who debuted with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1902 and played in 42 games. The 1930s saw a small boom in Latino talent signing with major-league clubs, mostly out of Cuba. In 1934 Miguel Angel Gonzalez became a coach with the St. Louis Cardinals and four years later became the first major-league manager from that island nation. However, this representation was almost exclusively relegated to Cuban-born players and entirely for those with light skin.

It took until 1949 (47 years after Castro’s appearance) for a Black Latino player to take the field, when Minnie Miñoso pinch-hit for the Cleveland Indians against the St. Louis Browns. Miñoso played only nine games that season (16 mostly ineffectual at-bats) before being sent back to the minors, where he was kept until 1951. Feeling Miñoso wasn’t ready for the big leagues, Cleveland’s manager Lou Boudreau said, “He was a raw star in the beginning, but in only two years he was a seasoned ballplayer.”3 Still, speculation persists that the color of Miñoso’s skin played a part in keeping him in the minors longer than needed. He tore through minor-league pitching and once called up for good in 1951, he hit the ground running, swatting 10 homers and batting .326. He finished second in Rookie of the Year voting and became the first Latino star. A slew of Latino ballplayers followed Miñoso to the big leagues through the 1950s, including Clemente. While tolerance grew, stereotyping didn’t cease.

Clemente signed with the Dodgers in 1954, but the team had no intention of playing him; they wanted to avoid his talent landing with the crosstown rival New York Giants. Manipulating the international signing system is a practice that continues for Latino ballplayers decades later. In 1955, after being selected by the Pirates in the Rule 5 draft, Clemente told Pittsburgh broadcaster Sam Nover that a Fort Myers, Florida, newspaper said, “Puerto Rican hot dog arrives in town,” upon his arrival at spring training.4 Reporters routinely quoted Clemente with exaggerated phonetics. After Clemente smacked the game-winning hit off future Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm in the 1961 All-Star Game, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headline read, “I GET HEET, I FEEL GOOD.” In the article, Clemente is quoted: “I ‘ope that Weelhelm peetch me outside, so I could hit to right, but he peetch me inside.…”5 Clemente complained, “I never talk like that; they just want to sell newspapers.”6 Sportswriters also regularly referred to Clemente by pejorative nicknames such as “the dusky flyer” or the “lashing Latin” or the “chocolate-colored islander.”7 Clemente’s experiences were far from uncommon.

Pirates broadcaster Bob Prince leaned into Clemente’s Hispanic roots by creating the “¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!” signature call each time the right fielder did something spectacular on the field. It was a friendly play-by-play that helped endear both Clemente and his culture to the Rust Belt town. Pittsburgh fans took to it, commonly yelling, “¡Arriba!” at Roberto when he came to the plate or was spotted in public. However, the adoration, while meaningful to Clemente, did little to allay the effects of “othering” him, as he continued to feel dislocated culturally from most of his teammates. In 1960 Clemente believed he had a legitimate case to win the National League MVP Award, but writers not only placed him eighth overall, but behind three of his Pittsburgh teammates. Clemente believed the slight was because he was perceived as different and he never got over it.

In his superb Clemente biography, author David Maraniss explains that well into the right fielder’s time in Pittsburgh, he remained an outsider:

Roberto Clemente was indisputably an important member of the team, yet also in many ways alone. At the end of his sixth and finest season, he was still separated by culture, race, language, and group dynamics. He was the lone black player in the starting lineup and a Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican, while none of the sportswriters for the major dailies in New York or Pittsburgh were black or spoke Spanish. Life is defined by images, especially public life, and the Pirates image was that of a band of scrappy, happy-go-lucky, fearless, gin-playing, hard-drinking, crewcut, tobacco-chewing white guys. Where was the place in that picture for the proud, regal, seemingly diffident Roberto Clemente?8

After a game, a New York Giants broadcaster commented to Clemente that he “reminds [him] of another rookie outfielder who could run, throw and get those clutch hits. Young fellow of ours name of Willie Mays.” Clemente replied, “Nonetheless, I play like Roberto Clemente.”9 His “eccentric” tendencies remained a point of discussion, if also ridicule, in the press.

Sportswriters frustrated Clemente throughout his career. He never felt they saw his perspective and the constant stereotyping made him mad. On top of that, he was in a segregated country that told him where he could sleep and eat and even sit on a bus. Even though the word infuriated him, Clemente told author Roger Kahn he was a “double nigger,”10 expressing his feeling of ostracization from both White and Black culture in the United States. “I am black and Puerto Rican,” Clemente said. “I have to behave well. Perhaps I have more responsibility than others.”11

Writing about Minnie Miñoso, Latin baseball historian Adrian Burgos Jr. said, “[Miñoso] presents a quandary for many about where to place a black Latino within U.S. categories of identity: Is he black? Just Latino? Can he really be both?”12 Miñoso’s Cleveland teammate Harry Simpson, an African American from Georgia, accused him of “not being Black.”13 Vic Power, a Black Puerto Rican like Clemente, shared Clemente’s penchant for refusing to fit the mold of what Americans demanded of Latino ballplayers. He was gregarious, spoke out about injustice, and openly dated White women, a flagrant violation of 1950s racial sensibilities.14 In the early 1950s Power was outstanding in the minor leagues for the New York Yankees, the only New York team yet to integrate, but he was held back. Yankees general manager George Weiss said that “the first Negro to appear in a Yankee uniform must be worth having been waited for” and that Power was not the “right kind of Negro.”15 Power was traded to Philadelphia without ever playing for the Yankees.

In 1969 Clemente said to the press, “The farther away you writers stay, the better I like it.… Because you’re trying to create a bad image of me.… You do it because I’m black and Puerto Rican, but I’m proud to be Puerto Rican.”16 Clemente developed a reputation as a hypochondriac who exaggerated his injuries. “Sometimes when I wake up in the morning,” he once said, “I hurt so much I pray that I am still sleeping.”17 Clemente suffered from headaches, stomachaches, malaria, insomnia, tonsillitis, a hematoma in his right thigh, bone chips in his right elbow, a strained right instep, sore shoulders, and various pulled muscles. He freely talked about every ailment.18 His fellow countryman Power ribbed him for making up illnesses. He took the jabs in stride, but when the press teased him with the same barbs, he got incensed.19

The constant moans fueled stereotypes that Latino players were complainers and whiners, and didn’t take the game as seriously as their White counterparts. The perception only further galvanized Clemente to fight for his, and other Black Latino ballplayers’, rightful place in the game.

A deeply prideful man, Clemente’s stance against the media might’ve proved impactful toward getting fans to see him not only as a smiling construct, but as a human being. Instead, Clemente brought excitement to the ballpark and his connection with the fans was the one thing that never wavered. “He was our Jackie Robinson,” said Clemente’s friend and fellow Puerto Rican Luis Mayoral. “He was on a crusade to show the American public what a Hispanic man, a black Hispanic man, was capable of.”20

Clemente spoke out, often in Spanish, against the racial prejudices he faced in the segregated United States. He was especially vocal about the injustice of being separated from teammates during spring training in Florida, including Black team members being unable to attend a Pirates Welcome Luncheon commemorating the team’s 1960 World Series win. The only Black people allowed in were the waitstaff.21 He was fond of Martin Luther King Jr., even welcoming King for an afternoon at his farm in Puerto Rico. “Sometimes you have to understand there are bigger things than you, bigger things than the game,” said Carlos Delgado, a Black Puerto Rican whose path to major-league baseball was shaped by Clemente. “As an athlete, you have a platform with a lot of followers. You can push positive things; you can push movements and support movements.”22

Early in Clemente’s career, Black players were forced to stay on the bus after games while White players ate inside at roadside restaurants. The Black players had meals brought to them to eat on the bus once the others were finished. Clemente was so roiled by this process that he threatened to fight any Black player who tried to eat the meal. He pushed the Pirates to make better accommodations for Black players, which they eventually did, providing a separate means of transportation for them to get food.23 “I hope that we can continue the conversation, that we can tell future generations: ‘Look, this is Roberto Clemente. These are the values and integrity we want representing us,’” Delgado said.24 On September 1, 1971, Clemente was part of history when Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh penciled him into the third spot in the first ever all-Black starting lineup.

When Clemente first reached the US mainland, he roomed with Bob Friend, a pitcher who took him under his wing. The pair watched The Lone Ranger television show together which, along with other Westerns, helped Clemente pick up English. It’s a story told over and over for Latinos first coming to America. For example, when Miguel Tejada was assigned to the Medford A’s, alone and thousands of miles from the only home he knew in the Dominican Republic, he relied on Disney cartoons to help him pick up English so he could connect with his new community.25

In the time since Clemente played his last game, the major leagues have seen an explosion of talent from Latin American countries, with every team putting enormous resources into international scouting. By the 1990s, Latin Americans replaced African Americans as the second most prevalent demographic in the majors. In 2017 nearly 30 percent of all players identified as Latino.26 Clemente’s wife, Vera, continued her husband’s efforts to help Latin American talent by overseeing the Roberto Clemente Foundation as well as baseball clinics, including a “Sports City” complex in San Juan. Some successful major-league players who have gone through the system are Benito Santiago, Ruben Sierra, Juan Gonzalez, Carlos Baerga, both Alomar brothers, and Ivan Rodriguez.27

As detailed in Marcos Bretón and José Luis Villegas’s book about the journey of a Latino ballplayer, Away Games, this explosion “didn’t happen by accident.”28 With the advent of free agency in the mid-1970s, major-league teams scrambled to find talent as cheaply as possible. Felipe Alou, the major leagues’ first Dominican-born manager, said, “It’s like they throw a net in the ocean, hoping that maybe they’ll get a big fish. The problem is, if they don’t get a big fish, they’ll throw all the smaller ones back.”29 For every player who makes it to the big leagues, several more become undocumented men in a country not their own, forced into blue-collar jobs such as construction or must go back to the impoverished villages they came from.

In 1989 Puerto Rican-born players, as American citizens, became a part of the annual amateur draft, affording them much higher bonuses than players procured from other Latin countries. Just as manipulation surrounded Clemente’s signing, the process of scouting and signing international players has become fierce and detrimental to the many young men involved. In 2022 The Athletic dove into problems that persist around scouting of players from Latin American countries. Signing rules developed in 2017 limited the pool of money teams can allocate to talent. As a result, teams zero in on specific players, sometimes as young as 12 years old, so they may lock them up once they reach the allowable signing age. The report notes that use of performance-enhancing drugs is prevalent, especially among older players who have not yet secured a contract from big-league teams and risk falling behind if they don’t stand out.30

While baseball fans have come a long way in accepting Latin American players as an asset to the game, stereotypes still remain. In 2017 ESPN sports analyst Doug Gottlieb openly accused Dominican ballplayer Adrián Beltré, who continued to play at a Hall of Fame level well into his 30s, of using performance enhancing drugs. Gottlieb cited the fact that eight of the 13 players named in the Biogenesis PED scandal were Dominican.31 “Beltré’s from the Dominican Republic,” Gottlieb said. “Beltré (has) also been as or more productive into his mid- and now late-30s as he was in his 20s.”32

Gottlieb, like so many Americans, didn’t see Beltré as a human being who might operate independent of other Latinos, but instead as a stereotype who must represent the worst. It’s this exact type of thinking that Clemente largely broke down. After Clemente died, Puerto Rican writer Elliott Castro observed, “That night on which Roberto Clemente left us physically, his immortality began.”33 Yet what made Clemente so important was that he was every bit a mortal.

Clemente’s son Roberto Jr. recalled a story that encapsulates his father’s legacy, “Once, when I was in Pittsburgh, I stopped to help an old lady change a tire. She said, ‘Thank you, young man, where are you from?’ And I said Puerto Rico. And she said, ‘Puerto Rico! Why that’s where Roberto Clemente was from. He was a great man.”34 Clemente helped kids all around the world, but especially in Latin America, to understand they too could dream big. And dreaming big didn’t mean being perfect, it meant being themselves – battles with the press, headaches, tonsillitis, and all.

Notes

1 George Diaz, “Clemente 30 Years After His Tragic Death, the Influence of Baseball’s First Hispanic Superstar Is Stronger Than Ever,” Orlando Sentinel, March 31, 2002.

2 MLB, “MLB remembers the legacy of Roberto Clemente,” YouTube, h​ttps:​//www​.yout​ube.c​om/wa​tch?v​=KhWg​UGb​nko, December 17, 2017.

3 Lew Freedman, African American Pioneers of Baseball: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007), 286.

4 David Maraniss, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (e-book edition) (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013), 358.

5 Maraniss, 774-775.

6 Adrian Burgos, Jr., “Left Out: Afro-Latinos, Black Baseball, and the Revision of Baseball’s Racial History,” Social Text, Vol. 98, Spring 2009: 47.

7 Steve Wulf, “December 31: ¡Arriba Roberto!,” Sports Illustrated, December 28, 1992.

8 Maraniss, 527-529.

9 Wulf.

10 Burgos, 47.

11 Burgos, 47.

12 Burgos, 45.

13 Burgos, 45.

14 Burgos, 46.

15 Burgos, 45.

16 Julio Ricardo Valera. “Time to Retire Roberto Clemente’s Number 21,” E​SPN.​com, July 11, 2017.

17 Wulf.

18 Wulf.

19 Maraniss, 705-707.

20 Wulf.

21 Maraniss, 741-742.

22 Jorge Castillo, “Remembering Roberto Clemente as a Black Man Who Fought Against Racial Injustice,” Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2020.

23 Maraniss, 736.

24 Castillo.

25 Alex Coffey, “Has Anybody Heard from Miguel Tejada Lately? Well, Yes, as It Turns Out,” The Athletic, June 22, 2020.

26 Federico Anzel, “MLB Demographics: The Rise of Latinos in Major League Baseball,” Visme Visual Learning Center, h​ttps:​//vis​me.co​/blog​/mlb-​demog​raphi​cs/, 2018.

27 “Roberto Clemente Day Official in Puerto Rico,” Washington Post, August 18, 1993.

28 Marcos Bretón and José Luis Villegas, Away Games: The Life and Times of a Latin Baseball Player (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 39.

29 Bretón and Villegas, 40.

30 Marian Torres and Ken Rosenthal, “‘A failed system’: A Corrupt Process Exploits Dominican Baseball Prospects. Is an International Draft Really the Answer?,” The Athletic, January 20, 2022.

31 Marissa Payne, “Doug Gottlieb Accuses Adrian Beltre of Using PEDS, Partly Because He’s Dominican,” Washington Post, August 1, 2017.

32 Payne.

33 Maraniss, 1782.

34 Wulf.

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.

Click here to read Part II of this article on Roberto Clemente’s Puerto Rico winter league career.

Jim “Junior” Gilliam and Roberto Clemente with Santurce. (Photograph courtesy of Jorge Fidel López Vélez.)

In 1952 Pedrín Zorrilla, a native of Manatí, one of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities and the owner of the Santurce Crabbers, a team in the Puerto Rico Winter League (PRWL), received a tip from Roberto Marín, a salesman for Sello Rojo Rice Company. Marín had discovered 14-year-old Roberto Clemente four years earlier, hitting empty tomato cans with sticks – hitting them a long distance.1 Clemente played on Marín’s softball team prior to suiting up with the Juncos Mules, an amateur team in Puerto Rico’s Double-A League. Zorrilla watched Clemente in an exhibition game for Juncos, at Manatí. He was impressed with Clemente’s skills and offered him a $40-a-week contract and a $400 signing bonus for the 1952-53 PRWL season.2 Zorrilla liked Clemente’s solid upbringing, as a Baptist, and his support of the ideals of Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rico’s first elected governor in 1948. Muñoz ran on the Partido Popular Democrático’s mantra of Pan, Tierra, Libertad (Bread, Land, Liberty) as a US Commonwealth.3

This essay focuses on Clemente’s 4½ winter seasons with Santurce, his late-December 1956 sale to the Caguas Criollos, and his brief tenure with Caguas, 1956-57 and 1957-1958. It showcases his fine play in the memorable February 1955 Caribbean Series in Caracas, Venezuela, alongside Santurce teammate Willie Mays, and his all-star performance in center field for Caguas in the February 1958 Caribbean Series in San Juan. Part II covers his seasons with the San Juan Senators, who acquired him via a trade with Caguas before the 1959-60 season.

A 1952-53 ROOKIE SEASON WITH LINKS TO TED WILLIAMS AND JACKIE ROBINSON

An 18-year-old Clemente wore uniform number 39 for the 1952-53 Crabbers, a mostly veteran club dotted with some big-league prospects. Player-manager Buzz Clarkson defended shortstop and third base, part-time; a crowded outfield included spot starter Bob Thurman in right field, Billy Bruton in center field, and Willard Brown in left and center field, with left fielder Alfonso Gerard and Johnny Davis (pitcher-left fielder) in the mix. Island baseball fans bestowed colorful nicknames on players: Ese Hombre (The Man) was Willard Brown’s sobriquet; Thurman was El Múcaro (The Owl) for his fine night vision displayed at Sixto Escobar Stadium, home of the Crabbers and archrival San Juan Senators; El Gaucho became Johnny Davis’s moniker – his mannerisms were like Argentine cowboys. Rubén Gómez was El Divino Loco (Divine Crazy) for the way he drove his sports car to away games. Billy Hunter, Santurce’s shortstop, recalled, “Clemente was just a kid. I don’t think he got much playing time.”4

Clemente looked up to 35-year-old Thurman for his elegance, professionalism, and calm demeanor. Both homered in an October 11 preseason game against a visiting team from the Dominican Republic, in Clemente’s first appearance wearing Crabbers flannels.5 A regular-season highlight was being summoned to pinch-hit for Thurman against Caguas left-handed pitcher Roberto Vargas, a.k.a. the “Joe Page of Puerto Rico,” in a game tied 2-2. Clemente doubled down the left-field line to give the Crabbers a 4-2 win on November 30, 1952.6

Some of Clemente’s 77 at-bats in the 72-game season came against the San Juan Senators, who featured a rotation of Harvey Haddix, Cot Deal, Diómedes Olivo, and Don Liddle. Haddix later joked around with Clemente as a Pittsburgh Pirates teammate but did not recall facing him in Puerto Rico. “I remember Willard Brown, from that [Santurce] team,” said Haddix,7 – the first professional pitcher Clemente faced – after he replaced left fielder Gerard, on Tuesday, October 21, 1952.8 Haddix retired Clemente en route to a 4-0 shutout. Clemente’s 18 hits during the season included three doubles and a triple; he scored five runs and drove in five.9 Santurce’s most consistent hitter was second baseman Jim Gilliam. When Gilliam played in 1952 for the Montreal Royals of the International League, he contacted Bobo Holloman,10 who pitched for Syracuse, and put him in touch with Zorrilla, who signed the pitcher. Each PRWL team was allowed eight “imports,” normally stateside players. Quality imports could make the difference between winning a title or not qualifying for the postseason.

Clemente’s first outfield start was at Escobar Stadium against the visiting Mayagüez Indians on October 22. From left field, he watched Ted Williams throw out the first pitch from the mound, next to Zorrilla and starting pitcher Holloman. Williams was available for the occasion during a break from doing joint maneuvers between Vieques and Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Ceiba.11

Holloman (15-5) and Rubén Gómez (13-9) accounted for two-thirds of Santurce’s wins in the team’s second-place (42-30) finish, three games behind San Juan. Santurce beat the Ponce Lions in three straight semifinal series contests before defeating San Juan, four games to two, in the finals. Clemente sat on the bench throughout these playoffs but met Jackie Robinson prior to Game Five of the final, when Robinson was in San Juan, and attended this February 14 contest.12

Santurce team officials left Clemente off the February 1953 Caribbean Series 22-player roster for the Havana round-robin event. Clemente was replaced by Caguas star Vic Power. “Roberto was still in high school [then],” recalled Power. “I was 25 and had been in the PRWL six seasons.”13 Santurce overwhelmed its opponents – the Havana Reds, Caracas Lions, and Panamá’s Chesterfield Smokers – in winning all six games, scoring 50 runs and committing two errors.14

FIRST-TO-WORST (1953-54)

Guigo Otero Suro, Zorrilla’s right-hand man with Santurce, tried to sign Ernie Banks and Ted Williams for the 1953-54 Crabbers. The Chicago Cubs did not allow Banks to play winter ball.15 Guigo attended the 1953 All-Star Game in Cincinnati and saw Williams throw out the first pitch before both took the same flight out of Cincinnati. Guigo asked Williams – back from his tour of duty in Korea – if he would consider playing for Santurce (1953-54) to stay sharp. “Williams asked me if there were good golf courses and fishing in Puerto Rico,” said Otero Suro. “I said yes to both … spoke with Fred Corcoran, Williams’s agent, by phone, in Pittsburgh.… Later that summer, a Pittsburgh radio station announced that Williams might play winter ball with Santurce!”16 The price tag for signing Williams would be $30,000, an unheard-of sum in the PRWL. Williams hit .407 with Boston (37-for-91) during August-September 1953 and did not sign a Santurce contract.

So Clemente earned the left-field job and appeared in 66 of Santurce’s 80 games. He batted a respectable .292 with 2 home runs and 27 RBIs.17 Santurce (32-48) finished fifth of five teams, 14 games behind first-place Caguas (46-34), which featured 19-year-old Hank Aaron. The Crabbers hit 20 homers in 80 games.18 Aaron and teammate Jim Rivera tied for the league lead with nine home runs apiece.19 Tom Lasorda (7-6, 3.60 ERA) and Rubén Gómez (5-6, 2.86) were Santurce’s best hurlers. Lasorda noted that “Clemente had a great attitude and was not hesitant to seek out the veterans’ advice.”20

Mickey Owen, the Caguas player-manager, wanted Clemente in his Caguas outfield. Owen’s left fielder, Juan “Tetelo” Vargas, was 47 years old, with Luis Olmo in reserve. “Aaron and Clemente would have been something else,” mused Owen. “We had the veteran Olmo as trade bait for Clemente, but a deal [with Santurce] couldn’t be worked out.”21 After Caguas emerged as playoff champion, the team’s management considered adding Clemente to its February 1954 Caribbean Series roster when Aaron departed to the States. Instead, the Criollos added Mayagüez’s Carlos Bernier. Owen vouched for Clemente but was overruled by Caguas’s owner and GM.22

Caguas (4-2 W-L) won the four-team event at Escobar Stadium. First baseman Vic Power and a San Juan reinforcement, second baseman Jack Cassini, produced for Caguas, as did series MVP Jim Rivera. Cassini, Clemente’s teammate with the 1954 Montreal Royals, opined that “Clemente had the makings of a future big-league star, as a 19-year-old, with Santurce.”23 Coincidentally, Clemente began wearing number 21 in the PRWL in 1953-54, as a gesture to honor his parents, Melchor Clemente and Luisa Walker.24 Roberto Clemente Walker has 21 letters; it is a common practice in Puerto Rico to list paternal and maternal surnames.

Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Buster Clarkson, Bob Thurman, and George Crowe on a winter league dream team. (Courtesy of Jorge Colón Delgado.)

Roberto Clemente in action at Caguas in the 1956-57 season. (Courtesy of Jorge Colón Delgado.)

• Related Link: Click here to read Part II of this article on Roberto Clemente’s Puerto Rico winter league career.

Click here to read Part I of this article on Roberto Clemente’s Puerto Rico winter league career.

Roberto Clemente with San Juan in 1959. (Courtesy of Thomas Van Hyning.)

In August 1959, Roberto Clemente was traded from Caguas of the Puerto Rico Winter League to San Juan, with Canenita Allen and José “Palillo” Santiago for minor-league outfielders Herminio Cortés, Rafael Sálamo, and $30,000.1 Cortés played for York and Sálamo with Sioux City in the low minors. Allen insisted he was an “insurance policy” in case Clemente rested that winter.2 Caguas coveted Cortés; he led the 1958-59 San Juan Senators in batting average (.291) and homers (10).3 José M. Rivera, president of the San Juan club, officially accepted this trade via an August 15, 1959, letter to league President Carlos García de la Noceda.4 A month later, Clemente signed his San Juan contract for $800 per month plus $200 per month for expenses.5

DEVOTED SAN JUAN SENATORS AND MONTE IRVIN FAN

Clemente idolized Monte Irvin, San Juan’s superstar in 1945-47. He traveled from Carolina to Sixto Escobar Stadium by public transportation to see Irvin play. After 1945-46 early season games, Clemente waited for Irvin to come out of the ballpark so he could have a close glimpse of his favorite ballplayer.6 As the season progressed, Clemente made an impression on Irvin outside the ballpark before San Juan games. Irvin told M​LB.​com’s Tom Singer, “There’d be youngsters hanging around, and we’d let kids carry our bags to get in the park for free. Roberto and Orlando Cepeda, they were always there together.… Clemente always told me he developed a throwing arm like mine because he’d always admired the way I threw the ball.”7

Clemente once told Freddie Thon Jr. that he was “a big fan of my dad (Freddie Thon Sr.) and Monte Irvin, and always rooted for San Juan.”8 (Thon Sr. was San Juan’s right fielder in 1945-47 and a starting pitcher in 1940-42, during Irvin’s first two seasons with the Senators.) After a Clemente season with Pittsburgh, he would bring in a large amount of suits, pants, and shirts for cleaning at Freddie Thon Cleaners, located in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, before expanding to other locations.9

SPLENDID 1959-60 SEASON

A 25-year-old Clemente wore number 21 for the 1959-60 Senators, managed by Nino Escalera. They became close friends and developed a bond, which lasted until Clemente’s untimely passing.10 “Roberto and I were PRWL rivals in the 1950s but this changed when I managed him [1959-60] and was his San Juan teammate,” noted Escalera. “We thought alike when it came to baseball strategy and looked out for each other.… He was a younger brother to me.”11 (Palillo Santiago gave the author a ride to Escalera’s home and indicated that the 1959-60 San Juan team chemistry was outstanding.)12

Clemente’s .330 batting average in the 1959-60 season trailed Caguas’s Vic Power (.347) and Mayagüez’s Ramón Conde (.336). Power remembered Clemente playing with a bad back. “Even though he played hurt, Roberto toiled with pride and was a winner,” said Power. “Because of his bad back I wasn’t sure Roberto was going to be the superstar he became from 1960 on, but (I) felt he would always give his best effort.”13

Clemente’s hustle was evident; his six triples trailed Escalera’s league-leading seven, and surpassed the five hit by Mayagüez’s Ray Barker and San Juan teammate Carlos Bernier.14 San Juan games were broadcast on the radio in English and Spanish thanks to businessman Bob Leith Sr. Phil Rizzuto broadcast the games in English, while Luis Olmo did Spanish transmissions – the first time in Puerto Rico’s baseball history that radio broadcasts were carried in both languages.15 “It didn’t take Phil long to realize this was a hotbed of baseball down here,” said Leith. “Olmo did a great job, too, with the Spanish version.”16 Olmo added, “I enjoyed covering Roberto’s exploits from the booth. He was a more complete player than he was with Santurce, mid-1950s.”17

San Juan (41-23) edged Caguas (39-24) for the pennant and upended Mayagüez in a six-game semifinal series. Caguas bested Santurce and then knocked off San Juan, five games to one, to qualify for the February 1960 Caribbean Series in Panamá.

A 1960-61 TITLE AND INTER-AMERICAN SERIES IN CARACAS, VENEZUELA

Bob Leith Sr., San Juan’s new owner, forgot to send player contracts out by the deadline. All San Juan players were technically free agents, which drew the attention of the press and radio stations. Clemente, via Pittsburgh, came through like a true pro. Leith remembered their phone conversation. “Forget about it,” said Clemente. “I’ll sign for the same amount I made last year, $1,000 per month.”18 The contract was signed by all parties on December 15, 1960.19

Clemente was everybody’s hero in Puerto Rico after Pittsburgh won the 1960 World Series. He took the first half (32 games) off, before playing the second half, one where San Juan (23-9) qualified for the finals after a 16-16 first-half.20 The Senators and Caguas Criollos again faced off in a best-of-nine final. San Juan emerged victorious, winning five games and losing three.

In 29 games, Clemente went 31-for-109, a .284 batting average. Canenita Allen played right field in the first half. Luis Arroyo, Clemente’s friend, won 10 games and league MVP honors. Lefty hurler Jim Archer noticed Clemente’s leadership qualities. “Clemente drove us to win that second half,” Archer declared. “He was a superstar and set a positive example for all.”21 Horace Clarke, a San Juan utility infielder, remembered Clemente being “nice to all the young San Juan players.”22

Luman Harris, a Baltimore Orioles coach, managed San Juan. Lee MacPhail Jr., Baltimore’s GM/president, agreed to send Orioles prospects to San Juan, including Jerry Adair, Jack Fisher, and Wes Stock.23 Leith’s friendship with Rizzuto brought him in contact with MacPhail. Leith recalled how Brooks Robinson interrupted a meeting in Baltimore between Leith and MacPhail and tried to pass as a rookie. Robinson played in Colombia and Cuba from the mid- to late 1950s and enjoyed it.

In Game One of the finals, on February 1, 1961, Clemente, in right field, witnessed a 536-foot homer hit by Frank Howard off Jack Fisher at Sixto Escobar Stadium, which was shared by the Senators and Santurce. Howard’s homer was the second longest in PRWL history, after one estimated at 600 feet by Josh Gibson for Santurce on March 1, 1942.24

San Juan, reinforced by Orlando Cepeda and Juan Pizarro from Santurce, traveled to Caracas for a four-team Inter-American Series, arranged due to the political situation in Cuba. Clemente solved a tense situation when San Juan’s stateside imports wanted more money to play in Venezuela. “Clemente told me, ‘Bob, let me handle this,’” said Leith. “So he closed the door to our dressing room and reminded [the imports] that their contract said they get the same salary for playing in the Inter-American Series as they got in Puerto Rico.… If anyone refused to honor their contract, he would be the first one to call [Commissioner] Ford Frick.” Leith called this 10-minute episode the shortest strike in baseball history. No one argued with Clemente.25

San Juan was blanked twice by Bob Gibson of the Valencia Industrialists, series champs from Venezuela. The second was a 1-0 gem.26 Leith recalled Clemente’s reaction to seeing Gibson warming up before his first start versus San Juan. “Clemente says to me, ‘We’re in trouble. ‘I say, ‘Why?’ ‘You see that pitcher warming up [per Clemente]? Well, he throws aspirins!’”27

MEL STEINER RHUBARB, 1961-62

On October 23, 1961, Clemente, Orlando Cepeda, and Luis Arroyo were welcomed to the Governor’s Mansion (La Fortaleza) and recognized by Governor Luis Muñoz Marín for 1961 major-league accomplishments, including Clemente’s batting title.28 San Juan was languishing in fifth, at 23-33, in the 80-game season. Senators fans clamored for the 1961 National League batting champ to play. Canenita Allen did his best, but Clemente’s return helped San Juan win 18 of 24 contests to tie Arecibo for fourth. Clemente went 18-for-66, a .273 batting average.29

The one-game playoff was at Sixto Escobar Stadium on January 23, 1962, the final regular-season game there. (New Hiram Bithorn Stadium opened in 1962-63.) Clemente played some center field for San Juan. Prior to the one-game playoff, Arecibo beat San Juan thanks to a bases-loaded double by rookie Art López, who felt he “had a future in baseball” after this double – which Clemente could not catch – with key implications for his career.30

Arecibo’s Phil Niekro was removed early in the tiebreaker by skipper Luis Olmo. Clemente batted against Claude Raymond with the bases loaded in the second inning of a game tied, 3-3. Germán Rivera, Arecibo’s shortstop, recalled: “Roberto bounced one up the middle on a 3-and-2 pitch. We got the force and there was a close play at first base and umpire Mel Steiner called him out. Nino and Napoleón Reyes [San Juan’s manager] came up to Steiner and there were punches thrown. I intervened and tried to break up the fight.”31 In the mêlée, Steiner suffered torn ligaments in his left arm and a shoulder sprain. Escalera claimed Steiner had his hand up with the “out” sign before the ball reached first base. “I was willing to go back on the field when Steiner sarcastically told Reyes, our Cuban manager, to go back to Cuba. I told Reyes he should not take this and then it happened – Reyes bumped Steiner with his huge belly.…32

Arecibo won the game. According to Clemente’s version, made public several days later, Tommie Aaron did not tag him or have his foot on the base. “Steiner’s angle was not a good one. I argued the call, but my teammate Chico Ruiz grabbed me to keep Steiner from giving me the heave. If I had said something vulgar or even hit Steiner, he would have thumbed me out of the game.”33

A hearing was held, attended by game umpires Doug Harvey, Paul Pryor, and Steiner, and Clemente, Escalera, and Reyes. Escalera was fined $50 and suspended for the first 10 games of the 1962-63 season. Reyes got a $100 fine and a three-week suspension to start 1962-63. Clemente was exonerated.34 He managed the Rio Piedras Cardinals (Goya) Double-A amateur team in February 1963 due to his friendship with team official Caguitas Colón and compiled a 4-2 won-loss month.35

BATTING CHASE WITH TONY OLIVA (1963-64) AND NICARAGUA INTER-AMERICAN SERIES

Clemente’s .345 average (61-for-177) trailed Arecibo’s Tony Oliva (.365) and Ponce’s Walt Bond (.349).36 Arecibo’s Art López (.337) and San Juan’s Jerry McNertney (.333) finished fourth and fifth. San Juan, 15-22 on December 4, 1963,37 won 20 of its final 33 games. Les Moss replaced Joe Buzas and piloted the club to the title. San Juan had a Chicago White Sox flavor with catcher McNertney, infielders Don Buford, Deacon Jones, and Marv Staehle, and pitchers Joel Horlen and Fritz Ackley. Palillo Santiago opined that a good chemistry developed between these White Sox prospects, Clemente, and others, beyond a typical “working agreement” between Chicago and San Juan.38 McNertney saw a hitter in batting practice driving bullets into the outfield of Hiram Bithorn Stadium. He asked one teammate about the hitter, who was wearing uniform number 21. (McNertney had just replaced John Bateman on the roster.) “Clemente played every winter game hard – to win,” recalled McNertney. “He played 150-plus big-league games, plus spring training. It had to be tough for him even though it was in front of his home fans. To see him come there and work so hard was very impressive.39

Staehle noticed that San Juan fans lit matches one night during a postseason game. He looked over to Cocó Laboy, playing third, and asked him what was going on. Laboy replied, “A funeral. We’re burying them and they’re holding a funeral.”40 Staehle asserted that Clemente never forgot where he came from. “His people were first, and he played because of that. He didn’t need to play; he loved the people over there and that’s why he played. I speak proudly that I was a teammate of his.”41

Clemente made $700 a month in 1963-64, plus $200 a month for expenses.42 His highest PRWL salary was $1,000 a month, according to Table I, and $500 per month (1969-70) was his top compensation for travel, food, and related expenses.43

Third-place San Juan (35-35) disposed of second-place Ponce (36-34) four games to two in the semifinals and then beat fourth-place Mayagüez, in a five-game final.44 Palillo Santiago recalled Clemente’s best 1963-64 catch.

“In the finals against Mayagüez, I had a one-run lead with two outs in the ninth. Boog Powell was at the plate. I threw him a fastball. It was 420 feet to dead center in Mayagüez and quite dark. The lights weren’t too bright in that part of the stadium. Powell got hold of it, but Clemente was playing in center. He turned around, slid into the fence. It must have been dead quiet for five minutes, when he caught the ball with his back facing the infield. The game was over.”45

The Senators traveled to Managua, Nicaragua, for the February 1964 Inter-American Series. San Juan reinforced itself with Cepeda, Pizarro, José Pagán, Horace Clarke, and Conde, but split six games, losing twice to Cinco Estrellas (5-1 record), one of two Nicaraguan teams.

Clemente went 7-for-19 (.368 batting average) with three RBIs.46 He also lost a fly ball in the sun during one game and raced away from a native reptile in another when a fan in the bleachers threw a huge iguana toward Clemente, in right, and he bolted to the dugout. Palillo Santiago affirmed that Nicaraguan soldiers bearing rifles were stationed in the dugout for some games. Clemente, though, was a fan favorite and made a lot of friends. “What an irony,” noted Santiago. “This experience is transformed into a mission to help the people of Nicaragua and history tells us what Roberto Clemente did for that country.”47 Art López, who reinforced Cinco Estrellas, scored the winning run in the final game versus San Juan on a sacrifice fly by Leo Posada. “We did the little things to win,” said López. “I admired Clemente but felt vindicated after finding out the Puerto Rico sportswriters left me off the final All-Star Team in the PRWL.… Should have been on it with Clemente and Oliva.”48

PLAYER-MANAGER (1964-65)

San Juan (34-36) finished fourth under Cal Ermer, and player-manager Clemente. Ermer noted that San Juan’s brass wanted Clemente to manage so he would play on an everyday basis. He attended Clemente’s November 14, 1964, wedding, and liked him a lot. “Roberto had just started playing and we lost a tough doubleheader,” said Ermer. “The owners asked me to resign, but I told them, ‘I didn’t come here to resign, so put it in the paper and fire me.’ Clemente was always hustling and played hard just like in the States. The first game he managed, he got hurt.”49

Ermer was fired on December 21, 1964, by GM Pepe Seda.50 As manager, Clemente was 9-12.51 He played in 14 games and hit .385 (15-for-39), with three doubles, two triples, two homers, seven RBIs, and a .718 slugging percentage.52 His managerial debut against Mayagüez and star pitcher Dennis McLain featured two doubles and a pair of RBIs, but he twisted his left ankle on the second double and took himself out of the lineup for a few games. His first managerial win came on December 27 in game two of a twin bill against Arecibo. “I’m only doing this [managing] until they get someone else,” stated Clemente.53

A night was held in Clemente’s honor on December 30 when Ponce visited San Juan. He received trophies from the Senators’ board of directors and three Santurce fans. Ponce owner Yuyo González presented him with a plaque.54

Don Buford led San Juan regulars in hitting and developed a fine rapport with Clemente. Suffering from a bad knee, Buford accompanied Clemente on visits to a chiropractor. Buford remembered how managing responsibilities caused a little added pressure on Clemente, but he was very loose, in a sense, and did not interfere with his players. “A typical Clemente pep talk was, ‘You guys know how to play; stay fundamentally sound and we’ll be OK,’” said Buford. “It wasn’t like Clemente had the San Juan players do additional things.”55

Clemente inserted Canenita Allen in right while he recuperated from a lawn-mowing accident at his home after a sharp rock hit him on the thigh. Clemente felt better by January 6 and suited up for the Latin American team in the all-star game, and singled as a pinch-hitter for skipper Olmo, but his upper thigh ligament had been partially severed and was held together by a thin strand. After treatment, Clemente told a reporter, “The doctor told me that it will take some time for the injury to heal. Rest for now.…”56

In the semifinals, Santurce (41-28) upended San Juan in six games. Marv Staehle, now with Santurce, conversed with Clemente and recalled that Roberto and coach José “Pantalones” Santiago were focused, personable, and friendly.57 Rubén Gómez won the final game in relief when Tony Pérez drilled a three-run homer in the 10th. “I played against Roberto in Puerto Rico and the National League, and with him on [National League] All-Star teams, said Pérez. “That [1964-65] playoff homer for Santurce was special – Roberto was in the other dugout.”58

Tommie Sisk blanked Santurce in Game Two after refusing a $1,500 offer by Águilas Cibaeñas (Dominican Republic club) to pitch in a Caracas four-team tournament. He was impressed by Clemente’s courage, leadership ability, and playing skills. (Sisk’s locker was next to Clemente’s his six years in Pittsburgh.) “Bobby was very proud of being a Puerto Rican. He never did anything dishonorable to his country. We were very good friends.… He was the best ballplayer I ever saw. I was in Puerto Rico to work on certain things and don’t ever remember being as tired from playing the game on a year-round basis.”59

A TWO-YEAR SABBATICAL (1965-67)

Clemente had two pinch-hit at-bats for the 1965-66 Senators and did not play in 1966-67. Joe Hoerner, Clemente’s San Juan teammate in 1963-65, said the fifth-place Senators (31-39 in 1965-66) missed Roberto’s presence in the 1965-66 season. “We had Sam Bowens in right, Jesús Alou in center and Danny Cater in left. The White Sox sent Duane Josephson and Tommy John to our club.”60

(The author attended a Clemente baseball clinic at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in late 1966. Clemente illustrated hitting techniques and baserunning tips, and shared stories. Participants kept a certain distance from him when he took batting practice. The author’s father (Sam, economic adviser to the governor with FOMENTO) mentioned a 1966 Clemente visit to La Fortaleza, the governor’s mansion, related to him by island Governor Roberto Sánchez Vilella. Clemente was particularly interested in Puerto Rico’s vibrant economy.61 “Clemente was very intelligent,” recalled Sam J. Van Hyning. “Sánchez Vilella said that Clemente, then in his early 30s, covered technical topics and asked probing questions.”62

Sam and the author saw Clemente play a spring-training game for Pittsburgh vs. the New York Yankees at Bithorn Stadium on April 2, 1967. Juan Pizarro started for Pittsburgh, giving this game a Santurce-San Juan flavor.)

DON ZIMMER REUNION (1967-68)

In 1967-68, Clemente joined the Senators after Don Zimmer replaced Preston Gómez as San Juan’s skipper. Archrival Santurce, managed by Earl Weaver, had a working agreement with the Baltimore Orioles. Santurce (47-22) won the regular season over Caguas (43-27), San Juan (36-34), Ponce (34-36), Arecibo (28-41), and Mayagüez (21-49). Zimmer was fired by GM Tuto Saavedra on December 15, 1967, and replaced by coach Pantalones Santiago.63 Zimmer enjoyed living at the La Rada Hotel in the Condado section of Santurce and managing future Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Clemente. “I appreciated Roberto,” reminisced Zimmer. “We were [Santurce] teammates in the mid-1950s. The San Juan-Santurce rivalry was like the Red Sox-Yankees.”64 Clemente’s debut on December 3, 1967, was a four-hit effort, including a homer, vs. Arecibo.65 A week later, Pat Dobson fanned 21 Arecibo hitters to set a league nine-inning mark.66 Bench caught, and Clemente saw very little action in right.

Prior to a Caguas-San Juan contest at Bithorn Stadium, Pirates GM Joe L. Brown made a surprise visit to the visitors’ clubhouse. Brown introduced himself and told Caguas’s Art López about a potential incentive to join the Bucs organization at the Triple-A level in 1968. Per López, Brown said, “If you have a good year at Columbus, we split the Rule 5 Draft amount – half of $25,000 or $50,000 – if you are selected by another team.”67 López replied, “I appreciate you and Roberto [Clemente], but I’m going to Japan.” Brown shook López’s hand and left, but López “was forever grateful to him and Roberto – who must have put in a good word for me – for their kindness.”68

Clemente’s .382 batting average (26-for-68) and .629 slugging percentage69 placed him on the league all-star team, along with four teammates, Bench, Tony González, Lee May, and Tony Taylor, who spoke for his Cuban countrymen when he called Roberto “The Great One.”70 May emphasized that Clemente helped him in his baseball thinking. “I would try to apply some of Roberto’s ideas to my game,” he said. Clemente’s hospitality during the holidays made an impact on May as well. “They showed us a good time and I’ll always be thankful to Roberto and his wife [Vera].”71 Ted Savage, a Caguas outfielder, remembered Clemente as “the kind of guy who would take you home and feed you – a baseball player’s baseball player.”72

Caguas, managed by Nino Escalera, topped San Juan, four games to one, in the semifinals. Escalera managed Clemente in the January 1 all-star game, on the native team.73 From February 8 to 15, Clemente was in Caracas, for a weeklong exhibition series. The 18-player Puerto Rico contingent comprised 16 Puerto Ricans and two US Virgin Islanders (Joe Christopher and Elrod Hendricks), natives for PRWL purposes.74

COT DEAL MANAGES CLEMENTE (1969-70) AND SPECIAL WINTER MEETING

Clemente rested during the 1968-69 winter, while Sparky Anderson managed San Juan. Pedrín Zorrilla was introduced as San Juan’s 1969-70 GM at a March 13, 1969, press conference.75 Zorrilla signed Cot Deal, who played against Clemente in 1952-54, to manage the Senators. Deal cherished managing Clemente. “Roberto made a statement to a friend from Puerto Rico, stating, ‘I’ve never played for a manager that I enjoyed playing for more.’”76 San Juan (33-36) missed the postseason by one game. In 38 games, Clemente, was 40-for-135, a .296 batting average. Teammate Thurman Munson batted .333.77 Clemente told Munson, “If you hit under .280, it should be considered a bad season.”78

The December 13-14 annual winter meeting of the Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Board was held at the Sheraton Hotel in the Condado. Clemente represented Pittsburgh as the Pirates player rep – the first Latino/Caribbean native to be one. He showed his support for Curt Flood, a special guest.79 Luis R. Mayoral noted that Clemente “was an intellectual – could have had a track and field scholarship (javelin) at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus; had the know-how to do front-office work for a big-league club … but never had it in him to be a long-term manager.”80

CLEMENTE TAKES SAN JUAN’S REINS (1970-71)

“San Juan owner Mario ‘Mayito’ Nevárez asked Clemente to manage San Juan as a favor,” affirmed Mayoral.81 Nino Escalera was at home in July 1970 when Clemente called him from Pittsburgh, and asked his old friend to join San Juan as a coach, adding, “Escalera could have the position for 1971-72.”82 Clemente’s other coach was Clemente “Sungo” Carrera. During a preseason team workout, Escalera, complaining of severe back pains, was unable to do his coaching. Clemente gave Escalera a massage, one which completely solved this back problem the rest of Escalera’s life.83

Clemente and Frank Robinson, Santurce’s skipper, took their lineup cards to home plate just before the October 22, 1970, season opener at Bithorn Stadium. Bacardí Rum was the team’s corporate sponsor. Nearly 20,000 paying fans (full seating capacity was 19,979) were in the stands when a power failure delayed the game’s start for two hours. By the time San Juan’s Ken Brett threw the opening pitch, the crowd had swelled to roughly 25,000 rabid souls.84

Brett commented on Clemente: “We loved him. There were times he would get frustrated because we didn’t play at the level he expected us to play. I’ll never forget the time he decided to play to prove his points. He was a hero down there; the people went crazy and it helped attendance.”85 Brett (8-3, 3.00 ERA) was Clemente’s ace. Brett and Jim Lonborg (2-3, 4.93) were encouraged to pitch for San Juan by Palillo Santiago (5-1, 3.35). “Lonborg [and Brett] thought this was a good idea and so did Boston,” noted Santiago. “We shared some good times.… Lonborg wasn’t completely recovered from his (skiing) injury, but began showing signs of improvement.”86

Clemente counted on Pittsburgh prospects Dave Cash, Al Oliver, and Manny Sanguillén. All played well for Clemente, but Cash and Oliver returned to the States before the postseason. Shortstop Freddie Patek hit exceptionally well (.338, 136 at-bats) when Clemente informed Patek on December 2, 1970, that Pittsburgh had traded him to the Kansas City Royals.87 Patek returned to the States. Ken Singleton was Clemente’s most consistent hitter, with a .300 batting average, 6 home runs, and 38 RBIs.88 Singleton appreciated Clemente’s advice and hospitality.89 He elaborated: “Roberto Clemente was a true professional who gave me valuable advice on baseball and life within it. I’ll never forget his views on discipline, concentration, dedication, and setting high goals, and by season’s end, I would be pleasantly surprised by my accomplishments.”90

The January 6, 1971, all-star game pitted Clemente’s natives against Frank Robinson’s imports. Special guest Marvin Miller threw out the first pitch. The natives prevailed 4-1, giving Clemente a 1-0 managing record in these contests.91 On January 16 Clemente doubled off Mayagüez’s Juan Veintidós for his final PRWL regular-season hit and only one in 1970-71, in four at-bats.92

Second-place San Juan (37-30) faced off against third-place (37-32) Santurce in the semifinals, won by the Crabbers, four games to two. Clemente’s clutch two-run pinch-hit single helped San Juan win Game Three, on January 22.93 Game Five featured Clemente hitting third, on January 25. Juan Pizarro faced San Juan’s Jim Colborn. Santurce led 1-0 in the top of the fourth, when Clemente and Sanguillén singled, putting runners on first and third. Singleton flied to Reggie Jackson, the league home-run champion, in right. Jackson’s best throw of the season nailed Clemente at home, and kept San Juan from a big rally.94 Santurce won, 2-1.

Ken Brett, voted the left-handed pitcher on the final 1970-71 league all-star team, felt Clemente’s managing inexperience showed in terms of running a game. “He was a wonderful man and a great player, but as far as running a game, he didn’t do a great job. He had a very short temper at times about the way we played, because, let’s face it, he took it very seriously. It was his team, and he was going to get credit or the blame for how the team played. As a result of our lackluster play at times, he got very mad at us and the guys would put towels over their faces and kind of laugh a bit – not at him [but] as a reaction to what was happening.”95

Frank Robinson watched Clemente’s growth as a major leaguer from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. “I really can’t judge him as a manager,” Robinson said. “But with some more experience [he] would have made an outstanding major-league manager.”96

Coincidentally, Santurce Crabbers fans rooted for Frank Robinson and the 1971 Baltimore Orioles in their World Series versus Pittsburgh. Puerto Rico’s baseball aficionados identified with their Winter League team, when following a big-league club. Santurce’s working agreement with Baltimore, 1966 to 1972, was the impetus behind Crabbers fans cheering for Baltimore. Conversely, San Juan Senators fans of the early 1970s closely followed Pittsburgh, due to Clemente and various Pirates who reinforced the Senators in that era. Historian Jorge Colón Delgado confirmed this: “Our fans [then] closely followed their favorite Winter League teams,” noted Colón Delgado. “Now, they follow MLB teams, with players from Puerto Rico on their roster.”97

With San Juan, Clemente played nine winter seasons, posting a .323 batting average (263 hits in 815 at-bats), 45 doubles, 12 triples, 18 homers, 139 RBIs, and a .466 slugging percentage. He scored 129 runs and stole 23 bases.98 Clemente’s lifetime .324 PRWL batting average (621-for-1,917) is fourth-best, behind Willard Brown (.350), Francisco “Pancho” Coímbre (.337), and Pedro “Perucho” Cepeda (.325).99 Clemente’s regular-season managing record with San Juan was 46-42, plus 4-8 in the postseason, or 50-50 overall.

BILL VIRDON AND JON MATLACK REMEMBER CLEMENTE FROM 1971-72

Bill Virdon managed the 39-30 Senators to a pennant and final series appearance versus Ponce. Virdon’s respect for Clemente never wavered: “I saw him quite often in Puerto Rico,” said Virdon. “Roberto would come to some of our games. He was an exceptional human being – very articulate, very sharp, very smart. I can’t say enough about Roberto as a teammate, someone who I coached and managed.”100

Jon Matlack, his wife, other San Juan imports, e.g., Bob Johnson, Bruce Kison, Milt May, Rennie Stennett, and Richie Zisk, were invited to Clemente’s Trujillo Alto home. Matlack had “vivid memories of the 1971-72 PRWL season and visit to the Clemente home.”101

1972 AMATEUR WORLD SERIES AND PRWL NAME CHANGE

Clemente managed Puerto Rico to a 9-6 record (sixth-place tie) in the 16-team XX Amateur World Series hosted by Managua, Nicaragua, November 15-December 5, 1972. Dennis Martínez, a 17-year-old hurler with Bronze Medal Nicaragua, noted: “Roberto Clemente has served as an inspiration to me since my days as an amateur baseball player in Nicaragua. He is the reason why I devote so much time and energy to charitable work for youth.”102

On May 18, 2012, the PRWL officially changed its name to Roberto Clemente Professional Baseball League (Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente).103 Circling back to Clemente’s October 20, 1991, induction into the Puerto Rico Professional Baseball Hall of Fame, his widow, Vera, told the author: “Roberto played just as hard in Puerto Rico as in the majors. He felt very strongly about pleasing the local fans and did not want to let them down.”104

Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment to Marcial “Canenita” Allen, Jim Archer, Luis “Tite” Arroyo, Ken Brett, Don Buford, Orlando Cepeda, Horace Clarke, Vera Clemente, José Crescioni Benítez, Cot Deal, Cal Ermer, Nino Escalera, Rubén Gómez, Bob Leith Sr., Art López, Jorge Fidel López Vélez, Jerry McNertney, Lee MacPhail Jr., Dennis Martínez, Jon Matlack, Lee May, Luis R. Mayoral, Luis R. Olmo, Tony Pérez, Juan “Terín” Pizarro, Vic Power, Raúl Ramos, Germán Rivera, Frank Robinson, José “Palillo” Santiago, Ted Savage, Ken Singleton, Tommie Sisk, Marv Staehle, Tony Taylor, Freddie Thon Jr., Bill Virdon and Don Zimmer, for phone/in-person interviews, text messages, Facebook messenger, and emails. Jorge Colón Delgado—Official Historian, Roberto Clemente Professional Baseball League—provided Clemente’s PRWL stats and uncovered his final PRWL regular-season hit. Stew Thornley wrote Clemente’s SABR bio.

Notes

1 José “Palillo” Santiago in-person interview with Tom Van Hyning, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 30, 1992. All in-person interviews, letters, emails, Facebook messenger and phone calls cited are between the subjects and the author.

2 Marcial “Canenita” Allen in-person interview, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, December 15, 1991.

3 Roberto Inclán, Senadores de San Juan, 1938-39 al 1982-83 (San Juan, Puerto Rico: San Juan Baseball Club, 1983), 25.

4 Jorge Fidel López Vélez, Roberto Clemente: “El astro boricua” (Colombia: Editorial Nomos S.A., 2019), 102.

5 López Vélez, Roberto Clemente: “El astro boricua” (Colombia: Editorial Nomos S.A., 2019), 104-106.

6 Luis Rodríguez Mayoral, Roberto Clemente aún escucha las ovaciones (Hato Rey, Puerto Rico: Ramallo Brothers Printing, 1987), 64.

7 Bill Ladson, “Monte Irvin Was Close to Breaking Color Barrier,” m​lb.​com, April 29, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/a​-look​-at-m​onte-​irv​in. Accessed September 19, 2021.

8 Freddie Thon Jr. via Facebook messenger, September 19, 2021.

9 Thon Jr. via Facebook messenger, September 19, 2021. Thon Cleaners was originally a partnership between Hiram Bithorn and Thon Sr. The latter bought out Virginia Bithorn after her husband died. The company once had a dozen vans and drivers who could do pickups at customers’ homes.

10 Tony Oliver, Nino Escalera SABR biography, h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/biop​roj/p​erson​/nino​-esca​lera/. Accessed September 9, 2021.

11 Nino Escalera in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 30, 1992.

12 José “Palillo” Santiago conversation, en route to Escalera’s home, December 30, 1992.

13 Vic Power in-person interview, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, December 28, 1991.

14 José A. Crescioni Benítez, El Béisbol Profesional Boricua (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Aurora Comunicación Integral, September 1997), 99.

15 The Sporting News, October 21, 1959: 26.

16 Bob Leith Sr. in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 28, 1992.

17 Luis R. Olmo in-person interview, Santurce, Puerto Rico, December 1, 1993.

18 Leith in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 28, 1992. Leith mentioned a $1,500 figure, but the actual signed contract was for $1,000, including expenses.

19 López Vélez, Roberto Clemente: “El astro boricua” (Colombia: Editorial Nomos S.A., 2019), 112-114.

20 Inclán, 27.

21 Jim Archer phone interview, October 27, 1992.

22 Horace Clarke phone interview, February 1, 1993.

23 Lee MacPhail Jr. letter, February 2, 2011. MacPhail was a high-school and Swarthmore College classmate of the author’s mother, Paula S. Van Hyning, and remembered her.

24 El Mundo, March 3, 1942; Thomas E. Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers: Sixty Seasons of Puerto Rican Winter League Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1999), 16. Freddie Thon Jr., father of Dickie Thon, witnessed this blast.

25 Bob Leith Sr. in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 28, 1992.

26 The Sporting News, February 22, 1961: 27.

27 Leith in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 28, 1992.

28 El Mundo, October 24, 1961.

29 h​ttps:​//www​.beis​bol10​1.com​/robe​rto-c​lemen​te-​3/. Accessed September 16, 2021.

30 Art López phone interview, April 15, 2021.

31 Germán Rivera in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 29, 1992.

32 Nino Escalera in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 30, 1992.

33 El Mundo, January 26, 1962.

34 San Juan Star, February 4, 1962.

35 Phone conversation with Jorge Fidel López Vélez, September 23, 2021.

36 José A. Crescioni Benítez, El Béisbol Profesional Boricua (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Aurora Comunicación Integral, September 1997), 107.

37 The Sporting News, December 14, 1963: 28.

38 José “Palillo” Santiago in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 30, 1992.

39 Jerry McNertney phone interview, November 14, 1991.

40 Marv Staehle phone interview, December 5, 1991.

41 Marv Staehle phone interview, December 5, 1991.

42 López Vélez, Roberto Clemente: “El astro boricua” (Colombia: Editorial Nomos S.A., 2019), 133-135.

43 López Vélez, Roberto Clemente: “El astro boricua,” 176-178.

44 Inclán, Senadores de San Juan, 1938-39 al 1982-83, 32.

45 José “Palillo” Santiago speech inducting Roberto Clemente into the Puerto Rico Professional Baseball Hall of Fame, Ponce, Puerto Rico, October 20, 1991. Santiago was the master of ceremonies.

46 López Vélez, Roberto Clemente: “El astro boricua,” 142.

47 José “Palillo” Santiago conversation, en route to Nino Escalera’s home, December 30, 1992.

48 Art López phone interview, March 25, 2021. López received an offer from a colonel in the Nicaraguan Armed Forces, who flew to San Juan; and had López flown to Managua, Nicaragua. Tony Oliva reinforced the 1963-64 Licey Tigers, in the Dominican Republic, after the PRWL season ended. López, Oliva, and others could make extra money in other winter leagues. Clemente never opted to do this, when San Juan was eliminated from contention.

49 Cal Ermer phone interview, June 17, 1992.

50 The Sporting News, January 9, 1965: 24.

51 López Vélez, Roberto Clemente: “El astro boricua,” 212.

52 h​ttps:​//www​.beis​bol10​1.com​/robe​rto-c​lemen​te-​3/. Accessed September 20, 2021.

53 The Sporting News, January 9, 1965: 27.

54 Thomas E. Van Hyning, Puerto Rico’s Winter League: A History of Major League Baseball’s Launching Pad (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1995), 67.

55 Don Buford in-person interview, Binghamton (New York) Municipal Stadium, April 1992.

56 Van Hyning, Puerto Rico’s Winter League: A History of Major League Baseball’s Launching Pad, 67.

57 Marv Staehle phone interview, December 5, 1991. San Juan-Santurce was an intense rivalry but players, coaches, and managers conversed with each other before and after the games.

58 Tony Pérez in-person interview, Lake City, Florida, March 1993.

59 Tommie Sisk phone interview, October 27, 1991.

60 Joe Hoerner phone interview, December 5, 1991.

61 FOMENTO was Puerto Rico’s lead economic development agency. Its mission was to attract a variety of companies and industries to build Puerto Rico’s economic base.

62 Sam J. Van Hyning Jr. conversation with the author, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, December 1966. FOMENTO formulated “Operation Bootstrap” to transform the Island’s economy from an agrarian to an industrial one. Puerto Rico’s economy in the mid- to late 1960s, included good-paying jobs in the petrochemical industry, and numerous manufacturing plants benefiting from federal tax exemption.

63 The Sporting News, December 30, 1967: 47.

64 Don Zimmer in-person interview, Winter Haven, Florida, March 1992.

65 Miguel Frau, “Clemente Signals Return with a Four-Hit Barrage,” The Sporting News, December 16, 1967: 47.

66 The Sporting News, December 23, 1967: 47.

67 Art López email, March 13, 2021. h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/biop​roj/p​erson​/art-​lop​ez/. Accessed September 22, 2021.

68 Art López email, March 13, 2021. h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/biop​roj/p​erson​/art-​lopez/. Accessed September 22, 2021.

69 h​ttps:​//www​.beis​bol10​1.com​/robe​rto-c​lemen​te-​3/. Accessed September 22, 2021.

70 Tony Taylor in-person interview, Cocoa Expo Stadium, Florida, March 1993.

71 Lee May in-person interview, Baseball City, Florida, March 1992.

72 Ted Savage phone interview, May 14, 1992.

73 Miguel Frau, “Cepeda, Clemente Go Native for Annual All-Star Contest,” The Sporting News, January 6, 1968: 53.

74 López Vélez, Roberto Clemente: “El astro boricua,” 172-173.

75 Jorge Colón Delgado, Pedrín Zorrilla: El Cangrejo Mayor (Colombia: OP Gráficas, 2011), 445.

76 Ellis “Cot” Deal phone interview, October 28, 1991.

77 Estadísticas de Béisbol Profesional, Temporada 1969 (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Palo Viejo, October 1970), 22.

78 Jimmy Keenan and Frank Russo, Thurman Munson SABR biography, h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/biop​roj/p​erson​/thur​man-m​unson/. Accessed September 23, 2021.

79 David Maraniss, The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 230-233.

80 Luis R. Mayoral phone interview, September 2, 2021.

81 Luis R. Mayoral phone interview, September 2, 2021.

82 Nino Escalera in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 30, 1992.

83 Raúl Ramos phone conversation, September 22, 2021.

84 Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers: Sixty Seasons of Puerto Rican Winter League Baseball, 114.

85 Ken Brett phone interview, October 28, 1991.

86 José “Palillo” Santiago in-person interview, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 30, 1992.

87 Jeff Barto, Freddie Patek SABR biography, h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/biop​roj/p​erson​/fred​die-p​atek/. Accessed September 23, 2021.

88 Inclán, Senadores de San Juan, 1938-39 al 1982-83, 36.

89 Ken Singleton written responses to the author’s PRWL survey, November 1992.

90 Luis R. Mayoral, Ken Singleton: buen pelotero, gran narrador y mejor persona, October 3, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.beis​bol10​1.com​/ken-​singl​eton-​buen-​pelot​ero-g​ran-n​arrad​or-y-​mejor​-per​sona/. Accessed October 7, 2021. Singleton received the 1982 Roberto Clemente Award, the one he cherishes the most, per this blog.

91 Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers: Sixty Seasons of Puerto Rican Winter League Baseball, 116.

92 h​ttps:​//www​.beis​bol10​1.com​/robe​rto-c​lemen​te-​3/. Accessed September 23, 2021.

93 Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers: Sixty Seasons of Puerto Rican Winter League Baseball, 117.

94 El Mundo, January 26, 1971.

95 Ken Brett phone interview, October 28, 1991.

96 Frank Robinson in-person interview, Camden Yards, Baltimore, August 4, 1993.

97 Jorge Colón Delgado phone conversation, October 5, 2021.

98 h​ttps:​//www​.beis​bol10​1.com​/robe​rto-c​lemen​te-​3/. Accessed September 23, 2021.

99 h​ttps:​//www​.beis​bol10​1.com​/lide​res-d​e-tod​os-lo​s-tie​mpos/. Accessed September 23, 2021.

100 Bill Virdon in-person interview, Bradenton, Florida, March 1993.

101 Luis R. Mayoral Facebook post, June 20, 2021.

102 XX Campeonato Mundial de Béisbol Amateur, Managua, Nicaragua (1972), January 21, 2017. h​ttps:​//dep​ortes​ciney​otros​.com/​2017/​01/01​/xx-c​ampeo​nato-​mundi​al-de​-beis​bol-a​mateu​r-man​agua-​nicar​agua-​1972/. Accessed September 23, 2021; Dennis Martínez interview, West Palm Beach, Florida, March 1992. Cuba won Gold and the United States got Silver. Martínez was 1-1 with a 1.86 ERA in the 1972 Amateur World Series. h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/biop​roj/p​erson​/denn​is-ma​rti​nez/. Accessed September 28, 2021.

103 h​ttps:​//www​.prim​eraho​ra.co​m/dep​ortes​/beis​bol/n​otas/​nace-​la-li​ga-de​-beis​bol-p​rofes​ional​-robe​rto-c​lemen​te/. Accessed September 17, 2021.

104 Doña Vera viuda de Clemente in-person interview, Ponce, Puerto Rico, October 20, 1991.

Roberto Clemente speaks with reporters. (Les Banos photograph courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

In what turned out to be the last book of his illustrious career, Jimmy Breslin wrote a biography of Branch Rickey, focusing on his signing of Jackie Robinson and integration of baseball.

Breslin was himself a former sportswriter, most notably covering the New York Mets’ comically inept expansion season for the New York Journal-American, using it as fodder for a book, Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?1 In the Rickey biography, Breslin noted how unwilling or unable baseball writers were to advocate for integration, just as hidebound as the owners who paid for their meals and travel. “The Baseball Writers Association of America organization was a fake and a fraud,” Breslin wrote. “A shill as white as the Klan.”2 He noted that the BBWAA controlled press-box access, restricting it to daily newspapers – which perhaps not coincidentally, excluded the Black press, most of which were weekly newspapers.

It was into this world that Rickey brought Jackie Robinson in 1947, and it wasn’t much changed eight years later – almost to the day – when Roberto Clemente made his major-league debut. In some ways, it might have been even worse. While Robinson was college-educated and one of the first African Americans to attend Officer Candidate School during World War II, Clemente was a native of Puerto Rico with no more than a high-school education. Spanish was his first language, and initially, when he started playing professional baseball, his only one.

And that contributed to a mutually antagonistic relationship between Clemente and the press. The writers were only too happy to document his struggles with English and the reputation he earned – unfairly – as a hypochondriac and malingerer. He in turn had no interest in building any kind of relationship with the people who refused to recognize his greatness. It was a relationship that had only started to warm at his untimely death.

“The fans are good to me,” Clemente said in an Associated Press article in spring training in 1969. “Only the writers are bad.”3

Clemente was initially signed by the Dodgers, and it’s easy to wonder what his relationship with the press would have been like had he played his career in Brooklyn and then Los Angeles. “If he were playing in New York they’d be comparing him to DiMaggio,” said his former manager Bobby Bragan. “I would say his greatness is limited only by the fact that he does not hit the long ball consistently, and by the fact that he is not playing in New York, or even Chicago or Los Angeles.”4

But the Pirates found Clemente and claimed him in the Rule 5 draft, and he ended up in Pittsburgh, which was a pro sports wasteland at the time. The Steelers were the laughingstock of the NFL and the Pirates hadn’t won a pennant since they were swept by the Murderers’ Row Yankees in 1927. The Pirates of that era could be summed up with Branch Rickey’s riposte to slugger Ralph Kiner during contract negotiations: “We finished in last place with you. We can finish in last place without you.”

At the time, Pittsburgh had three daily newspapers, the Scripps-Howard Press, the Blocks’ Post-Gazette, and the Hearst Sun-Telegraph, then in its death throes. Les Biederman, the beat reporter for the Press, quoted Clemente phonetically, using “ees” for “is” and “dese” and “dose.” (Biederman also wrote for The Sporting News, so Clemente’s struggles with the language were spread to a national audience.)

Clemente was presented as a complainer, a player with a variety of aches and pains. He famously once said in spring training, “My bad shoulder feels good, but my good shoulder feels bad.” Some writers saw the humor in this, noting that the worse Clemente felt, the better he performed. Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray called Clemente “baseball’s Oscar Levant,” referring to the musician, actor, and all-around personality (ironically, himself a Pittsburgh native) who would complain about his various ailments, saying Clemente “had to have one foot in the Mayo Clinic before he could make a shambles of National League pitching.”5

But some writers saw more detrimental characteristics beyond the weariness of Clemente’s well-worn complaints. “Clemente’s a hypochondriac,” said Jack Hernon, who covered him for the Post-Gazette. “Always was. He can’t hit in the clutch; it’s a proven statistic. He’s always making excuses for something.”6

When Dick Stockton arrived at KDKA on his way to a national broadcasting career, he said Clemente was not a team player, a charge the outfielder found particularly distasteful – and he spelled out why in a spring-training tirade. “Did any ballplayer come up to you and say that I am not a team player? Who say that? The writers, right? Well I tell you one thing, the more I stay away from writers the better I am. You know why? Because they are trying to create a bad image for me. You know what they have against me? Because I am black and Puerto Rican.” He bore a grudge against Stockton for the rest of his life, at one point saying, “He come in this clubhouse, I tell you, I kill him.”7

Even positive press could lead to hurt feelings. Myron Cope, a celebrated magazine writer in the 1960s before going on to be the radio voice of the Steelers, wrote a profile on Clemente for Sports Illustrated, “Aches, Pains and Batting Titles.” It was a largely complimentary piece, but Clemente didn’t speak to Cope for several years afterward.

(Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

But while Clemente had a standoffish relationship with many of the reporters who covered baseball, he warmed quickly to Bob Prince, the Pirates’ radio voice. Prince, known as “The Gunner,” was an unabashed homer, willing to cheer on anyone wearing a Pirates uniform. Early in Clemente’s career, a teammate, Lino Donoso, a well-traveled Cuban hurler whose brief major-league career coincided with Clemente’s first two years in Pittsburgh, had taken to calling him Arriba, a Spanish word that literally means “upstairs” but has been taken more figuratively to mean “lifting or uprising.” Prince saw fit to yell “Arriba!” when Clemente came to bat or made a great play.8

Prince was not just a broadcaster. He became a friend and trusted adviser to many Pirates players. One night in 1958, the Pirates were playing the Giants in what Prince called “a real beanball contest. It looked like we were going to have a terrible fight.” Giants pitcher Ruben Gomez took a little chin music, and Orlando Cepeda, then a rookie, came out of the dugout carrying a bat to fight for his idol. Willie Mays tackled him and threw him to the ground. Prince said on the air, “This is a young Latin American player who’s very excited and doesn’t realize what he’s doing. You must forgive him, because he didn’t mean to do this.” Apparently, Clemente heard about it, and the next day, he arranged a meeting with Prince and Cepeda, telling the Baby Bull in Spanish what Prince had said.9

Clemente himself relayed this story in 1971, at a dinner in Prince’s honor in Puerto Rico. Prince was celebrating his 25th anniversary in broadcasting, and Clemente invited him to Puerto Rico, where he described him as “one of the best friends I have in the world” – indeed, Prince might have been the only person who could refer to Clemente as Bobby and not be upbraided for it – and bestowed on him one of his prized possessions: The silver bat he was presented in 1961 for the first of his four batting titles. The bat had special meaning to Clemente, who was determined to prove that he was a most valuable player after finishing eighth – below three of his Pirates teammates10 – in MVP voting the year before. At the dinner, both Clemente and Prince were in tears.11

Clemente finally received his National League MVP Award in 1966, edging out runner-up Sandy Koufax, who had completed his final season in baseball. Koufax went 27-9 and won his second straight (and third overall) Cy Young Award as the Dodgers won the pennant. It was the second straight year Koufax finished second in MVP voting.12

Clemente got a total of 218 points, 10 more than Koufax. By the rules of the day, each first-place vote was worth 14 points, each second-place vote was worth 9, 8 for third, and so on. Clemente appeared on all 20 ballots – the only player to do so13 – but Koufax had received more first-place votes.14

Koufax himself was writing his own story, serialized in newspapers. He said Clemente “can hit any pitch any where at any time. He will hit pitchouts, he will hit brushback pitches. He will hit high, inside pitches deep to the opposite field, which would be ridiculous even if he didn’t do it with both feet off the ground.”15

After winning the World Series in 1960, The Pirates spent the rest of the decade spinning wheels, but a move from Forbes Field in the city’s Oakland neighborhood to a new all-purpose facility on the North Shore, Three Rivers Stadium, seemed to revitalize their fortunes. In 1970 the Pirates won the first of three straight National League Eastern Division titles but were swept by the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Championship Series. The following year, the Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants and advanced to the World Series. The Pirates won in seven games – and Clemente hit safely in each of them, having done the same in the only other World Series he’d played in, in 1960.

“I feel that I would be considered to be a much better athlete if I were not a black Latin,” he said during the 1971 World Series. “I play as good as anybody. Maybe I play as good as anybody who plays the game. But I am not loved.”16 His .414 average earned him World Series MVP – and the plaudits that he felt he didn’t get enough of in his career to that point. “After 17 major-league seasons, 37-year-old Roberto Clemente is now an overnight sensation,” wrote Jerry Izenberg.17

Clemente played for one more season, getting his 3,000th hit against the Mets. The Pirates lost a hard-fought NLCS to the Reds, and everyone went home for the offseason. Clemente died on a mission of mercy, on board a plane that crashed shortly after takeoff with supplies for Nicaraguan earthquake victims.

Even in death, Clemente was denied the recognition he thought he deserved. Joe Falls of the Detroit Free Press made it a point to write about how unhappy Clemente seemed to be – and how he lacked the charisma of Willie Mays (a comparison that always made Clemente bristle). “Remember the All-Star game of a year ago, how we all waited for the first appearance of Willie Mays in Tiger Stadium? I don’t remember what Clemente did that night or even if he played.”18 (Clemente replaced Mays in the lineup and hit a home run off Mickey Lolich.)

Upon Clemente’s death, an unprecedented special election was decreed by the Baseball Writers Association of America for the Baseball Hall of Fame.19 Some sportswriters had a problem with this.

Bob Broeg wrote, “To steamroller Roberto into the Hall of Fame is really a disservice to the proud person who liked to feel he was best in life, not in death.”20

Dick Young, who less than two years earlier had called Clemente “the best damn ballplayer in the World Series, maybe in the whole world,” abstained.21 He said Clemente’s immediate election – a straight up-or-down vote with Clemente the only name on the ballot – was basically … communist.

“Just take another look at the ballot,” inveighed Young. “It is straight from beyond the Iron Curtain. Any man who has the temerity to vote no, and sign his name, will hear a knock on his door one night, and never again will be seen. Joe Stalin won more elections that way.”22

Young suggested that the BBWAA could have waived the five-year waiting period and then put Clemente on the ballot with that year’s other candidates.23 Instead, Clemente was “railroaded in,” preying on rank sentimentality, which offered him a chance to tee off on hoary clichés. “Anybody who says the presence of Roberto Clemente can be felt in the Pirates clubhouse is guilty of sentimental rot,” Young wrote. “They do not think all the time of Roberto Clemente, these teammates of his. To do so would be unreal, and to suggest so is dishonest. It is three months now since Roberto died a hero’s death in the shark-infested water of the Caribbean, and the time has tempered grief.”24

Murray Chass of the New York Times – himself no stranger to Hall of Fame voting controversies – grew up in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, watching Clemente while a student at Taylor Allderdice High School and the University of Pittsburgh, and even covered him as one of those “New York writers” Clemente scorned. Chass said the ballot gave him pause as well, before voting yes. “I was reluctant to vote yes on this ballot because I was concerned that it might set an undesirable precedent. After debating with myself, however, I finally marked the yes box. I realized that if I didn’t vote for Clemente then, I would never again have the opportunity.”25

Of course, he was right. A total of 424 ballots were distributed, with 318 yes votes being the required 75 percent threshold. Clemente got 393. Young’s abstention was one of two, and 29 writers voted against inducting Roberto Clemente into the Hall of Fame, most more concerned with process than with recognizing greatness.26

Notes

1 The title was taken from a statement made in frustration by manager Casey Stengel.

2 Jimmy Breslin, Branch Rickey (New York: Viking, 2011), 106.

3 “Clemente Hits Press for Poor Coverage,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Times Leader, March 31, 1969, 20.

4 Jim O’Brien, Maz and the ‘60 Bucs (Pittsburgh: Geyer Printing, 1993), 256.

5 Jim Murray, “Don’t Cry for Clemente, Baseball’s Oscar Levant,” Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1966.

6 Phil Musick, Who Was Roberto? (New York: Doubleday, 1974), 137. Musick noted that Hernon, who died of cancer at the age of 48 in 1966, and Clemente didn’t speak for the last year of Hernon’s life for reasons known only to them.

7 Musick, Who Was Roberto?, 129.

8 Bruce Markusen, Roberto Clemente: The Great One (New York: Sports Publishing, 2001), 66.

9 Kal Wagenheim, Clemente! (New York: Praeger Publishing, 1973), 71.

10 Don Hoak was runner-up, and Vern Law was sixth in voting.

11 Wagenheim, 228-29.

12 The 1965 NL MVP was Williie Mays.

13 Clemente received eight first-place votes, 10 second-place votes, and two third-place votes.

14 Koufax received nine first-place votes. Clemente got eight. The Braves’ Felipe Alou got two first-place votes, and Dick Allen of the Phillies got the remaining one.

15 Rafael Pont-Flores, “Puerto Rico Fans All Root for Roberto,” The Sporting News, November 26, 1966, 26.

16 Wells Twombly, “Super Hero,” San Francisco Examiner, January 3, 1973. Roberto Clemente File, Baseball Hall of Fame.

17 Quoted in O’Brien, Maz and the ‘60 Bucs, 256.

18 Joe Falls, “Clemente: Sad Ending for a Troubled Man,” Detroit Free Press, January 2, 1973. Roberto Clemente file, National Baseball Hall of Fame.

19 The closest parallel is Lou Gehrig’s election to the Hall of Fame. His career ended April 30, 1939, at the age of 36, and Gehrig was voted into the Hall of Fame on December 7, 1939. But at that point, there was no official five-year period between a player’s retirement and his eligibility for induction.

20 Bob Broeg, “Instant Enshrinement Is a Disservice to Clemente,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 20, 1973: 2B.

21 Reprinted by Jim O’Brien, Remembering Roberto (Pittsburgh: Geyer Printing, 1994), 437.

22 Dick Young, “Wrong Way to Honor Clemente,” New York Daily News, March 14, 1973. Clipping in Roberto Clemente file, Baseball Hall of Fame.

23 That year, Warren Spahn was the only player elected by the BBWAA. He was in his first year of eligibility, as were future inductees Whitey Ford and Robin Roberts. Other eventual Hall members who fell short of election that year included Bob Lemon, Duke Snider, and former Pirates slugger Ralph Kiner.

24 Young, “Wrong Way to Honor Clemente.”

25 Jim O’Brien, Remembering Roberto, 432

26 “Clemente in Hall of Fame,” Cleveland Press, March 20, 1973, part of the Press archives at Cleveland State University.

“In all due respect to Henry Aaron, Stan Musial and Willie Mays, the best hitter I ever played against was Roberto Clemente.”— Pete Rose, recipient of the 1976 Roberto Clemente Award1

The baseballs are signed by Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Ton Seaver, Ferguson Jenkins, Don Drysdale, and Sandy Koufax – each one a Hall of Fame pitcher against whom Clemente hit .300 or higher. (Photograph by Duane Rieder.)

Roberto Clemente’s offensive accomplishments should leave zero doubt as to the merits of his special election to the Hall of Fame in 1973: a career batting average of .317; four National League batting titles (1961, 1964, 1965, and 1967); the 1966 National League Most Valuable Player Award (he batted .317 with 29 home runs and 119 RBIs); the 1971 World Series MVP; the 11th player to have 3,000 regular-season hits; and only the second player to hit in every game of two consecutive World Series appearances (1960 and 1971).

Despite these achievements, Clemente’s offensive talent could be viewed as underappreciated by those who have cited his 240 regular-season home runs as a somewhat muted offensive record compared with other elite players of his era. He topped the 20-home-run mark just three times, for instance. Clemente for his part acknowledged this criticism throughout his career. “I can hit with anybody,” he insisted. “I believe I’m as good a hitter as Willie Mays or Henry Aaron. My only drawback is lack of home run power.”2 (Aaron hit 755 home runs and Willie Mays hit 660.)

A closer examination of Clemente’s offensive production reveals that he was arguably one of most intelligent hitters of his era. He demonstrated raw offensive power and was able to adjust his batting approach according to in-game circumstances. Simply put, Clemente could not only hit, but hit with power.

THE EARLY YEARS

Clemente’s first playing experience occurred when he joined his local slow-pitch softball team in 1942, and taught himself the basics of hitting with a guava tree limb that served as his first bat.3 He quickly fell in love with the game and spent hours on the neighborhood softball field, noting in his diary that he once hit 10 home runs during a marathon game.4 Clemente next progressed to fast-pitch softball, where in 1952 his strong fielding skills and ability to consistently pull the ball led to an invitation to a tryout co-hosted by the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Santurce Cangrejeros at Sixto Escobar Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Of the 72 players attending the tryout, Clemente was the only one to attract the interest of Dodgers scout Al Campanis. Impressed with his defensive abilities, Campanis invited Clemente to hit batting practice. Clemente did not disappoint. “The kid swings with both feet off the ground and hits line drives to right and sharp ground balls up the middle,” marveled Campanis. “He was the greatest natural athlete I have ever seen as a free agent.”5 Campanis also rated Clemente’s hitting power as “A+” in his scouting report.6 Despite this strong interest, major-league rules dictated that Clemente could not sign with the Dodgers until his 18th birthday. However, the Dodgers’ co-host, the Santurce Cangrejeros, wasted little time signing Clemente to a contract to play in the Puerto Rican Winter League.

Buster Clarkson, as the Cangrejeros’ manager and Clemente’s first skipper in professional baseball, recognized his raw offensive talent and made sure he was offered a similar amount of batting-practice pitches as his teammates.7 Clemente credited Clarkson with helping him improve his batting stride toward the pitcher, thus increasing his offensive production. Of Clemente, Clarkson noted, “[His batting stance] had a few rough spots, but he never made the same mistake twice. He was baseball savvy.”8

Clemente signed with the Dodgers a year later for a $10,000 salary and a $5,000 signing bonus. The Dodgers sent him to their International League affiliate in Montreal for the 1954 season, which meant that he became eligible to be claimed by another organization via a supplemental draft at season’s end.

Clemente saw limited playing time during the first half of his only season in Montreal. His manager, Max Macon, claimed this was due to Clemente’s free-swinging nature at the plate. “If you had been in Montreal that year, you wouldn’t have believed how ridiculous some pitchers made him look.”9 Despite limited playing time, Clemente showed flashes of offensive power. On July 25 he slammed a pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the 10th to win the first game of a doubleheader at home vs. the Havana Sugar Kings. The ball sailed over the 340-foot left-field fence and left the ballpark. “Clemente is a player with potential greatness,” wrote one reporter. “His clout over the left field wall … won the opening game Hollywood style.”10

FROM A YOUNG “BUC” TO “THE GREAT ONE”: 1955-1972

After being claimed by the Pirates in the November 1954 supplemental draft, Clemente made his major-league debut the following spring. The 1955 season also showcased Clemente’s unorthodox batting style, which was partly in response to a back injury sustained in an offseason car accident in Puerto Rico.11 This approach at the plate quickly caught the attention of teammates and reporters. “He stood at the batting cage, his head rolling as he jerked his neck in a series of exercises.… The posture was awkward. The swing was sudden and appeared unpremeditated.… Only after the bat strikes the ball is it obvious that this is a good hitter.”12

Clemente hit his first big-league home run on April 18, 1955, against the New York Giants. He hit the ball 450 feet to left-center field off the bullpen at the Polo Grounds (which was located in fair territory), and legged out an inside-the-park home run.13 A few weeks later, on June 5, while facing the Cincinnati Reds at Pittsburgh’s cavernous Forbes Field, Clemente hit a triple to dead center field that “must have traveled 450 feet in the air and would have been a homer in any National League park except Forbes Field and the Polo Grounds.”14

Clemente’s willingness to hit almost any pitch proved to be one of his strongest offensive abilities. He had only 18 walks in 501 plate appearances in 1955 and just 13 walks in 572 plate appearances in 1956. This led Clemente to develop a reputation that “he hit everything that didn’t hit him first.”15 Indeed, opposing managers told reporters they instructed their pitchers to give intentional walks to Clemente, but on many occasions he would swing at the pitches for base hits.16 Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Sutton once remarked of Clemente, “Anything between the on-deck circles was a strike to him. I’ve seen him double on knock-down pitches.”17

Interestingly, 2,154 (or 72 percent) of Clemente’s 3,000 hits were singles. That high a percentage could be considered a misleading indicator of a lack of home-run power, as Clemente showed he could crush hits that didn’t clear the outfield wall at Forbes Field. During a game against the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field on June 13, 1963, Clemente launched a pitch more than 400 feet; it was hit so hard to the wall that it quickly bounced to Reds’ center fielder, Vada Pinson, who quickly relayed the ball back to the infield, “restricting Clemente to a laser single.”18

On occasion, however, the baseball gods granted Clemente a trip around the bases for his line- drive efforts, such as on May 11, 1957, when Clemente scorched a hit over the head of Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Richie Ashburn. The ball rolled to the batting cage, which was stored in fair territory in deepest center field. When Ashburn finally got to the ball, Clemente was already at third base, and he scored easily for an inside-the-park home run.19

While Clemente is perhaps best known for hitting bullet line drives, he also hit monstrous home runs that left his fellow players speechless. In the first game of a doubleheader at Wrigley Field on May 17, 1959, Clemente hit a moon shot off Cubs pitcher Bob Anderson to deep right field, estimated at a minimum distance of 500 feet in negligible wind conditions. The Cubs hitting coach, baseball legend Roger Hornsby, remarked that it was the longest home run he had ever seen.20

Neither the daunting dimensions of Forbes Field nor the pressure of facing one of the National League’s greatest pitchers intimidated Clemente. On May 31, 1964, he led off the bottom of the third inning by launching a pitch from Sandy Koufax that hit the light tower in left-center field, an estimated 450 feet from home plate. Koufax said the ball was still rising when it hit the tower, which suggests it would have gone even farther with no resistance.21 Koufax later summarized his career facing Clemente as a sort of puzzle: “There is just no way you can develop a pitching pattern for him.”22

Clemente also harnessed his power to carry the Pirates offense when necessary, such as on May 15, 1967, vs. the Cincinnati Reds. In one of his best run-producing games, Clemente had three home runs and a double and drove in all of Pittsburgh’s runs in an 8-7 loss. “It was almost like Roberto Clemente playing the Reds all by himself and coming so close to wrecking them single-handedly,” a sportswriter observed.23 Clemente, much to his modest nature, downplayed his performance. “Yes, my biggest game, but not my best game,” he said. “My best game is when I drive in the winning run. I don’t count this one, we lost.”24

When Clemente arrived in the big leagues, Willie Mays encouraged him to never be intimidated by pitchers. “Get mean when you go to bat,” advised Mays. “And if they try to knock you down, act like it doesn’t bother you. Get back up there and hit the ball. Show them.”25 Clemente made good use of this advice during a game at Dodger Stadium on June 4, 1967. After Clemente hit a home run in the fifth inning, Don Drysdale threw a “duster” at him in his next at-bat, sending him to the ground.26 With the count 3-and-1, Clemente drove the next pitch an estimated 430 feet over the center-field wall. For his efforts, Clemente was greeted with a loud round of applause by the Dodgers faithful as he rounded the bases.27

Clemente’s power production was so consistent that offnights at the plate attracted attention. In the All-Star Game in Anaheim on July 12, 1967, he struck out four times for only the second time in his career. Clemente’s National League teammates were shocked by what they saw, prompting Atlanta Braves catcher Joe Torre to deadpan, “Did everybody take notes on how to pitch to Clemente?”28

Perhaps one of the most overlooked of Clemente’s home runs came in the second game of a doubleheader on June 27, 1971, at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. He belted a pinch-hit homer off Joe Hoerner to become the first of only seven players to hit a home run to Veterans Stadium’s upper decks in its 33-year history.29 Clemente’s feat was underappreciated at the time because of a newspaper strike in Pittsburgh but has since been validated by multiple witnesses, including the Phillies players.30

On September 30, 1972, Clemente became only the 11th player to reach 3,000 career hits. His landmark hit came at home off the Mets’ Jon Matlack, a leadoff double in the fourth inning. Clemente dedicated the hit to Pirates fans, the people of Puerto Rico, and Roberto Marin, the Puerto Rican businessman who originally invited Clemente to play on his softball team and became so impressed with his performance that he recommended that the Brooklyn Dodgers sign Clemente.31

CLEMENTE’S APPROACH TO HITTING

Through the years baseball fans and historians have offered several possible reasons for why Clemente, a perennial challenger for the National League batting title, rarely set home-run records. Clemente, for his part, claimed it was due to the deep dimensions of Forbes Field: 365 feet in left field, 406 feet to left-center field, 457 feet to deep center field. “I would hit more homers if I were playing anywhere but in Pittsburgh,” he said. “Forbes Field is the toughest park to hit home runs. If I played in Wrigley Field, I’d be a power hitter. I could hit 35 to 40 homers a year with my home games there.”32 Said longtime teammate Bill Mazeroski, “Don’t let anybody kid you he can’t hit for distance. When he wants to, he can power one as far as anybody in baseball. He’s smart enough to go for line drives at Forbes Field. That’s no park for home run hitters.”33

Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh offered his own rationale for Clemente’s offensive results. “I have always said that everybody expects too much of Roberto. He’s batting in the third position and in my style of play his job is to set up runners as well as drive them in. If you were to take Roberto’s runs set up, you’ll come up with a tremendous plus in his favor. Everybody always mentions the RBIs, but nobody ever mentions the runs set up. That’s equally important.”34

A potential clue to the origin of Clemente’s raw offensive power likely lies in the mechanics of his swing. According to Clemente biographer Bill Christine, “No kid on a sandlot will ever be taught to swing a bat like Roberto Clemente. The batter’s box was never deep enough for him. He had reflexes which enabled him to wait until the last fraction of a second before whipping the bat around. His hands, those strong hands and powerful wrists, he kept them close to the midsection. He felt that there was no pitch that was impossible for him to attack.”35

Generating power off his left foot, Clemente “would never swing the bat at the baseball, he would always throw the bat at the baseball.”36 His unique lunging motion meant that “Clemente made his charge at the pitchers like a mad man.”37 Interestingly, during his 1966 MVP season, Clemente’s offensive numbers rose to career highs in home runs and RBIs, which he attributed in part to improved field conditions at his home ballpark that helped him enhance his swing. “For years, I have been pleading with somebody in charge at Forbes Field to put clay instead of sand in the batter’s box,” he said. “Suddenly, this year, they put clay in the batter’s box. Now I have firm footing. Now I can get a toe-hold.”38

Regardless of how he did it, Clemente demonstrated incredible offensive ability to hit virtually any pitch for power to any part of the ballpark. As Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times noted, “They didn’t make the pitch Roberto Clemente couldn’t hit. All he required of a baseball was that it be in the park. He was the most destructive World Series player I ever saw outside of Ruth and Gehrig.”39

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank David Speed and Bill Nowlin for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this article.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com, R​etros​heet.​org, N​ewspa​pers.​com, and Clemente’s file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Notes

1 Associated Press, “Pete Rose Given Clemente Award,” Wilmington (Ohio) News Journal, May 13, 1976: 16.

2 Associated Press, “Clemente Claims He’s Best in Game,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 21, 1964: 23.

3 Bruce Markusen, Roberto Clemente: The Great One (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, Inc., 2013), 22.

4 Markusen, 23.

5 Markusen, 26.

6 David Maraniss, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 27.

7 Bill Christine, “Roberto! A Self-Made Hitter,” New York Daily News, April 3, 1973: 146.

8 Markusen, 29.

9 Stew Thornley, “Roberto Clemente’s Entry into Organized Baseball: Was He Hidden in Montreal?” Accessed April 7, 2022, h​ttps:​//mil​keesp​ress.​com/c​lemen​te195​4.​html.

10 Lloyd McGowan, “Rookie Roberto’s homer, Lasorda Win, Revive Hopes,” Montreal Star, July 26, 1954: 28.

11 Markusen, 52.

12 Jimmy Cannon, “Clemente Still Wonders: Who’s Stranger in Field?,” Orlando Evening Star, March 21, 1972: 30.

13 Les Biederman, “Roberto’s Bat Softens Rivals for Buc Raids,” The Sporting News, September 17, 1966: 6.

14 Les Biederman, “The Scoreboard,” Pittsburgh Press, June 6, 1955: 22.

15 Jim Murray, “Roberto’s Revenge,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1964: 1.

16 Murray, “Roberto’s Revenge.”

17 Associated Press, “300-Win Hurlers History?” Rome (Georgia) News-Tribune, January 7, 1998: 3B.

18 Les Biederman, “Bailey in Fast Company,” Pittsburgh Press, June 14, 1963: 28.

19 Les Biederman, “Phils Blast Friend Early, Turn Back Pirates, 7 to 2,” Pittsburgh Press, May 12, 1957: 69.

20 Les Biederman, “Tape Measure Homer Belted by Clemente at Wrigley Field,” The Sporting News, May 27, 1959: 10.

21 Sandy Koufax with Ed Linn, Koufax (New York: Viking Press, 1966), 220.

22 Frank Finch, “Bucs’ Clemente Toughest NL Hitter,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1965: 50.

23 Les Biederman. “Clemente’s ‘Biggest’ Game Wasted,” Pittsburgh Press, May 16, 1967: 34.

24 Biederman. “Clemente’s ‘Biggest’ Game Wasted.”

25 Biederman. “Clemente’s ‘Biggest’ Game Wasted.”

26 Charley Feeney, “Veale Gets 7th Victory with Help,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 5, 1967: 34.

27 This Day in Baseball, “Roberto Clemente Hits 2 Home Runs off Don Drysdale,” Accessed April 22, 2022, h​ttps:​//thi​sdayi​nbase​ball.​com/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-hits​-2-ho​me-ru​ns-of​f-don​-drys​dale-​accou​nting​-for-​all-o​f-pit​tsbur​ghs-r​uns-i​n-a-4​-1-vi​ctory​-over​-los-​angel​es-cl​ement​es-fi​rst-b​omb-t​ravel​s-400​-feet​-to-t​ie-th​e-s/.

28 Les Biederman. “Reds’ Perez Lives Like a King, Plays Like One,” Pittsburgh Press, July 12, 1967: 62.

29 Gene Collier, “Of Veterans: One Spit On, the Other Knocked Down,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 26, 2003: B-2. This home run has often been misquoted as the “Liberty Bell Ringer” that hit the decorative Liberty Bell attached to the center-field upper deck at Veterans Stadium. Clemente researcher David Speed has noted that while the home run did not hit the bell, it was nonetheless an excellent example of Clemente’s raw offensive power.

30 David Speed Facebook post: June 27, 2018, Accessed April 30, 2022, h​ttps:​//www​.face​book.​com/p​hoto/​?fbid​=1021​53422​2137​6250.

31 Charley Feeney, “Roberto Collects 3000th Hit, Dedicates It to Pirate Fans,” The Sporting News, October 14, 1972: 15.

32 “Clemente Claims He’s Best in Game.”

33 Al Abrams, “Sidelights on Sports: Clemente Not Appreciated?,” Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, February 26, 1965, 20.

34 Associated Press, “Clemente Sparks Late Rally, Pirates Win, 6-5,” Monessen Valley Independent (Monessen, Pennsylvania), May 18, 1971: 9.

35 Bill Christine, “Roberto! A Self-Made Hitter.”

36 Markusen, 168.

37 Les Biederman, “Clemente Sinks Feet in Clay to Mold Stout Swat Figures,” The Sporting News, July 2, 1966: 8.

38 Biederman, “Clemente Sinks Feet in Clay to Mold Stout Swat Figures.”

39 Jim Murray, “Clemente: You Had to See Him to Disbelieve Him,” Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1973: 49.

Roberto Clemente and Bill Virdon receiving Gold Gloves in 1962 from Rawlings employee Guy Palso. (Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

Roberto Clemente had gained many admirers of his defense as a right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates since his major-league debut in 1955. Clemente’s strong right arm and an array of running catches, basket catches, sliding catches, and leaping catches amazed fans, teammates, and rivals. During the twilight of his career, however, Clemente surprised even longtime observers with one of the greatest catches in major-league history.

On the night of June 15, 1971, Clemente patrolled right field at Houston’s Astrodome. Pirates pitcher Steve Blass held a 1-0 lead with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Astros’ Joe Morgan, a fast runner, stood at first base. Houston’s Cesar Cedeno hit a line drive to short right field. Clemente slid and made the catch inches from the field to record the second out. Morgan stayed at first base.

The next batter, Bob Watson, nearly gave the Astros the lead. Watson drove a Blass pitch toward the right-field corner. Clemente knew the Astrodome had a unique rule: If the ball struck the wall above the home run line, Watson would get credit for a two-run home run.

Clemente bolted toward the wall. According to an article by Charley Feeney in The Sporting News, “Clemente, going full speed, raced toward the wall and, in one sudden move, makes a twisting leap for a one-handed grab, back to the plate, just before the ball would have hit above the yellow line on the wall, which is home run territory. When Clemente came down, his body hit the wall. He suffered a bruised left ankle and his left elbow also was swollen. Blood spilled from a gash on the left knee. Clemente slumped on both knees, back to the infield. The Houston fans stood up and cheered.”1

Astros manager Harry Walker had managed the Pirates between 1965 and 1967. Walker said Clemente’s catch was the best he had seen. “He never slowed up,” Walker said. “I don’t see how he could keep the ball in his glove.”2

The Pirates won 3-0. After the game, Clemente told reporters: “I don’t even think I could get the ball, but I had to try and I jump.”3

Clemente did more than try during his 18 seasons. He became part of a quartet of outstanding right fielders in Pirates history, along with Paul Waner, Kiki Cuyler, and Dave Parker, and he earned a place among the greatest right fielders in major-league history. He won 12 Gold Gloves, sharing the record for the most such awards by outfielders with Willie Mays. Among right fielders who have played in the major leagues since 1901, Clemente ranks second in putouts with 4,459 and second in assists with 255. He participated in 40 double plays as a right fielder.

Many runners tested Clemente’s arm and lost. Clemente record 266 assists as an outfielder. He led the National League in outfield assists five times. In 15 games, he recorded two outfield assists. He threw out runners at first base 22 times. Decades after Clemente’s death in 1972, an article in Inside Sports magazine rated his arm the best in baseball history.4

Clemente’s quest for fielding supremacy began in his hometown of Carolina, Puerto Rico.

According to Clemente biographer David Maraniss, Clemente’s mother, Luisa, passed on her strength to him. Maraniss wrote: “Luisa was a dignified woman, correct and literate, reading her Bible, always finely dressed, and not bulky, but she had muscular shoulders and arms with which she could lift the carcass of a freshly slaughtered cow from a wheelbarrow and butcher it into cuts of beef. (A powerful right arm was something she passed along to her youngest son. When people later asked about his awe-inspiring throws from right field, he would say, You should see my mother. At age eighty, she could still fling a baseball from the mound to home plate.)”5

Luisa Clemente recalled that her son began to prepare for a baseball career at an early age. “‘I can remember when he was five years old. He used to buy rubber balls every time he had a chance.’ Roberto constantly carried rubber balls in his hands; he squeezed them tightly, strengthening his hands and fingers. Roberto loved to bounce balls off the ceilings and walls of the family’s large, five-bedroom home.”6

During his preteen years, he befriended Monte Irvin. Irvin played outfield for the San Juan Senadores during winter baseball seasons on the island in the mid-1940s. Clemente admired Irvin’s batting style and throwing arm.7

Clemente further developed his skills during his teenage years. At 14, he played shortstop for a youth team. Clemente threw well, but the coach of the team thought Clemente was too slow for the infield and put him and his arm in the outfield. At Julio C. Vizarrondo High School, Clemente excelled in baseball and track and field. He especially liked the javelin. Clemente’s expertise in throwing the javelin aided him in playing baseball. “He may not have known it at the time, but the footwork, release, and general dynamics employed in throwing the javelin coincided with the skills needed to throw a baseball properly. The more that Clemente threw the javelin, the better and stronger his throwing from the outfield became.”8

Clemente’s efforts paid off in 1952, after he turned 17 years old. Clemente joined 71 other attendees at a tryout at the Santurce Cangrejeros’s stadium. Brooklyn Dodgers scout Al Campanis watched the hopefuls. Clemente made two strong throws, including one that flew nearly 400 feet.9 His batting and fielding impressed Campanis. The Dodgers eventually signed Clemente, who played for the team’s Montreal affiliate in 1954. Brooklyn lost him to the Pirates in a supplemental draft after the season.

During the following winter, Clemente played for Santurce in the Puerto Rico winter league. Herman Franks managed the team. Clemente played left field.10 Willie Mays played center. Bob Thurman played right field. Luis Olmo was a reserve outfielder. Clemente started using the basket catch during the season, encouraged by Franks and Olmo. “I miss fly ball many time ‘cause I try to catch too high,” Clemente told United Press reporter John Carroll a few years later. “It make it more easy for me to throw too, after I make the catch.” Mays had used the basket catch before Clemente, but Clemente denied that he imitated Mays.11

Clemente joined the Pirates in 1955. He paid dividends for the team quickly while on defense. On May 4 Pirates pitcher Bob Friend held a 5-3 lead over the visiting Milwaukee Braves with two outs in the ninth inning. The Braves’ Hank Aaron singled to right field, driving in a run and cutting the deficit to one run. Andy Pafko advanced to third. Clemente fielded the ball, but his wild throw allowed Aaron to move up to second. Next Friend pitched to George Crowe. Crowe blasted a ball to deep right field. Clemente jumped in front of the fence and caught the ball above it. He had taken a home run from Crowe to end the game.12

Clemente spent some time in center field, but Pirates manager Fred Haney made right field his primary position. Another Clemente biographer, Bruce Markusen, stated the reason: “Although Clemente played center field adequately, he seemed more comfortable in right. More importantly, his supreme throwing ability mandated a move to right field, a position that required a strong arm to deter runners from advancing too frequently from first to third base.”13

Markusen wrote that Clemente liked tracking balls in the spacious right field at Forbes Field and learned how to play caroms off the walls, which had wire screening and concrete that produced unpredictable bounces.14

Clemente employed three effective tactics in right field. He often picked up balls barehanded in order to execute a throw more quickly.15 He learned how to make sliding catches. Markusen wrote: “As Clemente slid with his legs extended, he grabbed the ball with his glove, and then almost immediately jumped to his feet and flung the ball toward the infield. By executing this genuinely athletic play, Clemente often prevented runners from stretching base hits into doubles or triples.”16 Finally, Clemente occasionally threw behind runners who had strayed too far after they rounded first base and thus recorded assists.17

Pittsburgh fans enjoyed Clemente’s play in the outfield. Markusen wrote: “With runners on base, any ball hit to right field became a source of anticipation for fans, who wondered if Clemente might unleash one of his patented powerful throws. Drives to the gap and bloopers to short right field often resulted in a furious chase by Clemente, who repeatedly ran out from underneath his poor-fitting cap. Even on routine plays, Clemente entertained fans with his delightfully unorthodox basket catch.”18

One fan, Henry Peter Gribbin, detailed his memories of Clemente. “Watching Clemente was indeed a treat for baseball fans,” Gribbin wrote, “when he was in Forbes Field’s right field, he developed his own special style of play, which was scrutinized by countless youngsters, including myself. After watching him, I had visions of making basket catches below the knees, of racing to the ball hit to right and then firing a strike to the first baseman, hoping to nail a runner who made too wide a turn.”19

Clemente expressed supreme confidence in his abilities. “I’m a better outfielder than anyone you can name,” he said. “I can go get a ball like Mays and I have a better arm.”20

During the 1960 regular season, Clemente had 19 assists. He had spectacular plays on successive nights. On August 4 the Pirates defeated the visiting Dodgers 4-1. Clemente played a ball off the right-field wall and threw John Roseboro out at second base to end the game. After the game, Pittsburgh Press sportswriter Les Biederman called Clemente better at playing the bounces than Waner. “With all due apologies to Paul Waner, who had first claim on the right-field wall, Roberto Clemente plays that sector better than any outfielder who ever went out there,” Biederman wrote.21

On the following day, Clemente made a catch similar to the one he would make in 1971 at the Astrodome. On August 5, 1960, the Pirates hosted the San Francisco Giants. Pirates pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell held a 1-0 lead in the seventh inning. Mays stepped to the plate for the Giants and slammed a liner down the right-field line. “I must catch it.… I must catch it,” Clemente told himself.22 Clemente hit the right-center-field wall while he caught the ball. He fell to the ground with a bloody gash under his chin and knee bruises. The Pirates’ doctor closed the gash with five stitches.23 The Pirates won 1-0.

Danny Murtaugh, the Pirates manager, said it was the best catch he ever saw.24 The catch was included in the book Going, Going … Caught! Baseball’s Great Outfield Catches as Described by Those Who Saw Them, 1887-1964.25

Clemente’s defense helped the Pirates upset the New York Yankees in the World Series that year. After the Pirates took a 3-2 lead in the Series, a reporter for the Associated Press wrote that Clemente’s defense had boosted the Pirates. “Yet here was the player whose bullet throwing arm had stopped the Yankees from taking an extra base on hits to his territory, a feat that contributed mightily to Pittsburgh’s three victories.”26

Clemente notched another achievement in 1961. He won his first Gold Glove Award after he recorded a career-high 27 assists, 26 in right field. He supplanted Aaron, who had won the award the previous three years. That season, Aaron started 80 of 154 games in center field. Biederman wrote: “When Hank Aaron moved from right field to center for the Braves, Roberto Clemente moved front and center as the No. 1 right fielder. Clemente also has always felt miffed because Aaron was always voted the Rawlings Golden [sic] Glove as the best right fielder. Now he has full sway there.”27

A sample of Clemente’s fielding plays during the ensuing years demonstrate his prowess.

June 18, 1962: Cincinnati defeated host Pittsburgh 4-2. During the game, Clemente threw out Don Zimmer when the latter slid past second base.28

June 19, 1962: Cincinnati defeated host Pittsburgh 2-1. Clemente threw out Don Blasingame at first base when Blasingame tried to get back to the base after making a wide turn.29

August 27, 1965: Pittsburgh beat Houston 10-9 in 11 innings. As the Pirates’ infielders charged to the plate in the eighth inning, Houston’s Bob Lillis bunted near second base. Clemente, who had moved to shallow right field, ran into the infield, fielded the bunt and threw out Walt Bond at third base.30

September 6, 1965: Clemente helped Pittsburgh sweep Cincinnati 3-1 and 4-2. In the second game, he threw out Tony Perez trying to advance from first to third on Tommy Helms’s single in the sixth inning.31

September 1, 1966: Clemente threw out Jim Barbieri, who was running from third base, at home plate on a bases-loaded hit by Willie Davis in the top of the 10th inning. Los Angeles beat host Pittsburgh 4-3 in 10 innings.32

July 8, 1967: The Pirates defeated the visiting Reds 6-1. The Reds’ Lee May led off the top of the seventh inning with a triple off Tommie Sisk. After Sisk struck out Jim Coker, Jake Woods hit a pop fly to right field. Clemente pretended to prepare to catch the ball, freezing May at third base. Instead, Clemente let the ball fall in front of him, then threw out May at home plate.33

April 13, 1968: The visiting Pirates led San Francisco 2-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning at Candlestick Park. Clemente threw out Mays in the seventh inning as the latter tried to advance from first to third on Willie McCovey’s single. The Pirates eventually won 2-1.34

September 20, 1969: Pirates pitcher Bob Moose no-hit the host New York Mets 4-0. The Mets nearly broke up the no-hitter with two out in the sixth inning. Mets third baseman Wayne Garrett hit a fly to deep right field. Clemente went back to the fence and leaped to catch the ball.35

July 24, 1970: Pittsburgh beat Houston 11-0 during Roberto Clemente Night at the recently opened Three Rivers Stadium. Clemente dived to catch Joe Morgan’s line drive in the third inning and slid to catch Denis Menke’s fly ball in the seventh.36

Both Clemente’s opponents and teammates praised his defense.

Perez recounted Clemente’s 1965 throw against him years later. “I was on first base,” Perez said. “He was playing right field. I see he’s playing deep and [Tommy Helms] hit a bloop with one out. And I tried to get to third because he hit a bloop over the second baseman’s head. I say I think I’m not even watching the third base coach. I say I’ve got to make it to third and I turn around and I say it’s going to be easy. I’m running, I’m watching the third base coach Reggie Otero. Reggie said ‘Slide! Slide!’ I said, ‘Slide?’ I think you’re not supposed to slide.’ Before I slide, the guy got the ball and was waiting for me and I was out and I can’t believe it. How he threw me out when he was playing deep, the ball was hit soft and I look at Reggie like that [Perez looked up], like asking ‘How?’ and he said, ‘Come on kid, get out of here. It’s Roberto Clemente out there.’ I said ‘Oh man.’ I feel so bad about it. But it was great. I think that’s when I knew Robert Clemente had a great arm.”37

Ernie Banks compared Clemente to Willie Hoppe, the legendary carom billiards player: “Roberto, who plays a shallow right field, has been known to throw out batters at first base on drives hit on the ground. It’s practically impossible to go from first to third on singles into his territory. He plays those caroms off the slanting wall in right field like a Willie Hoppe. A runner on third is seldom sent home on a short fly to our friend.”38

Former Pirates pitcher Steve Blass said: “When Clemente was out in right field, there was nothing more a pitcher could want. I used to kid the guys by saying, ‘Bobby’s playing and there is peace in right field.’ I figured if the ball was hit to right and stayed in the ballpark, I had a chance. Some way, if it was humanly possible, and sometimes when it wasn’t, he would get there. If they had a rally going, I knew he might make an impossible catch and double off a runner and the rally would die. With him, it was like having four outfielders.”39

Two of Clemente’s longtime teammates, second baseman Bill Mazeroski and left fielder Willie Stargell, had watched him for 17 and 11 seasons respectively. They provided in-depth analysis about Clemente’s abilities.

Mazeroski said: “The fans may not realize it, but part of Clemente’s skill at running fly balls down comes from an unusual knowledge. Baseball is more of a mental game than it often is credited with being, and players like Clemente aren’t mechanical in their approach to it. For instance, he doesn’t just play the hitter, he plays the hitter with the pitch. The majority of outfielders go right to a spot thinking of something like: ‘Play this guy to pull just off the left side of the mound.’ And there they stay. But say there are two strikes on a hitter, Clemente knows he won’t be probably trying to pull as much, that he’s more apt to punch the ball; so he adjusts his position.”40

Stargell said: “First of all, he would make sure that he had good balance in throwing. Everything was [thrown] across the seams. And he knew how to throw the ball so that it could land in a certain spot and take one perfect hop to the infielder or the catcher so that it doesn’t handcuff him.” Stargell also mentioned a drill Clemente used to increase his accuracy. He placed a garbage can at third base. The opening faced him. Someone would hit a ball to him. Clemente fielded the ball and threw it into the can with one hop.41

Clemente’s annual assist totals declined from 1961. He never recorded as many as 20 again. Biederman defended him after the 1964 season. He wrote: “Roberto Clemente was charged with ten errors in right field but as one who saw Clemente in every inning, this correspondent believes Bobby is many times the victim of a scoring rule. Possibly half of Clemente’s ten errors came when his lightning throws from the outfield hit a runner as he slid into a base. Clemente, who often led the league in assists, only had 13 in 1964. The runners simply don’t take the chance on his fine arm anymore.”42

Later in his career, physical ailments affected Clemente. Among other issues, he suffered from a bad back, bone chips in his elbow, and shoulder soreness.43 He played only 108 games in 1970.

The following season, Clemente rebounded by playing in 132 games during the regular season. During the postseason, he helped spur the Pirates.

The Pirates upset the San Francisco Giants three games to one in the National League Championship series that season. Clemente’s defense helped preserve the Pirates’ 9-4 win in the second game. Pittsburgh led 4-2 in the sixth inning. San Francisco had loaded the bases. Mays batted with two outs. He hit a line drive that nearly fell between center field and right field. Clemente, who had moved to his right just before the blast, caught the ball to end the threat.44

Clemente also shined on defense while the Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles in seven games to claim victory in the 1971 World Series. Clemente made two outstanding throws, one in Game Two and one in Game Six.

In Game Two, Clemente caught Frank Robinson’s fly ball near the right-field line, then spun and threw a strike to Richie Hebner at third base. Clemente nearly caught Merv Rettenmund, who had tagged from second base. The host Orioles won 11-3.

Clemente talked about his arm after the game. “Ask the other players,” he said. “They remember a few years ago when my arm was really strong. No one can compare with my arm when it feels right. I’m not bragging. That is a fact.”45

In Game Six, the teams were tied, 2-2, in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Orioles’ Mark Belanger stood at first base. Teammate Don Buford hit a ball that bounced off the right-field wall. Clemente fielded the ball at the warning track, turned clockwise, and threw to catcher Manny Sanguillen. The ball arrived with one bounce. Belanger held at third base. The throw helped preserve the tie, but the Orioles won 3-2 in 10 innings.

Despite Clemente’s fielding exploits, he had some problems. During his rookie season, he disliked playing in Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds because he couldn’t figure out how the ball bounced off the walls at those fields.46 In 1959 Clemente made 13 errors in 104 games in right field and recorded only 10 assists. Maraniss explained, “Most of Clemente’s errors were on wild throws, often to third base. Some fans with seats in the third base boxes brought gloves to games with the specific hope of catching an errant heave from Roberto.”47 Clemente finished his career with a relatively low .973 fielding percentage and finished third all time with 131 errors in right field, in 2,433 games.

Yet, Clemente rose to the occasion throughout his career. His play on Watson’s June 1971 drive exemplified that quality.

After the game, Clemente discussed his catch with Nellie King, a former Pirates pitcher who broadcast the team’s games at the time. King recalled: “I’m sitting with him on the bus going back to the hotel, and I said, ‘Roberto, I’ve seen a lot of good catches, but that’s the greatest I’ve ever seen you make.’ And he said, ‘Nellie, I want to tell you something. If the ball is in the park and the game is on the line, I will catch the bleeping ball.’ That’s what he said.”48

In the course of his career, Roberto Clemente played in 2,433 games and earned 266 assists.

He made any number of spectacular defensive plays. One often cited is the time that Clemente, playing right field, earned an assist on a bunt. The game was at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh on Friday night, August 27, 1965. The Houston Astros were in town and held a 4-3 lead in the top of the eighth, with runners on first and second and nobody out. With the Astros looking to add an insurance run, it was, journalist Phil Musick wrote, “an obvious sacrifice situation.” Rusty Staub was on second and Walt Bond on first. Bob Lillis pinch-hit for Jim Gentile.

Musick explains that the Pirates’ counter-strategy was to have the third baseman rush in to field the anticipated bunt and have the shortstop run over to cover third. Here’s what he said happened: Lillis “popped his sacrifice attempt into the air near second base. The runners held up briefly, and suddenly Clemente was skidding across the infield in pursuit of the ball. After recovering from the shock of discovering Clemente in his midst, Houston’s Walter Bonds [sic] streaked for third base. Clemente’s throw preceded him to the base, and the humiliated Bonds [sic] was out.”1 Clemente was, Musick wrote, “the only outfielder ever known to play a bunt.”2

In 15 of those games, Clemente had two assists in the same game. In 13 of them, the two assists were both outfield assists.

MAY 22, 1956
St. Louis Cardinals 6, Pirates 3 at Forbes Field

In this game, Clemente had two assists but also made two errors. The errors were committed in the second and ninth innings. In the top of the eighth inning, Clemente moved from right field to play third base. Neither of his assists were outfield assists; both were fielding groundballs and throwing to first base, once in the eighth and once in the ninth. He made his ninth-inning error while fielding a sacrifice bunt.

JULY 14, 1956
Chicago Cubs 6, Pirates 2 at Wrigley Field
First game of doubleheader

The Cubs swept, 6-2 and 6-5 (in 10 innings). In the first game, Clemente played right field for the first six innings, then played second base in the seventh and eighth. His first assist came in the bottom of the fifth; he caught a fly ball to right and then cut down Ernie Banks, who had tagged up at second base, on a “rifle shot throw” to third.3 Clemente’s second assist was as a second baseman, a routine 4-3 grounder that ended the seventh inning.

APRIL 17, 1958
Milwaukee Braves 6, Pirates 1 at County Stadium

In the bottom of the third, Johnny Logan led off with a double. Del Crandall singled to right field but tried to take two bags on Clemente’s throw to the plate intended to prevent Logan from scoring. Logan held up at third, but Crandall was out when catcher Hank Foiles quickly fired the ball to second base, 9-2-4.4 After Eddie Mathews’ three-run homer in the fifth, Hank Aaron singled to center. Frank Torre singled to right, but Aaron overran the bag at second base, making a turn toward third base, and was thrown out, 9-4.5

JULY 18, 1958
San Francisco Giants 5, Pirates 4 at Seals Stadium

In the bottom of the third, with the Pirates ahead, 1-0, Stu Miller laid down a sacrifice with Valmy Thomas on first base. The ball was misplayed by Pirates third baseman Frank Thomas, whose throw to second sailed into right field. Clemente threw the ball to shortstop Dick Groat, who bobbled the ball, allowing Miller to reach second safely, but Groat quickly threw home and cut down Valmy Thomas at the plate.6 The Giants built up a 5-1 lead and in the bottom of the fifth with two outs and a man on first, Orlando Cepeda singled to right. The runner ran to third. Clemente gunned the ball in and nipped Cepeda at second base.

AUGUST 10, 1961
St. Louis Cardinals 3, Pirates 2 at Forbes Field

In the top of the fourth, with the game tied, 1-1, St. Louis’s Ken Boyer on first and nobody out, Stan Musial flied out to right field. Clemente caught the ball and threw behind the runner to Dick Stuart at first base; before Boyer could get back to the bag, he was out. The very next inning, the score still the same and again a man on first and nobody out, Curt Flood hit a ball down the right-field line. Trying for a double, he was thrown out by Clemente, with a throw to shortstop Groat at second.7

SEPTEMBER 4, 1961
St. Louis Cardinals 9, Pirates 4 at Busch Stadium

In the bottom of the third, Curt Flood singled with Ray Sadecki on first and no outs. Sadecki took third, but “when he suspected Bob Clemente would throw to third, he was caught in his thoughts trying to get back to first.”8 Flood was thrown out RF-2B-1B. Julian Javier singled and drove in Sadecki. Javier took second on a groundout, and was driven in by Musial’s single. A double by Boyer and a walk to Charlie James loaded the bases. Alex Grammas singled, driving in two runs, but James was out at third base on Clemente’s throw. For James, it was the second time in the game he was thrown out by an outfielder. In the second inning, center fielder Bill Virdon threw him out at second base as he tried to stretch his RBI single into a double.

MAY 3, 1962
San Francisco Giants 8, Pirates 4 at Candlestick Park

In the bottom of the first inning, Orlando Cepeda singled to right field, but took too wide a turn at first base. Clemente threw behind him and, rather than there being runners on first and second, the inning was over. In the fourth, with runners on first and third and Willie Mays at the plate, the Giants broke a 2-2 tie on a wild pitch. Mays then singled to right field, driving in another run, but was thrown out, Clemente to Dick Stuart at first base to Bill Mazeroski at second.

Clemente’s Rawlings Gold Glove Award, 1962. (Photograph by Duane Rieder)

As inadvisable as it would be to draw conclusions based on 34 plate appearances or 72 innings of defense spread out over more than a decade, it’s safe to state that Roberto Clemente’s All-Star Game performances only enhanced his legacy. The lifetime .317 hitter batted .323 in 15 midsummer exhibitions against his most skilled competitors and provided some memorable moments.

In 1960 the Los Angeles Dodgers visited Pittsburgh the weekend before All-Star Game rosters were announced. The Pirates hadn’t won a pennant since 1927, but they’d moved atop the National League in May when Clemente earned Player of the Month honors by driving in 25 runs in 27 games. By the conclusion of the first half, the sixth-year right fielder ranked third in the majors with a .325 batting average. Before leaving Pittsburgh, Dodgers skipper Walter Alston – who also was to manage the NL All-Stars – remarked, “Clemente is the worst-looking good hitter in the game. I have some batters who swing like .400 hitters and wind up with .200, yet Clemente swings like a .200 batter and winds up close to .400.”1

As it happened, Clemente was one of eight Pirates on the National League squad, five of whom were on the field when he made his All-Star Game debut on July 11 at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium, where the game time temperature was a muggy 100 degrees.2 After replacing the Braves’ Hank Aaron in the bottom of the seventh inning, Clemente flied out against Athletics lefty Bud Daley in his only at-bat and caught both balls hit his way in right field, including Harvey Kuenn’s liner for the final out of the NL’s 5-3 victory. There were two All-Star Games that year so, two days later at Yankee Stadium, Clemente replaced Aaron again, this time as an eighth-inning pinch-hitter. He was walked by the Tigers’ Frank Lary and the NL won again, 6-0. After the regular season resumed, Clemente summed up his first All-Star experience: “It’s rush, rush, rush. No time to rest.… It tired me out.”3 But he was just getting started.

There were also two All-Star Games in 1961, played nearly three weeks apart. Clemente started both contests in right field after receiving 170 of the 233 votes cast by his fellow NL players, managers, and coaches. (Only the Milwaukee Braves’ second baseman, Frank Bolling, received more support.)4 Puerto Ricans were understandably proud to have two starters in the lineup for the first time on July 11 in San Francisco, as the Giants’ Orlando Cepeda – the island’s first All-Star Game starter, two years earlier – and Clemente batted fourth and fifth for the National League, respectively. Clemente carried a major-league-best .357 average into the contest on his way to his first career batting title.

Facing Whitey Ford his first time up, Clemente tripled off the right-center-field fence between two of the southpaw’s Yankees teammates, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.5 He scored the game’s first run when Bill White of the Cardinals followed with a sacrifice fly. In the fourth inning, Clemente delivered a sacrifice fly of his own against the Senators’ Dick Donovan to increase the NL’s advantage to 2-0. The ball traveled nearly 400 feet to right-center, but Candlestick Park’s notorious swirling winds kept it in play. “In any other park, I[‘d] have two home runs,” Clemente lamented.6

Similar gusts knocked Giants reliever Stu Miller off the mound in the ninth inning, causing him to balk during the American League’s game-tying rally. After the AL went ahead in the top of the 10th, San Francisco’s Willie Mays doubled home Aaron to tie the contest in the bottom of the frame. After Cincinnati’s Frank Robinson was hit by a pitch, Clemente faced Baltimore’s Hoyt Wilhelm – who’d struck him out in the eighth – with runners at first and second and nobody out. Clemente swung and missed at one inside knuckleball before lifting the next pitch into right-center for a game-winning single.

“Big thrill for me,” he said. “My mother, father, [and] brothers were watching on TV and listening on radio in Puerto Rico.”7

The All-Star Game MVP award was not established until the following year, but had it existed, Clemente’s 2-for-4, two-RBI performance with a run scored in the NL’s 5-4 victory would likely have earned it. “What makes me feel most good is that the skipper [Pittsburgh’s Danny Murtaugh] let me play the whole game,” he said in the winning locker room, where he was photographed smiling with Mays and Aaron. “He [paid] me a big compliment.”8

In 1961’s second All-Star Game, at Fenway Park on July 31, Clemente went 0-for-2 before giving way to Aaron in the bottom of the fourth of a game that ended tied, 1-1.

Clemente’s peers elected him a starter again in 1962, the last year that baseball staged two All-Star Games. In the first, at D.C. Stadium in front of President John F. Kennedy on July 10, he delivered a two-strike double down the right-field line against Tigers righty Jim Bunning in the opening frame.9 It would be the NL’s only extra-base hit, and he also stroked two singles. The first was pulled to left against Twins ace Camilo Pascual in the fourth, an inning that ended with Minnesota catcher Earl Battey cutting down Clemente on an attempted steal of third base to complete a double play after Cepeda struck out.

Before yielding right field to the Giants’ Felipe Alou, Clemente legged out an infield safety against Pascual in the middle of the two-run sixth-inning rally that keyed the NL’s 3-1 victory. Through 2022, his three-hit performance has been surpassed by only three players in All-Star competition. (Joe Medwick in 1937, Ted Williams in 1946, and Carl Yastrzemski in 1970 all had four hits.) On July 30 at Wrigley Field, Clemente played for a losing NL team for the first time, though the score was tied when he departed after playing three innings and going 0-for-2 against the Senators’ Dave Stenhouse.

In 1963 Clemente finished second to Aaron in voting to start for the NL in right field. Aaron, who was leading the majors in home runs and RBIs, played the entire midsummer classic at Cleveland Stadium on July 9, and Clemente replaced Mays in center for the bottom of the ninth inning with the NL on top, 5-3. He fielded Brooks Robinson’s one-out single just before the game-ending double play.

Clemente regained his starting role for the July 7, 1964, All-Star Game at Shea Stadium. His mother was in attendance, and he entered the contest with the majors’ best average (.345) and the NL lead in doubles (22).10 Facing the Angels’ Dean Chance, Clemente whiffed leading off the bottom of the first and grounded to shortstop his next time up. He stroked a two-out single against Pascual in the fifth, however, with the ball bouncing up after striking the second-base bag.11 When Pittsburgh’s Dick Groat followed with a double, Clemente raced home from first to increase the National League’s lead to 3-1. The AL battled back to seize a short-lived lead after Clemente left the game in the top of the sixth, but the senior circuit prevailed on a three-run walk-off homer by his successor in right field, the Phillies’ Johnny Callison.

In the summer of 1965, Clemente enjoyed a career-best 20-game hitting streak that ended against the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax on the final day of the first half. He was already a two-time batting champion and won his third title that year. When Clemente learned that he’d finished third behind Aaron and Callison in his peers’ All-Star Game voting, he made it clear that he didn’t intend to suit up as a reserve, saying, “I won’t play.”12 Pittsburgh coach Harry Walker encouraged him to reconsider, and he relented after National League manager Gene Mauch of the Phillies told him, “It won’t be a game without you. You belong there with the rest of the stars.”13

Before the July 13 contest at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota, Clemente and his fellow Puerto Rican Félix Mantilla were photographed alongside Juan Marichal of the Dominican Republic, Vic Davalillo from Venezuela, and Cubans Leo Cárdenas, Tony Oliva, Cookie Rojas, and Zoilo Versalles – an image that foreshadowed baseball’s changing demographics. In the top of the seventh, Clemente pinch-hit for his Pittsburgh teammate Willie Stargell against the Indians’ Sam McDowell with the score tied and runners at the corners; he grounded into a force out just before the Cubs’ Ron Santo delivered the eventual game-winning infield hit. Clemente played three innings in left field and finished 0-for-2 at the plate after grounding out in the ninth.

Midway through his 1966 MVP season, Clemente started another All-Star Game for the NL. By appearing in his 10th such contest, he surpassed Arky Vaughan for the most in Pirates’ franchise history. The game was played on July 12 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, where the Cardinals’ Joe Torre – who caught the first seven innings – estimated that the on-field temperature was 115 degrees.14 Batting second against Detroit’s Denny McLain, Clemente flied out to center in his first trip. In the fourth inning, he followed Mays’s leadoff safety with a single of his own against the Twins’ Jim Kaat. After Clemente was erased on a force, the Nationals evened the contest, 1-1, on an infield hit by Santo. That score held until the National League prevailed in the bottom of the 10th. Clemente played the entire game in the oppressive heat and went 2-for-4, including a sixth-inning, opposite-field double off the Yankees’ Mel Stottlemyre. “I never felt so tired and weary in my life,” he said.15

Entering the 1967 All-Star Game, only Cepeda (.356) boasted a better batting average than Clemente’s .352. Both made what proved to be their final All-Star starts on July 11 at Anaheim Stadium and played all 15 innings. After Clemente beat out an infield single against the Angels’ Dean Chance in the top of the first, however, he struck out in four straight at-bats; against Chance, the White Sox’ Gary Peters (looking), the Yankees’ Al Downing and the A’s Catfish Hunter. A heavy haze on a 92-degree afternoon and shadows resulting from the 4:15 first pitch contributed to an All-Star Game record 30 strikeouts – 11 on called third strikes.16 “It was hard to see the breaking stuff at this time of day,” Clemente remarked.17 He finished 1-for-6 after grounding out against Hunter in the 14th, but the NL prevailed one inning later. Both his six putouts in right field and four strikeouts remain All-Star Game records as of 2022. (Clemente had only one other four-strikeout game, in Los Angeles against Don Drysdale on May 21, 1966.)

Before leaving for spring training 1968, Clemente injured his right shoulder in a fall at his home in Puerto Rico. He failed to reach double figures in outfield assists for the only time in 14 seasons from 1958 to 1971 and entered the All-Star break hitting just .245. “I don’t want to alibi,” he replied when asked about his shoulder. “It’s not real good, see, I say something like that and it sounds like an alibi.”18 For the first time in nine years, he wasn’t selected for the National League squad. Clemente batted .347 after the break, however, and led NL position players with 8.2 WAR in 1968.

When Clemente returned to the All-Star Game at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington in 1969, he was in the middle of earning NL Player of the Month honors for batting .418 in July. The game was played in damp, overcast conditions on July 23 after being rained out the previous night. Clemente replaced Aaron in right field in the bottom of the fifth and struck out against McDowell in his only plate appearance, “after he had tomahawked a couple of high, hard ones foul,” reported the Pittsburgh Press.19 On defense, Clemente made a valiant diving attempt to glove the Orioles’ Boog Powell’s sinking liner in the eighth inning but trapped the ball.20 The National League won again, 9-3.

When the privilege of choosing starters for the All-Star Game returned to the fans in 1970, Aaron, Mays, and the Reds’ Pete Rose received the most votes among NL outfielders on the ballot, although the majors’ leading hitter – Rico Carty of the Braves – bumped the latter from the lineup on the strength of a write-in campaign. “The hell with the All-Star Game,” said Clemente, who entered the break batting .355. “The only way I would play is if the game were being played in Pittsburgh.”21 His neck had been bothering him for weeks and with the Pirates leading their division by 1½ games, he said, “I want to use those three days to rest.”22 NL President Chub Feeney called Pittsburgh GM Joe Brown, however. Clemente missed the workout the day before the contest to visit a chiropractor, but he was in uniform for the game at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.23 When the teams were introduced, he was one of only three National Leaguers to be audibly booed by the 51,838 in attendance. (Dick Allen of the Cardinals and Cubs manager Leo Durocher were the others.)24

Clemente did not see action until the bottom of the ninth. The NL, after trailing, 4-1, at the beginning of the inning, had pulled within one run and had runners at the corners when he pinch-hit for the Cardinals’ Bob Gibson. Stottlemyre relieved for the American League and fell behind in the count 3-and-1 before Clemente fouled off a curve that would’ve probably been ball four.25 The next pitch was another down-and-away breaking ball, and Clemente lined it to center with a one-handed swing for a game-tying sacrifice fly, drawing cheers from the fickle crowd.26

When the Tigers’ Willie Horton lined a hit off the right-field fence with one out in the top of the 10th, “it appeared to everybody in the new ballpark that it would be an easy double.”27 But Clemente played the carom off the wall perfectly and fired a bullet to second base to hold Horton to a single. An NBC cameraman caught Richard Nixon smiling in the box seats after the strong throw, prompting broadcaster Tony Kubek to remark, “Roberto has gained the admiration of our president.”28 Horton was erased when the next batter grounded into a double play. After Clemente made the second out in the bottom of the 12th, the NL strung together three straight singles to win, 5-4, improving the senior circuit’s record in All-Star Games that he appeared in to 11-1-1.

The National League lost the All-Star Game at Tiger Stadium on July 13, 1971, that featured a record 22 future Hall of Famers. Clemente was a reserve after batting .342 to help the Pirates build the majors’ best first-half record. He replaced Mays in right field in the bottom of the fourth inning and struck out looking against Orioles ace Jim Palmer to end the top of the fifth. Clemente’s eighth-inning plate appearance against Detroit’s Mickey Lolich proved to be his last in All-Star competition, though there was no way for the 53,559 ticket-holders to know that. The count went to three balls and one strike as Lolich followed a pair of hard deliveries with two benders. On the fifth pitch, Clemente committed himself to swinging early but kept his hands back. Balanced on his left leg, he connected and drove the ball more than 450 feet into the right-field upper deck for his only All-Star Game homer.29

In 1972 fans elected Clemente an All-Star Game starter for the first time. His total of 1,091,623 votes ranked fifth in the majors overall, trailing only Johnny Bench, Torre, Aaron, and Allen.30 After being sidelined for two weeks by an intestinal virus, he’d played in Pittsburgh’s final game before the break but bruised his left knee sliding into second base in the eighth inning.31 Nevertheless, he arrived in Atlanta intending to start in center field. “There’s no other place to be than the All-Star Game,” he said. “I have to be excited about playing center field. It’s a compliment, especially when we have so many good centerfielders in our league.”32 Clemente, nearly 38, hoped to play three innings, but he was limping noticeably two hours before game time. When a doctor informed Murtaugh that Clemente risked aggravating his knee injury, the NL (and Pirates) manager had no choice but to scratch him from the lineup.33

Five months and six days later, Clemente died tragically. Stargell and pitcher Dave Giusti had commemorative patches on their left sleeves with his number 21 when they represented the Pirates at the 1973 All-Star Game in Kansas City. The 1974 contest was played at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh with Clemente’s widow, Vera, and three sons in attendance.34 When the All-Star Game returned to the same ballpark 20 years later, the unveiling of a 12-foot-high bronze statue of Roberto Clemente was part of the festivities.35 In 1998 at Coors Field in Denver, Vera became the first female captain of an All-Star team.36 The 2006 All-Star Game, at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, was paused after four innings so that Bud Selig could present her with the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award.37

Roberto Clemente’s All-Star Game legacy will never be forgotten. Since Vic Power and Luis Arroyo became Puerto Rico’s first All-Stars in 1955, a total of 50 players from the island have earned selections through 2022, but none of them have been in uniform for more All-Star Games than Clemente.38

Sources

In addition to sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted w​ww.Ba​sebal​l-Ref​erenc​e.​com and w​ww.Re​trosh​eet.​org.

Notes

1 Lester J. Biederman, “Bucs May Dominate NL All-Star Team with Eight Players,” Pittsburgh Press, July 4, 1960: 30.

2 Lester J. Biederman, “The Scorecard,” Pittsburgh Press, July 12, 1960: 28.

3 Harry Keck, “Bravos and Bards Bounce Off Bucs’ Danny,” The Sporting News, August 10, 1960: 7.

4 “Clemente, Burgess Named N.L. All-Stars,” Pittsburgh Press, July 2, 1961: 54.

5 Jack Hernon, “Roberto Drives in Two Runs, Scores One for Nationals,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 12, 1961: 20.

6 “Clemente Explains Game-Winning Hit,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 12, 1961: 20.

7 Lester J. Biederman, “Clemente ‘Misses’ Two Homers but Still Comes Out a Hero,” Pittsburgh Press, July 12, 1961: 47.

8 “Clemente Just Hoped to Move Mays Along,” Asbury Park (New Jersey) Evening Press, July 12, 1961: 28.

9 Jack Hernon, “Pirates Spark NL Stars to 3-1 Win,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 11, 1962: 18.

10 Al Abrams, “Sidelights on Sports,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 8, 1964: 18.

11 Lester J. Biederman, “NL Win Upholds Alston’s Faith in Callison,” Pittsburgh Press, July 8, 1964: 54.

12 Les Biederman, “Hats Off…!” The Sporting News, July 24, 1965: 29.

13 Bill Christine, “Clemente Drills Phils, Snubs Stars,” Pittsburgh Press, July 8, 1970: 61.

14 Lester J. Biederman, “Would You Believe 115 Degrees?” Pittsburgh Press, July 13, 1966: 71.

15 Biederman, “Would You Believe 115 Degrees?”

16 John Hall, “N.L. Wins a Real Swinger in 15th, 2-1,” Los Angeles Times, July 12, 1967: B1.

17 “Richie Is All Smiles as Tony Arrives Late,” Camden (New Jersey) Courier-Post, July 12, 1967: 46.

18 Charley Feeney, “Roamin’ Around,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 9, 1968: 17.

19 Vince Leonard, “NBC’s Double Day of Delight,” Pittsburgh Press, July 24, 1969: 50.

20 “Alou Makes Most of All-Star Chance,” Pittsburgh Press, July 24, 1969: 32.

21 Bill Christine, “Clemente Drills Phils, Snubs Stars,” Pittsburgh Press, July 8, 1970: 61.

22 “Clemente to Pass Up ‘Star Game,’” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 8, 1970: 18.

23 “Will Hodges Use Clemente Tonight?” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 14, 1970: 16.

24 “Fans Swing to Clemente,” Pittsburgh Press, July 15, 1970: 63.

25 “Fans Swing to Clemente.”

26 “Rose ‘Nationalizes’ a Classic,” Camden Courier-Post, July 15, 1970: 57.

27 Charley Feeney, “Nationals Keep ‘Star Grip,’ Win by 5-4 in 12,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 15, 1970: 19.

28 Roy McHugh, “Roberto’s Reverse,” Pittsburgh Press, July 15, 1970: 63.

29 Joseph Durso, “Nationals Also Connect 3 Times – 6 Equals Record,” New York Times, July 14, 1971: 23.

30 “All-Star Balloting,” Pittsburgh Press, July 18, 1972: 30.

31 “Injured Knee Puts Clemente Out of Game,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 26, 1972: 21.

32 Bob Smizik, “Clemente Center of Star Attention,” Pittsburgh Press, July 25, 1972: 30.

33 Charley Feeney, “Playing Games,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 27, 1972: 15.

34 Joe Grata, “All-Star Fan Recalls Past, Calls ‘Shot,’” Pittsburgh Press, July 24, 1974: 2.

35 United Press International, “Statue Dedicated to Clemente,” July 8, 1994, h​ttps:​//www​.upi.​com/A​rchiv​es/19​94/07​/08/S​tatue​-dedi​cated​-to-C​lemen​te/39​85773​640​000/ (last accessed July 19, 2021).

36 Claire Smith, “Baseball Names Clemente’s Widow Captain,” New York Times, July 3, 1998: 3.

37 Robert Dvorchak, “Clemente All-Star Tribute Another Touching Moment,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 13, 2006, h​ttps:​//www​.post​-gaze​tte.c​om/sp​orts/​pirat​es-al​l-sta​r-gam​e/200​6/07/​13/Cl​ement​e-All​-Star​-trib​ute-a​nothe​r-tou​ching​-mome​nt/st​ories​/2006​07130​453 (last accessed July 19, 2021).

38 Iván Rodríguez, like Clemente, saw action in 14 All-Star games. Clemente was in uniform for 15 All-Star Games over 12 different seasons, while Rodriguez made All-Star teams in 14 separate years.

Roberto Clemente won MVP honors during the 1971 World Series with a .414 batting average (12-for-29), with two home runs, a triple, and two doubles. (Courtesy of the Clemente Museum)