(Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

Long after most of the city has descended into slumber, Roberto Clemente rises again.

For Latin American baseball players, a road trip into Pittsburgh often means a midnight pilgrimage to the Roberto Clemente Museum, located, incongruously enough, in a restored nineteenth-century firehouse, a little off the beaten path but not far from downtown.

The tours usually begin after a game and last until 2:00 or 3:00 A.M. Young players making their first visits grow wide-eyed as they grip Clemente’s bat or trace the outline of the number 21 on his jersey; the old heads stand in the background, smiling knowingly and nodding. All of them coming closer – photograph by photograph, anecdote by anecdote, moment by moment – to a man Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez calls “the baseball god of Latin players.”1

Some Latino players whose careers overlapped with Clemente’s played well into the 1980s and carried his memory forward. Later generations had watched him on TV or heard stories from their parents. Players coming up today may know nothing about Clemente beyond, at most, what they have read on his Wikipedia page. Nonetheless, all of these men have held Clemente in reverence and his legacy has assumed many forms.

CLEMENTE THE BALLPLAYER

Ironically, Clemente’s baseball exploits are only a small part of the inheritance he has passed down. Those who saw him play, though, will never forget.

His teammate Manny Sanguillen raved, “I’ve never seen a better ballplayer than Roberto Clemente, not only in right field. He was the most complete ballplayer ever.”2

“When I first played against Clemente I was a fan. I wanted to watch him. That arm!” gushed Cincinnati’s Tony Pérez, who learned about that arm firsthand very early in his career.3 He was on first base when a teammate blooped a single to shallow right field. Clemente was playing deep. Pérez was sure he could take the extra base.

“I didn’t even look at the third-base coach,” he said. “I just ran because I was going to make it easy.” But when Pérez arrived, the ball was waiting for him. “Our third-base coach, a Cuban guy named Reggie Otero, said to me in Spanish, ‘Chiquito, go to the dugout. Do you know who that was? That’s Roberto Clemente.’”4

Seattle Mariners great Edgar Martinez, who was born in New York and grew up in Puerto Rico, says Clemente was part of a formative childhood memory. “I was about 9 years old, and my aunt was watching what probably were highlights of Roberto Clemente (in the 1971) World Series, and he homered and she was just screaming,” Martinez recalled. “I remember after that I got really interested in the game. Right away I went outside and started hitting rocks with a broomstick, and I kind of fell in love with the game.”5

Modern players speak relatively little of Clemente’s on-field prowess. It is understandable – there isn’t much for them to go on beyond tables of statistics and some grainy video clips. But some of them may have picked up a gauzy glimpse of Clemente from their elders, like a legend passed down from one generation to another.

Toronto pitcher José Berrios heard the tales from his father. “He said, ‘We’re not going to see another arm like his in right field.’”6

Julio Ricardo Varela, founder of the digital media site Latino Rebels, sees a little of Clemente in Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres. “He’s also bringing the Dominican, Caribbean, Latino, Latin-American energy of the baseball that I grew up with, of the baseball I remember. It was OK to wear it on your sleeve.”7 The son of a major leaguer, Tatis has demonstrated an appreciation for baseball history. On Roberto Clemente Day in 2021, he sported a pair of baseball shoes with an image of a sliding Clemente on one side and a Puerto Rican flag on the other. Across the toes were Clemente’s career statistics and a quote attributed to him: “I was born to play baseball.”8

“The way [Clemente] played the game was kind of how my dad wanted to play the game,” said Francisco Lindor. “By … playing the game like that, even though he didn’t play the game professionally, my dad taught me the game that way. Being aggressive, having fun.”9

CLEMENTE THE HUMANITARIAN

Even Lindor admits Clemente the player is secondary to Clemente the man. “[H]e was not great just on the field, but he was outstanding off the field. That’s why we’re wearing number 21 [on Roberto Clemente Day]. It’s not because he got 3,000 hits and won a World Series and got 12 Gold Gloves. It’s not because of that. It’s because how good he was off the field.”10

Clemente’s work on behalf of those in need has come to define him, largely because of the tragic nobility of his death in a plane crash delivering relief supplies to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua.

The Roberto Clemente Award is presented annually to a player who “best represents the game of baseball through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy, and positive contributions, both on and off the field.” Yadier Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals was named the winner in 2018 for his work with Fundación 4, which helps Puerto Rican children struggling to overcome abuse, poverty, or medical issues. He called the award “a dream come true.”11

“[Clemente] did a lot of things off the field to help people, and he had a lot less than we do these days,” Molina said. “If he did it, why shouldn’t we help others?”12

“Once [I started] playing baseball, everybody was like, ‘Oh, you have a good arm like Roberto,’ ‘You hit like Roberto,’ stuff like that,” recalled 2021 Clemente Award winner Nelson Cruz. “Then, I started to find out what kind of person he was and what he did for his community and what he did for all Latin Americans, and definitely, it’s a guy that you want to follow, an example that you want to go after.”13

Cruz’s impact is felt everywhere in his hometown of Las Matas de Santa Cruz in the Dominican Republic. Among other initiatives, he has funded the purchase of emergency vehicles, financed the construction of a police station, and donated money to help families in need of food, medicine, and financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through his Boomstick23 Foundation, Cruz also is helping to build a new technical center that will provide better job opportunities for young people.

Boston manager Alex Cora said of Clemente, “If there’s a Hall of Fame above the Hall of Fame, off the field, he’s in that Hall of Fame.”14 Cora has done his best to emulate that example. Before signing his contract with the Red Sox in October 2017, he made the organization pledge to send relief to Puerto Rico, which had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy a month earlier. Subsequently, Cora, along with members of the front office and a handful of Red Sox players, accompanied a plane that delivered 10 tons of supplies to his hometown of Caguas – much as Clemente was trying to do on his fateful flight on New Year’s Eve 1972.

Clemente’s close friend Luis Mayoral believes Clemente would have dedicated his post-baseball life to philanthropic work. “I see him as more of a sociologist, not necessarily a politician. He was trying to help people better themselves.”15

CLEMENTE THE ACTIVIST

Clemente wasn’t just a caring man who helped people. He was also a proud, fierce man who wasn’t afraid to make good, necessary trouble.

“Latin American Negro ballplayers are treated today much like all Negroes were treated in baseball in the early days of the broken color barrier,” Clemente told Sport magazine in 1962. “They are subjected to prejudices and stamped with generalizations. Because they speak Spanish among themselves, they are set off as a minority within a minority, and they bear the brunt of the sport’s remaining racial prejudices. ‘They’re all lazy, look for the easy way, the short cut’ is one charge. ‘They have no guts’ is another. There are more.”16

Clemente was a fearless counterpuncher. Speaking for his Latino major-league brethren, Pérez called him, “our leader.”17 Manny Mota, Clemente’s teammate from 1963 to 1968, agreed. “He didn’t permit injustices in regard to race. He was very vocal, and that was difficult. He was very misunderstood. But he would not accept injustices with Latins nor with players of color. He was always there to defend them.”18

In a 1983 article, Rod Carew, who grew up in Panama, complained that a decade after Clemente’s death, baseball still wasn’t doing enough to help Latino players adjust to life in the States. Aurelio Rodriguez of the Chicago White Sox believed the void left by Clemente was yet to be filled. “We need somebody to speak for us but not just to talk. The thing about Clemente is that he had something to say.”19

Bias in American culture is endemic and complex. Today’s bigotry may not always be as overt or malicious as that which confronted Clemente; in many cases, the bias may not even be conscious. But it is still there.

Even well into the twenty-first century, broadcasters and scouts frequently use coded, stereotyped language to describe the abilities of Latino players.20 When a Black or Latino player celebrates a home run or a strikeout with too much exuberance, he still may hear a lecture about “playing the game the right way,” which is to say, the White way.

In 2016, a Houston Chronicle columnist quoted the Astros’ Carlos Gómez, a nonnative English speaker, without cleaning up his grammar, a courtesy typically extended to all players.21 It was the same kind of thing that infuriated Clemente 50 years earlier, when writers would directly quote his “broken English,” thus reducing this highly intelligent and thoughtful man to sounding, in print, like a buffoon.

“I know how he felt,” said Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo in 2021. “I came to the States with no English at all. So, I know what the English barrier does, not knowing what people are telling you and stuff. I’ve gone through all that.”22

Clemente didn’t restrict himself to issues solely germane to Latin American players. As an admirer of Martin Luther King Jr., Clemente was sensitive to all the bitter flavors of injustice. “Our conversations always stemmed around people from all walks of life being able to get along well, or no excuse why that shouldn’t be,” said Pirates teammate Al Oliver. “He had a problem with people who treated you differently because of where you were from, your nationality, your color, also poor people, how they were treated.”23

After King’s assassination in April 1968, Clemente led a group of Pirates who refused to take the field on Opening Day, which fell the day before King was to be buried. “[W]hen Martin Luther King died, they come and ask the Negro players if we should play,” he said. “I say, ‘If you have to ask Negro players, then we do not have a great country.’”24 The Pirates’ protest led Commissioner William Eckert to postpone all games until April 10.

A year later, at a meeting of the executive committee of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Curt Flood announced his plans to sue Major-League Baseball to end the reserve clause. Other players greeted the news with skepticism, even ridicule – until Clemente piped up. He spoke with passion of how the reserve clause limited his earning potential and chained him to a city where, although he was beloved, he frequently encountered ignorance and prejudice. As author Brad Snyder put it, “The tenor of the meeting soon shifted from whether the players would back Flood, to how.”25

Today’s generation of Latinos in baseball doesn’t talk much about Clemente’s role as an activist. His humanitarian activities overshadow his harder-edged and more challenging political side. Nonetheless, that part of Clemente likely will never be extinguished completely.

A video clip of Clemente thanking his parents in Spanish following the Pirates’ World Series victory in 1971 resonates with Alex Cora. Cora hadn’t even been born yet, but Clemente’s message was timeless. “On national television, he asked for a moment to speak Spanish. No one does that,” Cora said in 2021. “He taught us resolve and conviction. In many ways, he showed the world that we have to fight for what we believe in and we have to stand up for our rights, and he did it the right way.”26

“I think Roberto would be disappointed with what’s going on in today’s society,” mused Starling Marte, who got to know some of Clemente’s former teammates and his sons while with the Pirates from 2012 to 2019. “He was the kind of guy that was fighting against all the hatred and injustice that’s happening today. Today, current players are still fighting, though. We’re using his spirit. Even though he’s not here today, it’s important to continue to fight for equality and justice, the way he would have.”27

Pittsburgh sportscaster Sam Nover had a different perspective than Luis Mayoral about where Clemente’s road would have taken him after baseball. “He would have run for political office. He would have been the Puerto Rican equivalent to someone like Kennedy.”28

CLEMENTE THE DEITY

The metaphors that players use to describe Clemente suggest he has almost transformed from a flesh-and-blood person who actually walked this earth to a sacred, almost otherworldly symbol.

Pedro Martinez: “Clemente is beyond everything we can think of.… Kind of like an angel that God had here for the perfect time.”29

Benjie Molina (Yadier’s brother): “In many houses when I was growing up, including ours, the portraits of two famous men hung in honored spots among the family photos: Jesus and Roberto Clemente.”30

Carlos Beltrán: “Even though he passed away a long time ago, he is still alive.”31

Orlando Merced: “I feel as if I knew him. He has that look that speaks to you. He’s like Elvis. He’s still alive.”32

For Puerto Rican players in particular, Clemente’s uniform number 21 has taken on sacramental qualities. For most, that number has been strictly off-limits. A 2019 New York Times article noted that since Clemente’s death, 235 Puerto Rican-born players had appeared in the major leagues, but only 16 had worn the number 21 – and none of them in the previous five seasons.

“No Puerto Ricans will use that number because of Roberto Clemente,” insisted Carlos Correa.33

When Beltrán joined the Cardinals in 2012, his preferred number, 15, was taken. He told the equipment manager, “‘Man, I don’t want 21.’ I feel like – I cannot touch that number. It’s like, no, no, not 21. That’s something I want to leave.”34

Eddie Rosario remembers being a kid in Guayama, Puerto Rico, and backpedaling even then when a youth coach offered him that number. “I’m not Roberto Clemente. I can’t wear that,” he thought.35

“You can use it to honor him or you can see it as something you don’t want to touch, because the way he carried the No. 21 is hard for another player to do in the same way,” according to Beltrán. “It’s not impossible, but it’ll be really hard. You’ll always have that shadow of Clemente, and many players avoid using that.”36

One player willing to shoulder that burden was Carlos Delgado, who wore 21 in 1996 with Toronto and again from 2006 to 2009 with the New York Mets. “I thought he was so important that this was a way to recognize him. I understand the other side of the coin, not using the number to honor him, but as long as you honor his memory and his career, I think it’s O.K.”37

Delgado has done just that, as a humanitarian and activist. In 2004 he protested the United States’ military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan by refusing to stand for the playing of “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch. “As an athlete, you have a platform with a lot of followers. You can push positive things, you can push movements and support movements.”38

Beginning in 2020, Major League Baseball has invited all players, coaches, and managers of Puerto Rican descent to wear 21 to commemorate Roberto Clemente Day, which is celebrated around the league each September 15.

“It’s a blessing to be able to wear his number on a day like that,” according to Lindor. “It’s super special. It shows our roots.”39

“Obviously, this jersey is going to be in a special place in my house,” said Javier Baez after he wore 21 in 2020.40

The Mets’ Edwin Diaz is one of many who has called for 21 to be retired across the league. “It would be a tremendous honor if they did retire the number 21,” he told reporters. “Obviously, in the history of the game, there have been a lot of number 21s, but I think he trumps them all. You look at his numbers on the field and they are there, but also what he was able to do off the field and all the people he was able to help, not only in Puerto Rico but in every other country he used to help out in.”41

For the true believers, seeing and interacting with the personal effects housed in the Clemente Museum is almost like receiving the Eucharist. Through those artifacts, they absorb a small part of Clemente’s legendary spirit.

Albert Pujols was the first active major leaguer to visit the museum, in April 2007, less than a year after it opened. Word spread within baseball’s Latin American community, and now museum founder and curator Duane Rieder finds himself giving private tours all summer. “It all depends on the major-league schedule, but if they are in for four days, I’m getting them. For some of these guys, it’s a ritual.”42

Dave Martinez, who was raised in New York by Puerto Rican parents, led a busload of his Washington Nationals players to the museum in 2021. “I got great feedback from our young guys, especially our Latin guys, that went. They loved it,” Martinez said. “It was awesome to just kind of communicate with them [about] what they enjoyed, what it meant for them to see something like that, and they all started talking about it.”43

Few players who visit the museum arrive completely ignorant about Clemente. “To give you an example of what kind of an impact he had on Puerto Rico and the game of baseball, even in the schools they teach about Roberto Clemente,” according to Victor Caratini of the San Diego Padres. “We had sections [of the curriculum] entirely dedicated to him and what he did not only [in] baseball, but [on] the humanitarian side of things.”44

But there is so much more to learn, as Martín Maldonado discovered when he visited as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. “That’s when I got shocked,” Maldonado remembered. “I never knew he served in the military. They told him about a movie and he was going to be the guy that had to [hit into a triple play]. He told the guy he wasn’t going to do the movie because he doesn’t [hit into triple plays.] That was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever heard.”45

“When you grow up, you think a lot about Clemente,” said the Nationals’ Luis García. “Everybody says that name in the Dominican. You go to Google and you put in Roberto Clemente and you see the photo, you see the biography – you only see that. But when you go to the museum, it’s very different. You feel that.”46

Rieder recalled when Yadier Molina brought Puerto Rican hip-hop legend Daddy Yankee to get schooled. It was Molina’s third or fourth trip, so he knew what to expect. Daddy Yankee is known for his humanitarian work and, as it happens, was once a promising baseball player, but his knowledge of Clemente didn’t run deep until that visit.

“I remember looking at Yadi’s face and he was giggling, and then I looked at Daddy’s face and his mouth is open,” Rieder remembered. “He goes, ‘Wow. I didn’t know any of this stuff. Keep going.’ Yadi was in the background saying, ‘Let him have it. Tell him all the stories.’ Two hours later, we’re still there and I am still telling him the story.

“He goes, ‘I gotta apologize. I didn’t know any of this.’ And Yadi is there snickering in the background. It was one of those beautiful moments.”47

After players visit a couple of times, they acquire their own favorite stories. “The third time he was there, Pujols was translating [what I was saying] into Spanish to some of the guys,” Rieder said. “[That] was really cool, just to see him getting so excited about being there and seeing new things and learning more. Because the story is still evolving. We’re still finding out new stuff constantly.”48

Rieder does something unusual when he shows the players around – he lets them touch things.

“I got to touch the Rawlings spikes [Clemente] wore when he used to run down fly balls in right field,” wrote Carlos Beltrán. “I got to hold the bats he used to get some of his 3,000 hits. I got to run my fingers across the stitching of the number 21 on the back of a jersey he actually wore in a game. I never felt closer to my hero than I did that night.”49

“I want to give them the mojo,” laughed Rieder. It is almost as big a thrill for him as it is for the players. “I let them swing a bat that he actually touched and they get goose bumps. Carlos Beltrán wanted to put Clemente’s cleats on his wife because she was Puerto Rican. He put the cleats on her and the oversized jersey and she was getting teary-eyed. Those moments go a long way.”50

On a 2018 visit, a group of Chicago Cubs was admiring a suit that Clemente wore to the 1971 All-Star Game. With its wide lapels and head-turning black, white, and silver pattern, the suit was a relic from the era of mod fashion, yet somehow still contemporary and cool. Rieder noticed that Javier Baez was roughly the same size as Clemente and offered to let him wear the suit jacket.

“I put the jacket on him and he was just freaking out,” Rieder recalled. “He was sending video to his family in Puerto Rico and he did an Instagram post that went all over.”51 ESPN’s Eduardo Pérez arranged to have Baez wear the jacket at the Home Run Derby. He rocked it so well that Topps used an image of Baez in the jacket on his 2019 baseball card.

“We’re getting this whole generation of young players hooked on Clemente,” said Rieder. “It’s so awesome. They don’t know much when they come, but they do when they leave.”52

“I think it’s important for them to learn the history,” explained Dave Martinez. “[T]he battles that he had to fight, I think it’s important for them to understand that, and what it meant for him to play the game, and what it means to each individual now to represent and play the game.”53

Ozzie Guillen, then the manager of the White Sox, once ignited a small brush fire when he suggested that Clemente was only the third-best baseball player from Puerto Rico, behind Roberto Alomar and Ivan Rodriguez.54 Talk like that is almost heretical; however, Guillen, who named a son after Clemente and boasts a vast collection of Clemente memorabilia, understands that the emotional connection Latin American players have with Clemente has relatively little to do with his statistics.

Yes, Clemente’s baseball skills merit respect and his humanitarian efforts command admiration. And, of course, he died in service of his personal mission. But he also is venerated, in no small part, because of his refusal to kneel to a culture that even today can be cold, condescending, and cruel.

“He lived racism. He was a man who was happy to be not only Puerto Rican, but Latin American,” said Guillen. “He let people know that. And that is something that is very important for all of us.”55

Notes

1 Patrick Reddington, “Washington Nationals News & Notes: Davey Martinez on Roberto Clemente Day; Resting Young Players, and Watching Young Players,” SB Nation: Federal Baseball, September 16, 2021, ht​tps:/​/www.​feder​albas​eball​.com/​2021/​9/16/​22675​978/w​ashin​gton-​natio​nals-​news-​davey​-mart​inez-​rober​to-cl​ement​e-day​-rest​ing-y​oung-​playe​rs-lu​is-ga​rcia.

2 Charlie Vascellaro, “My Clemente: Manny Sanguillen,” La Vida Baseball, June 19, 2017, h​ttps:​//www​.lavi​dabas​eball​.com/​manny​-sang​uille​n-rob​erto-​cleme​nte/.

3 Danny Torres, interview with Tony Pérez, Talkin’ 21 Podcast, podcast audio, October 2020, h​ttps:​//ope​n.spo​tify.​com/e​pisod​e/1uP​gRBs5​rrcj6​o7x24​UJQQ?​si=TO​ejy34​cTyql​agYwO​YXC​jw.

4 Torres interview.

5 “Edgar Martinez Tours Hall of Fame, Reflects on His Baseball Journey and Childhood Idol,” Seattle Times, July 11, 2019, h​ttps:​//www​.seat​tleti​mes.c​om/sp​orts/​marin​ers/e​dgar-​marti​nez-t​ours-​hall-​of-fa​me-re​flect​s-on-​his-b​aseba​ll-jo​urney​-and-​child​hood-​idol/.

6 Julia Kreuz, “What Roberto Clemente Day Means for Blue Jays with Puerto Rican Roots,” Yahoo! Sports, September 16, 2021, h​ttps:​//new​s.yah​oo.co​m/mlb​-what​-robe​rto-c​lemen​te-da​y-mea​ns-fo​r-blu​e-jay​s-fro​m-pue​rto-r​ico-1​80047​013.h​tml?f​r=syc​srp_c​atc​hall.

7 Julia O’Connell, “The Huddle: Baseball’s Unwritten Rules & Roberto Clemente,” Global Sport Matters, August 22, 2020, h​ttps:​//glo​balsp​ortma​tters​.com/​liste​n/202​0/08/​22/th​e-hud​dle-b​aseba​lls-u​nwrit​ten-r​ules-​rober​to-cl​eme​nte/.

8 R.J. Anderson, “MLB Celebrates Roberto Clemente Day as Players Wear No. 21, Call for Number to Be Retired,” C​BSSpo​rts.​com, September 9, 2020. h​ttps:​//www​.cbss​ports​.com/​mlb/n​ews/m​lb-ce​lebra​tes-r​obert​o-cle​mente​-day-​as-pl​ayers​-wear​-no-2​1-cal​l-for​-numb​er-to​-be-r​et​ired/.

9 Mandy Bell, “Lindor on Clemente’s No. 21: ‘Super Special,” M​LB.​com, September 7, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/f​ranci​sco-l​indor​-21-r​obert​o-cle​mente​-day.

10 Bell.

11 “Cardinals Catcher Wins Roberto Clemente Award,” E​SPN.​com, October 24, 2018, h​ttps:​//www​.espn​.com/​mlb/s​tory/​_/id/​25072​934/c​ardin​als-y​adier​-moli​na-wi​ns-ro​berto​-clem​ente-​award.

12 Jorge Ortiz, “Clemente’s Impact Wanes in Puerto Rico 40 Years After His Death,” USA Today, December 27, 2012, h​ttps:​//www​.usat​oday.​com/s​tory/​sport​s/mlb​/2012​/12/2​7/rob​erto-​cleme​nte-4​0th-a​nnive​rsary​-deat​h-pla​ne-cr​ash-p​uerto​-rico​-pira​tes-h​umani​taria​n/179​4453/.

13 Do-Hyoung Park and Anthony Castrovince, “Nelson Cruz Wins Roberto Clemente Award,” ML​B.​com, October 27, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/n​elson​-cruz​-wins​-2021​-robe​rto-c​lemen​te-​awa​rd.

14 Chris Cotillo, “Why Are Boston Red Sox Players, Coaches Wearing No. 21? Kiké Hernández, Alex Cora, and Others Honoring Clemente,” M​assli​ve.​com, September 15, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mass​live.​com/r​edsox​/2021​/09/w​hy-ar​e-bos​ton-r​ed-so​x-pla​yers-​coach​es-we​aring​-no-2​1-kik​e-her​nande​z-ale​x-cor​a-and​-othe​rs-ho​norin​g-rob​erto-​cleme​nte.​html.

15 Gene Collier, “Pride and Petulance,” The Sporting News, December 28, 1992: 34-36.

16 Howard Cohn, “Roberto Clemente’s Problem,” Sport, May 1962: 54-56.

17 Danny Torres, interview with Tony Pérez.

18 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, h​ttps:​//www​.orla​ndose​ntine​l.com​/news​/os-x​pm-20​02-03​-31-0​20330​0030-​story​.ht​ml.

19 Robert Heuer, “Clemente’s Legacy for Latin Ballplayers,” New York Times, January 2, 1983: Sec 5, 2.

20 Adam Felder and Seth Amitin, “How MLB Announcers Favor American Players Over Foreign Ones,” The Atlantic, August 27, 2012, h​ttps:​//www​.thea​tlant​ic.co​m/ent​ertai​nment​/arch​ive/2​012/0​8/how​-mlb-​annou​ncers​-favo​r-ame​rican​-play​ers-o​ver-f​oreig​n-one​s/26​1265/; Alex Speier, “How Racial Bias Can Seep Into Scouting Reports,” Boston Globe, June 10, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.bost​onglo​be.co​m/202​0/06/​10/sp​orts/​how-r​acial​-bias​-can-​seep-​into-​baseb​all-s​couti​ng-re​por​ts/.

21 Craig Calcaterra, “Houston Chronicle Editor Apologizes for Column about Carlos Gomez,” N​BCSpo​rts.​com, May 16, 2016, h​ttps:​//mlb​.nbcs​ports​.com/​2016/​05/16​/hous​ton-c​hroni​cle-e​ditor​-apol​ogies​-for-​colum​n-abo​ut-ca​rlos-​gom​ez/.

22 Kreuz, “What Roberto Clemente Day Means for Blue Jays with Puerto Rican Roots.”

23 David Maraniss, “No Gentle Saint,” T​heUnd​efeat​ed.​com, May 31, 2016, h​ttps:​//the​undef​eated​.com/​featu​res/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-was-​a-fie​rce-c​ritic​-of-b​oth-b​aseba​ll-an​d-ame​rican​-soci​ety/.

24 Phil Musick, “Intense Pride Still Rages in Roberto Clemente,” Pittsburgh Press, July 28, 1969: 24.

25 Brad Snyder, A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood’s Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2006), 79.

26 Nathalie Alonso, “Clemente Continued What Robinson Started,” MLB.​com, December 15, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-day-​celeb​rated​-for-​2021.

27 Jerry Crasnick, “Roberto Remembered,” M​LBPla​yers.​com, accessed January 13, 2022, h​ttps:​//www​.mlbp​layer​s.com​/robe​rto-r​ememb​ered.

28 Danny Torres, “Rare Interview Sets Tone for Roberto Clemente’s Legacy,” Metsmerized Online, September 9, 2020, h​ttps:​//met​smeri​zedon​line.​com/2​020/0​9/rar​e-int​ervie​w-set​s-ton​e-for​-robe​rto-c​lemen​tes-l​egacy​-2.​html/.

29 “What Roberto Clemente Means to Pedro Martinez,” La Vida Baseball, September 17, 2019, h​ttps:​//www​.lavi​dabas​eball​.com/​pedro​-mart​inez-​my-cl​eme​nte/.

30 Bengie Molina with Joan Ryan, Molina: The Story of the Father Who Raised an Unlikely Baseball Dynasty (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), 26.

31 Derrick Gould, “Beltran Strives to Follow in Clemente’s Footsteps,” S​tltod​ay.​com, September 2, 2013, h​ttps:​//www​.stlt​oday.​com/s​ports​/base​ball/​profe​ssion​al/be​ltran​-stri​ves-t​o-fol​low-i​n-cle​mente​s-foo​tstep​s/art​icle_​ab563​518-2​176-5​8b2-b​de0-2​89384​b39cc​c.​html.

32 Steve Wulf, “December 31: ¡Arriba Roberto!” Sports Illustrated, accessed November 28, 2021, ht​tps:/​/vaul​t.si.​com/v​ault/​1992/​12/28​/dece​mber-​31-ar​riba-​rober​to-on​-new-​years​-eve-​in-19​72-ro​berto​-clem​ente-​under​took-​a-mis​sion-​of-me​rcy-h​is-de​ath-t​hat-n​ight-​immor​taliz​ed-hi​m-as-​a-man​-grea​ter-t​han-h​is-g​ame.

33 James Wagner, “For Many Latino players, Roberto Clemente’s Number Is Off Limits, Too,” New York Times, April 17, 2019: Sec B, 9.

34 Gould.

35 Wagner.

36 Wagner.

37 Wagner.

38 Jorge Castillo, “Remembering Roberto Clemente as a Black Man Who Fought Against Racial Injustice,” Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.lati​mes.c​om/sp​orts/​dodge​rs/st​ory/2​020-0​9-08/​rober​to-cl​ement​e-fou​ght-r​acial​-inju​stice.

39 Castillo.

40 Anderson.

41 Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo), “It Would Be a Tremendous Honor if [MLB] Did Retire the Number 21,” September 9, 2020, h​ttps:​//twi​tter.​com/A​nthon​yDiCo​mo/st​atus/​13037​99232​86913​0247.

42 Duane Rieder, telephone interview with author, January 13, 2022.

43 Reddington, “Davey Martinez on Roberto Clemente Day.”

44 Barry Bloom, “Puerto Rican Players Pushing MLB to Retire Clemente’s Number,” Global Sport Matters, July 8, 2019, h​ttps:​//glo​balsp​ortma​tters​.com/​cultu​re/20​19/07​/08/p​uerto​-rica​n-pla​yers-​pushi​ng-ml​b-to-​retir​e-cle​mente​s-num​ber/.

45 Chandler Rome, “What Roberto Clemente Means to Astros Catcher Martin Maldonado,” Houston Chronicle, September 9, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.hous​tonch​ronic​le.co​m/tex​as-sp​orts-​natio​n/ast​ros/a​rticl​e/Rob​erto-​Cleme​nte-m​eans-​Astro​s-Mar​tin-M​aldon​ado-1​55554​51.​php.

46 Jessica Camerato, “Nats Take ‘Amazing’ Trip to Clemente Museum,” MLB.​com, September 15, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/n​ation​als-v​isit-​rober​to-cl​ement​e-mus​eum-i​n-pit​tsbu​rgh.

47 Rieder interview.

48 Rieder interview.

49 Carlos Beltrán, “How We Play Baseball in Puerto Rico,” The Players’ Tribune, June 1, 2016, h​ttps:​//www​.thep​layer​strib​une.c​om/ar​ticle​s/201​6-5-3​1-car​los-b​eltra​n-yan​kees-​puert​o-ric​o-rob​erto-​cleme​nte.

50 Rieder interview.

51 Rieder interview.

52 Rieder interview.

53 Reddington, “Davey Martinez on Roberto Clemente Day.”

54 “ChiSox’s Guillen Creates Controversy with Clemente Talk,” ESPN.​com, April 8, 2008, h​ttps:​//www​.espn​.com/​mlb/n​ews/s​tory?​id=33​367​75.

55 Diaz, “Clemente 30 Years After His Tragic Death.”

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.

Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.

Introduction and Context

The disquieting year of 1981 featured the worst upheaval in baseball history — to that point in time — due to a players strike that erased roughly one-third of the regular-season schedule.  Play was halted on June 12, and after weeks of acrimonious negotiations between players, club owners, and their respective representatives, a settlement was reached that allowed for a resumption of the championship season on August 10. The key factor in the dispute was compensation demanded by teams that lost players, especially those of the highest quality, to free agency. Newly implemented was a rule that created a pool of players from which those clubs could draft a compensatory replacement to fill the void left by the departed free agent. This rule was opposed by the Major League Baseball Players Association due to concerns about the negative impact it could have on the bargaining rights of players chosen as compensation.   

Teams that had been at the top of their division at the time of the strike were declared “first-half” winners, and when play resumed after a delayed All-Star Game on August 9, those clubs that won their division in the “second-half” of the regular season would face the “first-half” victors in a special divisional playoff series that prefaced the normal League Championship Series. When the smoke cleared in late October, the Yankees engaged the Dodgers in the World Series, won by Los Angeles in six games on the heroics of Ron Cey, Pedro Guerrero, and Steve Yeager, all of whom were named co-MVPs of the series. The Dodgers’ victory was the capstone to a season in which Los Angeles rode a wave of “Fernandomania,” the catchy epithet used to describe enthusiasm generated by the deeds of the team’s sensational rookie pitcher, Fernando Valenzuela.   

Against this backdrop of labor rancor and the subsequent redemption of a thrilling postseason, major-league baseball held its annual winter meetings from December 7 through the 11th at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida.     

The Business Side

With over five years having passed since the landmark Messersmith decision that facilitated free agency, the financial state of the game was less than promising.  Addressing the gathering of owners, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn stated that baseball collectively lost $25 million in 1980, and the accounting data for the just-completed season would reveal, according to Kuhn, a $50 million loss.1 Only nine of the 26 major-league franchises turned a profit in 1980, and some small-market teams, already at a disadvantage because of lower revenue streams, sought some form of revenue-sharing to be modeled on a system used by the National Football League. The pooling and redistribution of a sports league’s monies had already taken root in the NFL, and this move had been initiated — successfully so — to ensure the stability of weaker and small-market clubs. Well-funded major-league baseball teams, however, were less than enthusiastic to provide alms for their poorer brethren. Orioles owner Edward Bennett Williams was leading the effort to remedy the disparity and “appear[ed] to have made some progress, but most of the owners in the larger markets … aren’t overly anxious to slice up the pie.”2  

During a quick trip to the nation’s capital on December 9, Kuhn fanned the flames of the revenue debate when he testified before a congressional subcommittee and expressed concern about “the potential overexposure of baseball games on cable television [that] threatens the economic viability of the sport.”3 Kuhn’s remarks drew a sharp rebuke from Ted Turner, owner of television superstation WTBS and the Atlanta Braves, whose games were beamed to cable outlets nationwide.  It was acknowledged at the winter meetings that the American and National League rules dealing with radio and television  licensing, some of which were decades old, needed amending in order to account for the “new technology and terminology that didn’t exist when the [leagues’] charters were adopted.”4

Another proposal under consideration by the owners concerned the realignment of each league into three divisions, a concept that would have led to an additional round of playoff games. However, the proposal failed, primarily because of a noticeable lack of support in the National League. The restructuring of the American League required the approval of 10 of its 14 franchises, and informal voting among the junior circuit’s moguls seemed to favor the change. But National League bylaws called for unanimous approval, and Dodgers President Peter O’Malley was the most powerful among a bloc of five owners strongly believed to be opposed to three-division league formats.5

While the midsummer players strike was thankfully in the past, the owners were beginning to cast a wary eye on negotiations with the umpires union, whose contract had expired at the conclusion of the 1981 season. Bargaining sessions had commenced, noted Blake Cullen, the National League supervisor of umpires, but the progress was slow in the early going. 6

At the senior level of the uppermost echelon of major-league baseball’s power structure, the Executive Council named Baltimore’s Edward Bennett Williams, the Brewers’ Bud Selig, and Ballard Smith of the Padres as new members, replacing John Fetzer of Detroit, Ed Fitzgerald of Milwaukee, and Peter Bavasi of Toronto. Selig and Eddie Chiles of the Texas Rangers were also named to the Player Relations Committee to replace Fitzgerald and Minnesota’s Calvin Griffith. Owners also approved the use of batting helmets with double earflaps, and voted to restrict the size of major-league rosters after August 31 to 28 players rather than 40.7

Minor-league business at the meetings created barely a ripple, but several club officials were recognized for their efforts in 1981. Pat McKernan (Triple-A Albuquerque Dukes), Allie Prescott (Double-A Memphis Chicks), and Dan Overstreet (Class-A Hagerstown Suns) were named by The Sporting News as the top executives of their respective levels.8            

The drama receiving the most attention was a nefarious move that threatened to displace Bowie Kuhn from the commissioner’s office. Still stung by what was perceived as his aloofness during the summer strike, Kuhn remained in the crosshairs of a cabal of representatives from nine teams seeking his ouster. Kuhn claimed that Lou Susman, an attorney working for the St. Louis Cardinals, was “secretly campaigning” to undermine him.9 The group of conspirators consisted of Edward Bennett Williams, Ballard Smith, John McMullen (Houston), Bill Williams (Cincinnati), Eddie Chiles, George Steinbrenner (Yankees), George Argyros (Seattle), Nelson Doubleday (Mets), Fred Wilpon (Mets), and Susman. Reporting for the New York Times, Joseph Durso listed Edward Bennett Williams as “the leader of the revolt against Kuhn’s role as commissioner.”10 Less than two weeks before the winter meetings, Kuhn’s detractors had met in New York and drafted what soon became known as the “Hollywood Letter,” a missive calling for Kuhn’s resignation. 

Several days into the gathering in Florida, the anti-Kuhn forces, letter in hand, convened on the evening of Wednesday, December 9, “and decided to press for a restructuring of the high command during Thursday’s league meetings.”11 Meanwhile, a group of pro-Kuhn owners, led by the Dodgers’ O’Malley and dubbed “the white hats,” learned of the plot and held their own confab a few hours the next morning to discuss ways to rally support for the imperiled commissioner. While Kuhn was the most visible figurehead among all baseball executives, he had no control over how owners and teams spent their money. Nonetheless, Kuhn had become the scapegoat for the financial losses of the previous years and the widening gap between richer and poorer teams.

Kuhn retained his composure even when the existence of the letter was revealed, and, defending himself in the face of the onslaught of criticism, he explained that his hands were tied to a great extent during the recent strike because the owners’ Player Relations Committee — not the commissioner’s office — was tasked with negotiating with the players union.12 The meeting of National League owners was notably divisive, but a modicum of peace was restored when a new committee of executives was formed to study possible restructuring of the highest offices of baseball. In a superficial attempt to put the matter to rest, the Hollywood Letter was “symbolically torn up by Susman.”13

Kuhn’s term as commissioner was not set to expire until August of 1983, and the terms of his contract held that no discussion of his status could take place until 15 months before its termination. The preemptive assault on the commissioner by his detractors failed, and although he had survived this battle, Kuhn admitted that the shredding of the letter did nothing to dispel the bile among those who ardently sought his removal. This war on Kuhn, initiated by a select group of owners, would continue beyond the conclusion of the 1981 winter meetings.    

Personnel Dealings

A prelude to the traditional player transactions at the winter meetings occurred in late November when one trade was completed and another begun. In a swap of former All-Star outfielders, the Detroit Tigers sent former top draft pick and slugger Steve Kemp to the White Sox for Chet Lemon, and ground was broken on a three-way deal involving the Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Indians, and St. Louis Cardinals. The Phillies traded outfielder Lonnie Smith and a player to be named later to the Indians for catcher Bo Diaz, and Cleveland immediately shipped Smith to the Cardinals for two pitchers, Lary Sorensen and Silvio Martinez. This trade was completed at the winter meetings when the Indians picked up pitcher Scott Munninghoff from the Phils.     

When the action moved to Florida, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, never shy about amending his roster or management team, announced that manager Bob Lemon would be allowed to pilot the Bronx Bombers for the 1982 season, after which Gene Michael would take over in the Yankee dugout from 1983 through 1985. Another former Yankees skipper, Ralph Houk, had his contract extended through the 1984 season by the Boston Red Sox.     

On the ever-popular trading front, activity was relatively slow, leading one major newspaper to comment that most of the winter meetings consisted of “four days of boredom interspaced with rumors.”14 While many clubs may have been waiting until spring training of 1982 to evaluate their squads before ultimately deciding on how to address problem areas, 36 players were nonetheless swapped in 16 separate transactions. This total was off by a substantial margin from the previous winter meetings, at which 59 players were swapped in 18 trades. 

Outfielder Clint Hurdle, the bright Royals star who once graced the cover of Sports Illustrated but had been disabled for most of 1981, was sent to the Cincinnati Reds for pitcher Scott Brown, who had spent most of his professional career in the Reds’ minor-league system.

Pittsburgh sent veteran shortstop Tim Foli to the California Angels for catching prospect Brian Harper. Seeing only limited playing time with the Bucs and three other teams in the mid-1980s, Harper did not start having his best years until 1988 when he joined the Minnesota Twins. But just as he had done for the Pirates in their championship season of 1979, Foli paid a quick dividend for the Angels by helping to anchor their infield during California’s drive to the 1982 AL West pennant.  

The Mets traded the middle of their infield, exchanging shortstop Frank Taveras for Montreal pitcher Steve Ratzer and cash. The former ironically had been traded in 1979 from Pittsburgh to the Mets for the aforementioned Foli, while the latter, like Scott Brown, appeared in only a handful of major-league games up to 1981 and would never pitch at that level again. New York also sent second baseman Doug Flynn and hurler Danny Boitano to the Texas Rangers for closer Jim Kern. Flynn had been a key acquisition from the Reds as part of the controversial 1977 trade of Tom Seaver to Cincinnati but was a mediocre hitter at best, and Boitano, who pitched for several years in the Phillies and Brewers organizations, pitched only 30 innings for the Rangers in 1982, his last year in the majors. A three-time American League All-Star reliever in the late 1970s, Kern fell victim to injuries in mid-1980 and had become a rehabilitation project. The tall right-hander never pitched for the Mets, as he was traded, along with Alex Trevino and Greg Harris, for Reds slugger George Foster two months later as spring training commenced.                

Seattle’s Tom Paciorek, whose .326 average was runner-up to Boston’s Carney Lansford for the 1981 American League batting crown, was sent to the White Sox for outfielder Rod Allen, shortstop Todd Cruz, and catcher Jim Essian. Allen had no impact for the Mariners, and Essian saw only limited duty behind the plate, but Cruz became Seattle’s primary shortstop in 1982 before moving on to Baltimore. First baseman Paciorek, whose two other brothers also played in the major leagues, hit well for the White Sox (.312 in 1982, .307 in 1983) and continued to do so later for the Mets and Rangers in a career that eventually spanned 18 years.

After spending just one season in San Francisco, outfielder Jerry Martin was shipped to the Kansas City Royals for two pitchers, Rich Gale and Bill Laskey. Gale had been a top prospect in the Royals’ system but had alternating good and bad years since his 14-win, 3.09 ERA debut in 1978; Laskey blossomed briefly, winning 13 games in both 1982 and 1983. Martin, meanwhile, found a place in the Royals outfield, batting .266 in 147 games during 1982. However, he was swept up in the drug scandal that was soon to plague major-league baseball. Along with fellow Royals Willie Wilson, Willie Mays Aikens, and, most notoriously, Vida Blue, he would serve time in jail for involvement with cocaine. 

The Giants added outfielder-first baseman Doe Boyland from the Pirates in exchange for pitcher Tom Griffin, swapped hurler Doug Capilla for the Cubs’ Allen Ripley, and traded outfielder Larry Herndon to the Tigers for pitchers Dan Schatzeder and Mike Chris. San Francisco had set out to add one southpaw to its pitching staff at the meetings, but actually ended up with three (Capilla, Chris, and Schatzeder).       

Now operating in Chicago, Dallas Green, the new general manager of the Cubs, worked on retooling the team’s lineup, first by sending pitcher Mike Krukow and cash to the Phillies — Green’s former employer — for pitchers Dan Larsen, Dickie Noles, and catcher Keith Moreland. 

It is important to note that one trade that did not take place was a deal involving a prized prospect in the Philadelphia organization. Long rumored to be included in trades for several weeks, Ryne Sandberg was finally acquired in late January 1982 in a trade that brought the future Hall of Famer — along with shortstop Larry Bowa — to the Cubs for shortstop Ivan DeJesus. Based on accounts in The Sporting News at that time, one can draw the conclusion that Green had to have been laying groundwork for a deal involving Sandberg but did not complete trade talks until several weeks after the conclusion of the winter meetings.15        

Former National League Rookie of the Year Rick Sutcliffe, a 17-game winner for the Dodgers in 1979, appeared to be destined more for a minor-league bullpen than continued success at the major-league level after posting two dismal seasons (five total wins with a collective ERA of 5.10, in 1980 and 1981) following his stellar debut. Still perhaps overwhelmed by “Fernandomania” and basking in the glow of its World Series title, Los Angeles decided to move Sutcliffe and second baseman Jack Perconte to Cleveland for outfielder Jorge Orta — a former American League All-Star — catcher Jack Fimple, and pitcher Larry White. 

One of the last vestiges of the Big Red Machine, outfielder Ken Griffey, had been traded to the Yankees along with pitcher Brian Ryder a month before the gathering in Hollywood. At the meetings, the Reds completed the deal by acquiring pitcher Fred Toliver from New York. 

In a swap of outfielders, the Astros sent Gary Woods to the Cubs for Jim Tracy, with both players immediately assigned to their new team’s Triple-A affiliate. The Cardinals signed a pair of pitchers from the Mexican League, Eric Rasmussen of the Yucatan club, and former American Leaguer Vicente Romo of Coatzacoalcos.

American League West rivals Seattle and Oakland completed a trade in which the Mariners shipped infielder-outfielder Dan Meyer, who had twice enjoyed 20-homer seasons, to the Athletics for Rich Bordi, a 6-foot-7-inch reliever who would end up pitching for four other clubs over the following six years. These teams also completed a trade in which the A’s sent pitcher Roy Thomas to the Mariners for outfielder Rusty McNealy and pitcher Tim Hallgren. 

In the annual major-league Rule 5 draft, held on December 7, 10 players were selected by other organizations for $25,000 apiece. Among these, only two players — pitcher and former Cardinal farmhand Jim Gott, and infielder Domingo Ramos, late of the Blue Jays — would enjoy any future success with his new club. While neither Gott nor Ramos racked up big numbers, they did exhibit staying power by each accruing 11 years of service time with four different big-league teams.                      

Other instances of post-meeting trades that had been initially discussed in Hollywood, were those involving the Houston Astros’ Cesar Cedeño, once one of the best all-around players in the game but now in noticeable decline, for Cincinnati third baseman Ray Knight. Knight was the heir-apparent to Pete Rose following Rose’s departure to Philadelphia at the end of the 1978 season, but he became expendable after his batting average dropped nearly 60 points from 1979 to 1981. But perhaps the biggest laying of groundwork for a future trade occurred in a transaction between the Cardinals and Padres.

On December 10, St. Louis dealt outfielder Sixto Lezcano to San Diego for pitcher Steve Mura, and these principals were each accompanied by the ubiquitous player-to-be-named from their respective clubs.  Having already surrendered two pitchers — Lary Sorensen and Silvio Martinez — in previous trading, Cardinals manager and GM Whitey Herzog stated that he was in the market for more frontline pitching, so it was fair to assume that at least one more hurler would be forthcoming from the Padres. At the onset of the meetings, however, Herzog alluded to possibly dealing his gifted but troubled shortstop, Garry Templeton. Having fallen out of favor with Cardinals fans and his own teammates, especially after a late August home game in which he made obscene gestures to the crowd at Busch Stadium, Templeton was placed on Herzog’s trading block.

After weeks of haggling following the initial Lezcano-Mura trade, Templeton and All-Star shortstop Ozzie Smith were announced — on February 11, 1982 — as the players swapped to complete the trade first brokered in Hollywood. Smith would go on to anchor the Cardinal infield for three National League crowns and a World Series title while endearing himself to St. Louis fans for the remainder of a career that landed him in Cooperstown. Templeton, feeling more comfortable closer to his home in Santa Ana, California, helped the Padres to the 1984 National League pennant, but he never fulfilled the promise he displayed during his early years when he hit well over .300 in three of his first four seasons as a Cardinal. 

Several free-agent signings at the winter meetings involved some well-known names, including former Boston outfielder Joe Rudi and Texas right-hander Fergie Jenkins, who returned to the cities that initially launched them into prominence, Rudi back to Oakland, Jenkins back to Chicago for another stint with the Cubs. Reliever Bill Campbell, also formerly of Boston and a member of the first big free-agent class of 1977, followed Jenkins to Wrigley Field by signing as a free agent. Others, such as outfielder Cesar Geronimo (Kansas City), infielder Jerry Remy (Boston), and catcher Buck Martinez (Toronto), re-signed with their 1981 clubs, and the Cardinals purchased pitcher Mike Stanton from the Indians.

In closing, a few other transactions warrant attention. On December 6, the Angels purchased catcher Bob Boone from the Phillies, and five days later, the Dodgers signed former Orioles shortstop Mark Belanger as a free agent. Both players had been very active as members of the Major League Baseball Players Association, and a third player with a high profile in the players union, Orioles third baseman Doug DeCinces, found himself traded to California in late January 1982. It may be argued that Boone had become expendable in Philadelphia with Bo Diaz about to become the Phillies’ backstop. It may also be claimed that Belanger was at the end of his career, and the Orioles were making room for rookie Cal Ripken Jr.; thus, the Phillies and Orioles had little to lose by letting this trio of veterans go. However, the movement of three players prominent in union circles to new addresses may well have been a case in which their former clubs simply chose to rid themselves of some of the reminders of the strike of 1981.  

Summary

The first winter meetings following the devastating midseason strike of 1981 were punctuated by a backlash against Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, instigated by a group of owners intent on forcing Kuhn’s resignation. Fueled by dissatisfaction over widespread financial problems besetting the national pastime and the ostensible distance at which the commissioner kept himself during the strike, those seeking Kuhn’s ouster were unsuccessful in their attempt, but the dissent that surfaced in Hollywood, Florida, did not bode well for Kuhn as baseball’s top executive. Trading activity was generally slower than in previous years, but formulation of a deal eventually involving two premier shortstops of the day, Garry Templeton and Ozzie Smith, was set in motion and finally consummated before the opening of spring-training camps in early 1982.         

Sources

Gillette, Gary, and Pete Palmer, eds. The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition (New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 2007).

Kuhn, Bowie. Hardball: The Education of a Baseball Commissioner (New York: Times Books, 1987).

Miller, Marvin.  A Whole Different Ball Game: The Sport and Business of Baseball (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1991).  

Siegel, Barry, ed.  Official 1982 Baseball Register (St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1982).

The Baseball Encyclopedia, Ninth Edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993).

Wigge, Larry, Carl Clark, Dave Sloan, Craig Carter, and Barry Siegel, eds. Official 1982 Baseball Guide (St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1982).

Notes

1 “Kuhn Says Baseball Lost $25 Million in 1980,” Washington Post, December 8, 1981: C1; Bowie Kuhn, Hardball: The Education of a Baseball Commissioner (New York: Times Books, 1987), 362.

2 Jerome Holtzman, “Owners Discuss Sharing Income,” Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1981: C5.

3 Bart Barnes, “Kuhn Hits Cable TV,” Washington Post, December 10, 1981: D1.

4 Dave Nightingale, “Chances Dim for 3-Division Play,” The Sporting News, December 12, 1981: 45.

5 Referring to a gathering of National League executives in October, O’Malley said, “I could have sworn I saw at least five hands in the air (in opposition to three-division play) at the National League meeting in Arizona.” See Dave Nightingale, “Chances Dim for 3-Division Play,” The Sporting News, December 12, 1981: 39.  

6 “Chances Dim for 3-Division Play.”

7 Clifford Kachline, “Baseball Takes Lumps, Survives Stormy, Strike-Plagued Season,” in Larry Wigge, Carl Clark, Dave Sloan, Craig Carter, Barry Siegel, eds., Official 1982 Baseball Guide (St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1982), 25.  

8 “Top Minor League Execs Packed Their Parks,” The Sporting News, December 12, 1981: 40.

9 Kuhn, 366. 

10 Joseph Durso, “Attack on Kuhn Shook Baseball Talks,” New York Times, December 13, 1981: S3. 

11 Ibid.

12 As Kuhn informed the New York Times, “The commissioner’s powers are mostly restraining. I don’t make labor policy or labor decisions.” See Larry Wigge, Carl Clark, Dave Sloan, Craig Carter, Barry Siegel, eds., Official 1982 Baseball Guide (St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1982), 24.  

13 Kuhn, 10.

14 Mark Heisler, “At Baseball Meetings, There’s a Lot of Talk, Not Much Action,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1981: G3.

15 Hal Bodley, “Phils Disgusted; Deals Collapse,” The Sporting News, January 2, 1982: 38.

Legal Hoops

Danny Ainge had a no-basketball clause in the contract he signed in 1980 with Toronto. Boston Celtics general manager Red Auerbach admitted to knowing about the Blue Jays clause and the contract, and being notified twice about it. Still, Ainge’s desire to play basketball over baseball landed in the courts. By the beginning of October 1981, a jury decided in favor of Toronto,1 even though Ainge signed his contract without counsel because he was still in college (Ainge became the first athlete to take advantage of an NCAA rule allowing a college athlete to be a pro in another sport.)2  However, the possibility of Ainge’s playing basketball remained, as Judge Lee Gagliardi questioned the situation:3

Gagliardi: “The affidavit filed by Ainge shows that he wants to play basketball, doesn’t it?”

Blue Jays attorney Douglas Parker: “Yes. It says he doesn’t want to play baseball. But the Toronto management’s position is that Ainge gets confused about his future.”

Gagliardi (reportedly smiling): “He’s a college man. And an academic All-America. I think he has a very good idea of what he wants.”

Toronto agreed to continue working on an agreement with Boston, but progress was slow. Rumors spread of Toronto President Peter Bavasi being an obstacle to negotiations, and hopes emerged after Bavasi resigned in late November, citing the need for a greater challenge.4 Pat Gillick, Toronto’s vice president of baseball operations, suggested that Bavasi’s resignation had no impact on the Ainge situation, referring to Toronto’s legal team as the driver of negotiations.5

Ultimately, a deal was reached on November 27, with settlement terms not announced.6

Notes

1 Mike Douchant, “Hands Off Ainge, Jury Tells Celts,” The Sporting News, October 17, 1981: 62.

2 Thomas Boswell, “Danny Ainge: A Singular Figure in a Double Play Ainge: Does He Have the Right Stuff for NBA?,” Washington Post, December 20, 1981: L1.

3 “Hands Off Ainge, Jury Tells Celts.”

4 Enquirer Wires, “Bavasi (Needing a Challenge?) Resigns from Blue Jays,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 25, 1981: 34.

5 Neil Singelais, “Bavasi Quits Blue Jays; Ainge Dispute Continues: Resignation May Facilitate Deal with Celtics,” Boston Globe, November 25, 1981: 33.

6 Associated Press, “Boston Signs Ainge,” Albuquerque Journal, November 28, 1981: 32.

But when a player who’d made crucial contributions to his team all year is not eligible for the World Series, ah, that’s when the speculative wheels really begin to spin! The prevailing wisdom among many current analysts and baseball professionals is that “anything can happen in a short series” (just ask the 1969 Baltimore Orioles)! No doubt about it—despite the importance of depth on any team, if a star pitcher or everyday player is missing when two fairly evenly matched teams are trying to win four of seven games, the outcome can be huge. There have been several occasions where that’s happened, and in this brief study we’ll try to determine when injured players have made the biggest difference in the outcome of a World Series.

First, a few ground rules of what we will not be considering in this study for the purpose of comparison:

1. NO MILITARY SERVICE: We’ll deal only with actual physical injuries that caused a player to miss the entire World Series. During WWII so many players wore the uniform of their country, it becomes impossible to make meaningful comparisons. Would the Cardinals have beaten the Yankees in 1943 if they’d had Enos Slaughter, Terry Moore, and Johnny Beazley?

(Of course, the Yankees were missing Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Heinrich, and Phil Rizzuto). No doubt that the Cardinal string of three consecutive pennants (1942-44) was helped by the fact that Stan Musial did not begin his service commitment until 1945, while their strong “brothers battery” of Mort and Walker Cooper was never drafted. (In 1944, the St. Louis Browns won their only pennant helped because the draft had created what we would now call “parity” in the American League.)

2. NO LATE-SEASON INELIGIBLES: Perhaps the strongest example here is Pedro Ramos of the 1964 Yankees, who was traded to the Yankees shortly after the September 1 deadline, and over the last month of the season made 13 relief appearances, picking up one victory and eight saves with a 1.25 ERA while compiling 21 strikeouts and zero walks in 22 innings. Nevertheless, in our research there have been relatively few examples of such late-season ineligible players, so the Ramos example remains a unique occurrence. (For example, in 1970 Mudcat Grant was traded from the Oakland Athletics to the Pittsburgh Pirates too late to help the Bucs in their NLCS bout with the Cincinnati Reds. Despite his 2.25 ERA in 12 appearances, Grant had no saves and it is doubtful he would have been able to help his team prevent the three-game sweep by Sparky Anderson’s “Big Red Machine.”)

3. NO PARTIAL INJURIES: There have been several cases where, despite their injuries, players have participated in a few games of the World Series. In the same 1964 series against the Cards, because of circulatory problems in his left arm, Whitey Ford was unable to appear after pitching and losing Game One. In other Yankee World Series, due to various injuries, Mickey Mantle had been able to start only two games in 1955 and five in 1957 (perhaps not coincidentally, the Dodgers and Braves beat the Yankees in each of those seven-game series). Also with the Yankees, in 1921 Babe Ruth missed the final three games with an infected arm and knee injury (Ruth did pinch-hit in the final and eighth game and grounded out, making the final out of the series).

So what criteria should we use in determining which players’ injuries were the most crucial for their teams in series play?

1. PLAYERS MUST HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THEIR TEAMS FOR A FULL SEASON: Yes, Tommy Davis would have undoubtedly helped the 1965 Los Angeles Dodgers to their series victory over the Minnesota Twins, but Davis played in only 17 games at the beginning of the year and the Dodgers did manage to win the pennant (and series) without him. Also outside this category is Lou Gehrig of the 1939 Yankees. As all serious baseball fans know, Gehrig’s consecutive-game streak of 2,130 was halted that year when he succumbed to the debilitating illness that would claim his life two years later. He played only eight games, leaving the lineup on May 2, 1939. Yet the Yankees steamrolled to a pennant and swept the Cincinnati Reds in October.

2. THE TEAMS IN QUESTION LOST THE WORLD SERIES WITHOUT THESE KEY PLAYERS: This eliminates such examples as Reggie Jackson, who pulled a hamstring muscle in the 1972 ALCS against the Detroit Tigers. His Oakland Athletics won the series anyway in seven games over the Reds (albeit with a very close 3-2 victory in Game Seven). Others like Jackson who were key players for their teams over the course of a season, then missed the series (or most of it) but their teams won anyway are:

A. Dodgers outfielder and 1988 National League MVP Kirk Gibson, whose multiple injuries limited him to one memorable walk-off home run at-bat in Game One of the 1988 series against Oakland. The Dodgers went on to defeat Oakland in five games without any further appearances by Gibson.

B. Willie Randolph, who was replaced by the immortal Brian Doyle at second base in the 1978 Yankees six-game series win over the Dodgers.

C. Pitcher Steve Barber, whose sore arm was hardly missed by the 1966 Baltimore Orioles rotation, when the Birds limited the Dodgers to two runs in a four-game sweep.

D. Ernie Lombardi, who because of a severely sprained ankle appeared in but two games of the series for the 1940 Reds (one was as a pinch-hitter), saw his team defeat the Tigers in another close Game Seven, 2-1.

Which brings us to our last criterion:

3. THE SERIES HAD TO GO SEVEN GAMES IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED: The reasoning here is simple. If the two teams were fairly evenly matched, then logically the teams would battle to the wire, going to a final single game. In such Game Sevens, undoubtedly a key player who’d been missing could have made a crucial difference. This eliminates such instances as:

A. Boston Braves outfielder Jeff Heath, whose broken ankle caused him to miss the 1948 fall classic against the Cleveland Indians (the Tribe won in six).

B. Don Mueller, of the 1951 New York Giants, who pulled a tendon sliding into third in the ninth inning of Game Three of the infamous playoff against Brooklyn, and watched his teammates succumb to the Yankees in the series, also four games to two.

C. Little-remembered Cincinnati Reds pitcher Wayne Simpson, whose shoulder injury ruined a strong season (he was 14-3 with a 3.02 ERA) and prevented him from starting in the 1970 series, which his team lost in five games to the Baltimore Orioles. (In that same year Reds 20-game winner Jim Merritt also suffered a late-season elbow injury, but was given a desperation start by manager Sparky Anderson in the final game. Unfortunately, Merritt lasted only 1 2/3 innings and yielded three runs.)

But none of the above examples contain a series that went to seven games without a single key player available to the losing team. Now, of course, one may argue with opposite logic that maybe a really key player’s absence would perhaps contribute to his team losing in less than seven games. Perhaps the most famous example here is the 1905 series, when the Giants defeated the Philadelphia Athletics in four games to one. Rube Waddell, Connie Mack’s star left hander, was unable to appear in any of the five games. John McGraw’s Christy Mathewson shut out the Giants three times (Iron Man Joe McGinnity and Chief Bender also pitched shutouts for the other Giant victory and the lone A’s win respectively, so each of the five games was a shutout!) Still, it is hard to accept that one pitcher could have made the difference from one victory to four. And Waddell’s arm certainly wouldn’t have helped the A’s puny .161 series batting or their inability to score against Mathewson in 27 innings.

So we come back to our original question: Which seven-game World Series have been most impacted by the losing team having an injury to a key player out for the entire series, moreover, a player who’d made a great contribution over a full season? Surprisingly, all of answers to the above question are within the last 30 years of series play, three are in one decade, and two are for the same team! Here they are chronologically:

1. 1975 – Jim Rice, Red Sox vs. Reds
2. 1982 – Rollie Fingers, Brewers vs. Cardinals
3. 1985 – Vince Coleman, Cardinals vs. Royals
4. 1987 – Jack Clark, Cardinals vs. Twins

1. 1975 – JIM RICE, RED SOX VS. REDS

Jim Rice had an astounding rookie season in 1975, helping the Red Sox to the American League pennant by appearing in 144 games, with a .309 batting average, 22 homers, 109 RBI, and an OPS (combined slugging and batting averages) of .841. Rice, however, was overshadowed by his teammate Fred Lynn, who that season became the only player to win both the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player Awards.

Nevertheless, the Red Sox series hopes suffered a severe blow when Rice broke his wrist on September 21 and was out for rest of the season and post-season. Rice had been alternating between left field and the designated hitter that year, with Carl Yastrzemski playing mostly first base. For the series against the Reds, which at the time did not allow the use of the DH, manager Darrell Johnson shifted Yaz to left field for four of the seven games, (he also played three games at first base) and used a combination of Cecil Cooper at first, and Juan Beniquez, Rick Miller, and Bernie Carbo in left, in effect to replace the missing Rice. Cooper, Beniquez, and Miller combined to go 2 for 29 for a bat- ting average of .069 with an OPS of .267.

While Carbo did slam a crucial pinch-hit three-run homer in the renowned Game Six, he had only seven other plate appearances (four of them in Game Seven, when Johnson finally decided to let him start a game). It’s hard to believe that Rice couldn’t have helped turn the tide in this famously close series. It’s at least likely that he would have done better than .069, especially with the right-handed- hitting Rice facing such Cincy left handers as Don Gullet, who started three games, Fred Norman, who started one, and Will McEnaney, who relieved in five of the seven games (Rice hit .340 against lefties that season with an OPS of .930).

Furthermore, at Fenway, where four of the seven games were played, Rice hit .313 with an OPS of .877. When Rice finally got his chance in the 1986 series against the Mets, he hit .333, although none of his nine hits were home runs (he did manage one double and one triple).

2. 1982 – ROLLIE FINGERS, BREWERS VS. CARDINALS

It seemed to be as commonly held opinion as there possibly can be in baseball that the Milwaukee Brewers of the late 1970s and early 1980s lacked only a reliable bullpen to put them over the top. The “Brew Crew” had tremendous hitting and strong defense with players such as Robin Yount, Sal Bando, Paul Molitor, Gorman Thomas, Jim Gantner, and Ben Oglivie. The starting pitching, led by Mike Caldwell and Moose Haas, while certainly not spectacular, was adequate. The 1978, ’79, and ’80 Brewers won 92, 95, and 86 games respectively and had yet to appear in the post-season.

Then in 1981, in a blockbuster trade with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Brewers received Rollie Fingers, Ted Simmons, and Pete Vuckovich in exchange for David Green, Sixto Lezcano, and Lary Sorensen. In the 1981 strike-shortened season, Fingers saved 28 games and posted a 1.04 ERA. He not only won the Cy Young Award, he became the first American League pitcher to cop the MVP simultaneously (a feat since duplicated by Dennis Eckersley in 1992). Although the Brewers were eliminated by the Yankees in a close five-game Divisional Series, Fingers had a win and a save in the two Milwaukee victories.

In 1982, Fingers saved another 29 games, but he tore an arm muscle in September and the Brewers had to stave off the Baltimore Orioles’ furious stretch drive without him. Right hander rookie Pete Ladd had some success in substituting for Fingers in the Brew pen, especially in the ALCS against the California Angels. Milwaukee won the five-game series with three consecutive wins after losing the first two when Ladd and Jim Slaton combined for three saves.

But in the World Series against the Cardinals, Ladd himself was also injured and appeared in only one game, pitching two-thirds of an inning. Manager Harvey Kuenn relied heavily on lefty Bob McClure, who relieved five times in the seven-game series. McClure recorded the only two saves for the team in the series, but he compiled a 4.15 ERA, and he also lost two contests, including Game Seven.

In the sixth inning of the series finale, McClure relieved starter Vuckovich with one out and runners at second and third, attempting to protect a 3-1 Brewer advantage. He walked right-handed batter Gene Tenace (pinch-hitting for left-handed batting third baseman Ken Oberkfell), then allowed run-scoring singles to lefty-swinging Keith Hernandez and righty George Hendrick, allowing the Redbirds to go ahead 4-3, a lead they would never relinquish.

Many fans and writers second-guessed Kuenn’s decision to leave southpaw McClure in the game to face Hendrick with the series on the line, and right-hander Haas ready in the bullpen. But Haas was ineffective in the October classic, posting a 7.36 ERA (in fact, Haas yielded two important insurance runs to the Cards in the eighth inning). Harvey Kuenn would have not had to choose the lesser of two evils in this critical situation if Rollie Fingers had been available. Since the bullpen allowed 15 hits and nine walks in ten innings for an ERA of 7.20, noting that the Milwaukee Brewers missed Rollie Fingers in the 1982 World Series is a bit like saying that drummer Pete Best got a little unlucky when he was fired by the Beatles.

3. 1985 – VINCE COLEMAN, CARDINALS VS. ROYALS

Former manager Whitey Herzog knows something about how injuries affect championship games. In his book, You’re Missin’ A Great Game, Herzog states:

All my life, I’ve been good enough to get my teams close . . . . But the strangest things would happen once I got there. You’d have made money betting on Herzog teams over the long haul. But if you’d put your money on some horrible break happening at the last minute, you could have retired early In 1985, not only did The Call stomp all over us [Herzog is referring to umpire Don Denkinger calling the Royals’ Jorge Orta safe at first when he was clearly out leading off the bottom of the ninth inning in Game Six, which led to a two-run game winning rally when the Cards were three outs from the world championship], but the fastest ballplayer in history—our offensive catalyst that year, the base thief Vince Coleman—got run over by a two-mile-an- hour mechanical tarp before the Series began. Two years later we played the Twins in the Series. Two guys, Jack Clark, and Terry Pendleton, accounted for most of our offensive production that year, but both went down with late season injuries. We lost.

Let’s deal with Whitey’s bad luck in 1985 first. Vince Coleman had an incredible rookie season, stealing 110 bases while being thrown out a mere 25 times, a success rate of 81%. Further, the Cardinal teams of the ’80s will forever be remembered for playing “Whiteyball,” a high-octane running attack that in 1985 featured, besides Coleman, such speedsters as Ozzie Smith, Tommy Herr, Andy Van Slyke, and Willie McGee, each of whom stole more than 30 bases. As a team, the Cards stole 314 bases, the fourth best total in baseball history (in contrast, they hit a league low 87 home runs). Yet in the Series, the Redbirds managed two stolen bases.

Even more astounding, they attempted only five steals in the entire series! Royals catcher Jim Sundberg caught all seven games. True, over his career he was an excellent defensive catcher with a powerful and accurate arm. But during the regular season, Sundberg nailed 25 of 85 runners, for a 29% average. Yet, in the Coleman-less series, he nailed three of the paltry five Cardinal base thieves, for an average of 60%!

Coleman did get another chance, two years later, against the Twins in the 1987 classic. Despite a poor series at bat, hitting only .143 with a .200 OBA, he stole six bases and was not caught once. Although utility outfielder Tito Landrum played left field in his absence in the ’85 series against the Royals (which did not allow the designated hitter) and batted a team-high .360, it seems a safe bet that without Vince Coleman, the St. Louis Cardinals never were able to even begin to play their style of winning baseball in the 1985 World Series.

4. 1987 – JACK CLARK, CARDINALS VS. TWINS

As we have seen, two years later Vince Coleman played in another World Series. This time it was the absence of a slugger, Jack Clark, and not a base-stealing threat that may have prevented Herzog’s Redbirds from becoming champions. Clark was the only legitimate power threat in the Cards’ speedster lineup.

In 1987 he smacked 35 of the team total of 94 homers and drove in 106 runs in only 419 official at-bats. In addition, Clark led the National League with a .597 slugging average, a .459 OBA, and 136 walks. But on September 7, Clark severely sprained his ankle and was done for the season. Although he made one pinch-hitting appearance in St. Louis’s seven-game NLCS victory over the San Francisco Giants, he missed the entire World Series against the Twins, which the Cards lost in seven games.

This time the designated hitter was allowed in the four home games played in the Metrodome, and Herzog replaced first baseman Clark with a tandem of Curt Ford, Dan Driessen, and Jim Lindeman at both DH and first. None of them played particularly poorly (Lindeman hit .308), but it is quite likely the Redbirds missed Clark’s powerful bat in the middle of the lineup. As a team, they hit only two home runs in the entire series.

Clark would have faced left hander Frank Viola in his three starts, and southpaw Dan Schatzeder also appeared three times in the series. Oddly, in 1987 Clark reversed his career-long practice of hitting lefties better than righties, but he still posted a .543 slugging average that year against left handers. It’s also possible that the third-place Cardinals hitter missed cleanup man Clark hitting behind him (Herr batted .250 in the series with one RBI). In the 1985 season, with Clark following him in the batting order, Herr hit .302 and drove in 110 runs! In 1987, Herr came down to earth a bit, hitting .263, but he still had 83 RBI.

Perhaps, as Herzog said, it was the combination of injuries to both Clark and third baseman Terry Pendleton that doomed the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series. But unlike Clark, Pendleton did manage to appear in the fall classic, playing three of the seven games.

CONCLUSION

Of course, ultimately no one can predict with 100% certainty “what might have been” in any situation, much less the unpredictability of baseball in a short series. Still, these four examples stand out because these injured players made major contributions to their teams all season long, and when they missed the entire World Series, each of their teams lost in the seventh game.

Isn’t it reasonable to think they had they been able to contribute, they might have swung the pendulum from defeat to victory in just one game? Now imagine the consequences of these four “what might’ve beens.”

The Milwaukee Brewers would have won their only world championship, the St. Louis Cardinals may have cracked the lineup of Neyer and Epstein’s “Greatest Baseball Dynasties” with three series victories in six years in the 1980s, and the Boston Red Sox would have broken the “Curse of the Bambino” over 25 years ago!

(Photograph by Duane Rieder.)

In the immediate aftermath of Roberto Clemente’s New Year’s Eve plane crash while on a mercy mission to Nicaragua, there were calls for him to be inducted by acclamation into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His qualifications were never questioned; he was only the 11th player to reach 3,000 base hits and was a 15-time All-Star. The only thing standing in the way was a Hall of Fame rule that a player cannot become eligible for induction until five years after his playing career ended.

On January 2, 1973, Joe Heiling, the president of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA), said, “We feel that Clemente, like Sandy Koufax and Stan Musial, would be a first-ballot inductee, so why wait?” Secretary-treasurer Jack Lang said that BBWAA leadership had reached out to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and that Kuhn had offered his “complete support.”1

Joseph Durso of the New York Times wrote that Clemente “doubtlessly will become the first Latin player elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.”2

And the Boston Globe’s Harold Kaese wrote, with perhaps a bit more precision, “Prediction: Roberto Clemente will be the first Latin-American player in baseball’s Hall of Fame.”3

The sports editor of the Chicago Defender wrote that Clemente was “one of the many great black superstars, who never got the right break in the mainstream of publicity. But now that he is gone, his accomplishments on the field have assured him a sport in baseball’s Hall of Fame.”4

In the aftermath of Clemente’s death, the board of directors of the Hall voted on January 3 to amend the eligibility rules.5 An editorial in The Sporting News endorsed the idea, its final sentence reading, “If induction into the baseball shrine enhances Roberto’s reputation, his name will add luster to the Hall of Fame, too.”6

There were those who recommended not being so hasty. Among the first to speak out was Richard Dozer of the Chicago Tribune, who said he would vote against admission before the five-year period, giving a number of reasons, one of which was that Clemente’s children would then be ages 13, 12, and 9 and would then better “realize the scope of the honor. All they know now is that Daddy’s gone.”7

Bob Broeg, writing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, noted how proud a man Clemente had been and suggested, “[T]he way I see it, to steamroller Roberto into the Hall of Fame now is really a disservice to the proud person who liked to feel that he was best in life, not in death.”8 Broeg argued that Clemente himself wouldn’t be able to appreciate an induction ceremony and that “[f]ive years from now, all of us could benefit anew by renewing the faith, so to speak, by a reminder and restatement of the compassion and consideration of the outstanding athlete and humanitarian who died on a mission of mercy to the helpless and homeless of Managua.”9

Those arguments notwithstanding, at a January 27 meeting, the Hall of Fame Committee of the BBWAA and the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee agreed to hold a special election.10

The results were reported in late March, 393 to 29 with two abstentions. It was the largest number of ballots cast in any Hall of Fame vote.11

The Associated Press story declared Clemente “the first Latin-American player voted into the Hall.”12

The actual induction took place at Cooperstown on August 6, as part of the annual ceremony. Others inducted that day were pitcher Warren Spahn, the sole player elected in 1973,13 Monte Irvin, voted in by a Special Committee on the Negro Leagues,14 and three selected by the Veterans Committee: umpire and executive Billy Evans, George “Highpockets” Kelly, and Mickey Welch.

Vera Clemente attended the induction ceremonies, along with her mother-in-law and her three sons. Described as speaking with “her composure shaken and her voice cracking under the strain,” she said, “This is Roberto’s last triumph.”15 The Los Angeles Sentinel offered her comments in some detail.16 Among those present was Mrs. Lou Gehrig.

THE FIRST LATIN AMERICAN PLAYER IN THE HALL OF FAME

Who was the first player from Latin America to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame?

Was it Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, or Honus Wagner? No, it was not. They were the first five inducted into the Hall of Fame, in the first class back in 1936. All were born in the continental United States.

The first person born outside the United States was inducted just two years later, in 1938 – Harry Chadwick, a pioneer/executive who came from Exeter, England.

In 1953, two more British natives were added to the Hall in the same class – executive Harry Wright (Sheffield) and umpire Tommy Connolly (Manchester). Wright had played baseball in Boston from 1871 to 1877.

In 1962 Jackie Robinson became the first Black ballplayer voted into the Hall.

Roberto Clemente had lived to see Satchel Paige added to the Hall of Fame in 1971, and both Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard added in 1972.

A native of Carolina, Puerto Rico, with his 1973 induction, Clemente was the first player from Latin America to be inducted into the Hall, via special election after his tragic death on December 31, 1972. As noted, also inducted in 1973 was Negro Leaguer and eight-year National League ballplayer Monte Irvin.

LATER PLAYERS FROM LATIN AMERICA IN THE HALL OF FAME

Four years after Clemente’s induction, Martin Dihigo of Cidra, Cuba, was inducted in 1977. Had the five-year waiting period been maintained, Clemente would have first become eligible in 1978, and thus might have been the second Latin American inductee.

The mission Clemente had been on when he lost his life inspired many, in Puerto Rico, throughout Latin America, and around the world. With no disrespect to Martin Dihigo, honoring Clemente in the Hall of Fame in 1973 was part of an outpouring of activity that resulted in many tributes that produced good works of one kind or another, such as the construction of Ciudad Deportiva Roberto Clemente in Carolina, Puerto Rico (Roberto Clemente Sports City).

It was Clemente’s dream to build such a sports complex, a dream that had been noted by the New York Times more than a year before his death.17 As early as February 20, 1973, Vera Clemente announced the securing of a 602-acre site in Carolina, Clemente’s hometown.18 An article on the H​istor​y.com website says, “The Roberto Clemente Sports City has served more than one million children, including future major leaguers Bernie Williams, Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, and Benito Santiago.”19

After Clemente, it was 10 more years before the next player from Latin America was named to the Hall of Fame. Such players named since Clemente’s induction are:

• 1983 – Juan Marichal, of Laguna Verde, Dominican Republic
• 1984 – Luis Aparicio, of Maracaibo, Venezuela
• 1991 – Rod Carew, of Gatun, Panama Canal Zone.
• 1999 – Orlando Cepeda, of Ponce, Puerto Rico
• 2000 – Tony Perez, of Camaguey, Cuba
• 2006 – Jose Mendez, of Cardenas, Cuba
• 2006 – Cristobal Torriente, of Cienfuegos, Cuba
• 2011 – Roberto Alomar, of Ponce, Puerto Rico
• 2015 – Pedro Martinez, of Manoguayabo, Dominican Republic
• 2017 – Ivan Rodriguez, of Manati, Puerto Rico
• 2018 – Vladimir Guerrero, of Nizao, Dominican Republic
• 2019 – Mariano Rivera, of Panama City, Panama
• 2022 – Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso, of La Habana, Cuba
• 2022 – Tony Oliva, of Pinar del Rio, Cuba
• 2022 – David Ortiz, of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Edgar Martinez was born in New York City but raised in Puerto Rico. He was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2019.

One can be sure that many more will eventually be so honored, given the obvious demographics in major-league baseball over the past 25-plus years.

Recent reports state that Hispanic or Latino ballplayers make up around 30 percent of current major-league players.20

As perhaps a point of interest, four natives of other countries are enshrined in the Hall of Fame:

• Fergie Jenkins (1991), born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada
• Barney Dreyfuss (2008), born in Freiburg, Germany
• Bert Blyleven (2011), born in Zeist, The Netherlands
• Larry Walker (2021), born in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada

(Courtesy of Thomas Van Hyning.)

All baseball fans are familiar, if not from the movie, then from the grainy newsreel footage, with Lou Gehrig’s legendary speech at Yankee Stadium home plate on July 4, 1939.

Yet that was not the first nor the last time a speech would have a dramatic impact at The House that Ruth Built. Baseball, football, and faith have all been occasions for legendary rhetoric at Yankee Stadium.

The first such speech was made on November 10, 1928, and did not involve baseball. The orator was Notre Dame’s legendary head football coach Knute Rockne, during halftime with a game against West Point. The game was scoreless, and the Fighting Irish were seen as underdogs. Nearly 85,000 people packed Yankee Stadium to see the football rivalry between the two teams play out.

In the locker room, Rockne reminded his players of the late Notre Dame star George Gipp. In four seasons with the Fighting Irish, Gipp rushed for 2,341 yards, passed for more than 1,750 yards, and died at the age of 25 of pneumonia.

Now, to inspire his men to victory, Rockne told his players: “The last thing (Gipp) said to me was: ‘Rock, sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.’”1

Notre Dame stormed out and beat Army, 12-6. Both Gipp’s career and Rockne’s speech were immortalized on celluloid in the 1940 movie Knute Rockne-All American, with Pat O’Brien in the title role, and Ronald Reagan as the Gipper.

Ironically, historians say it’s unlikely Gipp made such a request – as some say Rockne wasn’t in the hospital when he died.

There is far less controversy about the next major speech at Yankee Stadium. “Baseball’s Gettysburg Address” is how many people have referred to Lou Gehrig’s tear-filled farewell to the sport between games of a doubleheader on July 4, 1939.

The ceremony is one of the best-known events in baseball history, with Gehrig receiving gifts from his teammates, other teams, and reporters who covered the Yankees. Modest to the end, shoulders limp, showing his sunken chest, Gehrig gazed down at the trophies while the fans shouted, “We want Lou.”2

Gehrig’s speech was poorly recorded by newsreel cameras and was spontaneous. In his thick Manhattan accent, Gehrig opened with the words, “For the past two weeks you’ve been reading about a bad break.3 Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” After honoring his teammates, opponents, manager, general manager, fans, wife, and even his in-laws, he finished: “So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.”4

The producer of The Pride of the Yankees, Sam Goldwyn, had little interest in shooting a baseball film until he saw the newsreel of the speech, and broke into tears. That got the movie rolling.5

Gary Cooper, who played Gehrig, rendered a shorter version of the speech for the movie cameras. However, when he went to the South Pacific during World War II to entertain the troops, they asked for the speech at his first appearance in New Guinea’s jungles.

Cooper did not remember the speech’s precise words. To his credit, Cooper asked for a few minutes to prepare, turned the stage over to his colleague Jack Benny, and wrote down the words in pouring rain. “They were a silent bunch that listened to me,” he said later. “They were the words of a brave American who had only a short time to live, and they mean something to those kids in the Pacific.”6

Yankee Stadium’s next great address was delivered by Gehrig’s great teammate, Babe Ruth, on April 27, 1947. Suffering from the malignant tumor in his neck that would kill him in 1948 at the early age of 53, Ruth had lost weight; his hair had turned gray, and his voice hoarse.

Commissioner A.B. “Happy” Chandler decreed that April 27 would be Babe Ruth Day throughout the majors and every other organized league in the United States.

The Yankees faced the Washington Senators at home that day, under mid-60s temperatures; 58,339 fans jammed the House That Ruth Built to say farewell to its “builder,” who arrived in his usual camel-hair jacket.

In a 10-minute ceremony, the Ford Motor Co. presented the slugger with a $5,000 Lincoln, the Yankees gave him a check to pay for his treatments, and baseball itself announced it would create a foundation to promote youth programs.7

Six speakers preceded the Sultan of Swat. Cardinal Francis Spellman gave an invocation, praising Ruth as “a manly leader of youth in America.” Chandler was booed for suspending Dodgers manager Leo Durocher that year for consorting with gamblers … but drew some cheers when he ended with “the spirit of Babe Ruth … will be with us as we build a new generation capable of protecting our own heritage as a free people.”8

To introduce the Bambino, Legion ballplayer Larry Cutler, speaking for the youth of America, said, “From all of us kids, Babe, it’s swell to have you back.” Cutler went on to play ball for City College of New York, and spent time in the White Sox and Pirates organizations.9

Two friends, former teammates Wally Pipp and Joe Dugan, helped Ruth shuffle to the microphone. The crowd greeted him “with such thunder from their throats as the home run king had never heard in his moments of greater glory.”10

In a hoarse voice, Ruth told the crowd, ad-libbing all the way, “You know how bad my voice sounds – well, it feels just as bad. You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth. That means the boys. And after you’re a boy and grow up and know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in your national pastime. The only real game, I think, in the world, baseball. As a rule, some people think that if you give them a football, or a baseball, or something like that, naturally they’re athletes right away. But you can’t do that in baseball.

“You’ve gotta start from way down the bottom, when you’re six or seven years of age. You can’t wait until you’re 15 or 16. You gotta let it grow up with you. And if you’re successful, and you try hard enough, you’re bound to come out on top, just like those boys have come to the top now. There’s been so many lovely things said about me, and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to thank everybody. Thank you.”11

Ruth then hobbled to a front-row box seat, to watch a tight pitchers’ duel between the Nats’ Sid Hudson and the Bombers’ Spud Chandler. The Senators won, 1-0, on a single by Hudson, a bunt, and a single by Buddy Lewis.

Ruth made one more appearance at Yankee Stadium, a year later, on June 13, 1948, a grim, cloudy day, to celebrate the stadium’s 25th anniversary. Old teammates, some in uniform, joined him. The visiting team was the Cleveland Indians.

Mel Allen introduced the old-timers, some in uniform, who included Pipp, Waite Hoyt, and Dugan. A bugler played “Taps” to honor Yankee stars who had passed on. Ruth stood at home plate, facing the cavernous stadium and World Champion banners hanging from the legendary façade, supported by a bat provided by Indians first baseman Eddie Robinson. The bat in turn belonged to their pitching titan Bob Feller, who was warming up in the bullpen to start the day’s game. Dugan and Pipp again helped their dying leader to home plate.

Barely able to speak, Ruth said, “I am proud I hit the first home run here in 1923. It was marvelous to see 13 or 14 players who were my teammates going back 25 years. I’m telling you it makes me proud and happy to be here.”12

The original plan called for the old-timers to face each other in a two-inning exhibition, with Ruth managing one side. However, he was too exhausted to do it, and left the ballpark for the last time before it took place, losing one last chance to manage a team, even if it was a collection of old-timers.

Ceremonies done, Feller faced New York native Eddie Lopat. The future Hall of Famer got a quick 1-0 lead, but the Yankees won, 5-3.

However, after the ceremonies, Ruth sipped a beer with Dugan in the empty clubhouse and said to his old teammate, “Joe, I’m gone. I’m done, Joe.”13

The fact that October 1, 1949, was the last scheduled day of an American League pennant race between the Yankees and the Red Sox that came down to the wire was a major reason 69,551 people jammed Yankee Stadium. However, the Yankees were also honoring Joe DiMaggio, whose incredible return from a heel injury that July had vaulted the team back into contention and just one game behind the visiting Red Sox.

However, before the game, DiMaggio, determined to play despite a fever of 102 from pneumonia, stood through the ceremonies of Joe DiMaggio Day, receiving two cars, a boat, and other gifts, with his brother, Red Sox star center fielder Dom DiMaggio, beside him.

In his remarks, the Yankee Clipper paid tribute to his old skipper, Joe McCarthy, now managing the Red Sox, his teammates, his friends, the fans, and New York. He finished with words that the Yankees would post in their dugout tunnel and the 2009 stadium a memorable elegy that summed up his feelings about the Pinstripes: “I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee.”14

Yankee Stadium hosted another major address on October 4, 1965. The Bombers had failed to get to the World Series for the first time in five years, but the consolation prize was a Papal Mass celebrated by Pope Paul VI, the first such celebrated in the entire Western Hemisphere.

A crowd of 80,000 jammed Yankee Stadium to greet the Pope, who ceremoniously accepted a pair of blue jeans as a sign of his commitment to youth. He also blessed a stone from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, to be placed in the foundation of a seminary being built in the New York Archdiocese.

Thousands of extra seats were installed to accommodate the crowd, who heard a homily calling for world peace between nations and peoples. The pope greeted all New Yorkers, saying, “We feel, too, that the entire American people are here present, with its noblest and most characteristic traits.”15

On June 8, 1969, the Yankees honored another legend – a man baseball broadcaster Bob Costas simply described as “Our Guy” in his eulogy in 1995.16 Some 60,096 fans filled up Yankee Stadium that day to join in the festivities to retire Mickey Mantle’s number 7.

Yankee public-relations head Bob Fishel choreographed the event superbly, bringing in major figures from Mantle’s life, including his mother, Lovell Mantle; former general manager George Weiss; Mantle’s minor-league manager Harry Craft; and the scout who signed him, Tom Greenwade. Casey Stengel, still boycotting the Yankees since his 1960 firing, did not appear, and when the master of ceremonies, broadcaster Frank Messer, mentioned Roger Maris’s name, the crowd booed. Mel Allen, who had introduced Gehrig, Ruth, and Joe DiMaggio on their “Days,” did the same for Mantle.

DiMaggio and Mantle presented each other with plaques to be hung on the center-field wall.

After that, Messer turned the home-plate microphone over to Mantle, whose words reminded older fans of another Yankee star who was remembered for his tenacity in the face of injuries: “When I walked onto the field 18 years ago, I guess I felt the same as I do now. I can’t describe it. I just want to say that playing 18 years in Yankee Stadium for you folks is the best thing that could happen to a ballplayer. Now having my number join 3, 4, and 5 kind of tops everything. I never knew how a man who was going to die could say he was the luckiest man in the world. But now I can understand.”17

Mantle drew a 10-minute ovation from fans who remembered the significance of Lou Gehrig, and that the Mick, at the time of his retirement, held the record for most games played as a Yankee.

Mantle was then driven around the warning track by groundskeeper Danny Colletti in a golf cart with Yankee pinstripes on its sides, and license plates that read “MM-7.” A visibly moved Mantle struggled to hold back tears.

Yankee Stadium’s next farewell address was another ceremony to retire a uniform number, but under far less nostalgic terms.

The team’s captain and leader, Thurman Munson, died in an air crash while trying to land his plane in Summit County, Ohio, on August 2, 1979, an offday for the team. He was 32. He left behind a wife, Diane, and three children, all aged less than 10.

The next day a stunned and devastated Yankees team had to take the home field to face the Baltimore Orioles in a steady drizzle. With Munson’s face appearing on the center-field Diamond Vision screen, all the Yankees except the catcher at their positions, Cardinal Terence Cooke delivered a prayer for the lost captain.

“We pray for Your son and our brother, Thurman Munson,” Cooke intoned, as a paid attendance of 51,151 cried, including Reggie Jackson, Munson’s sometime nemesis, who visibly sobbed into his mitt in right field. Metropolitan Opera star and Yankee fan Robert Merrill sang “America the Beautiful,” followed by a moment of silence, and then an eight-minute standing ovation for Munson’s career. After the moving ceremonies, the two teams went through the motions of playing a game, with the Orioles winning, 1-0.18

The next major address came that same year, for another career ending. This one was expected and announced, and the honoree was present to accept the cheers. Yankees pitching ace Catfish Hunter, worn down by a bad arm and diabetes, had promised his family that he would retire at the end of the 1979, and September 16 was Catfish Hunter Day at the Stadium.

On the field, joined by his wife, Helen, and two children, Hunter said, “There’s three men who should have been here today. One’s my pa.”

That drew cheers.

“One’s the scout who signed me,” he continued, referring to Clyde Kluttz, Charlie Finley’s master of talent. More applause.

Hunter then paused, and said, “The third one is Thurman Munson.” The fans leapt to their feet in what Catfish described in his autobiography as a “a wild riotous ovation. They wouldn’t stop. 50,000 people stood on their feet, stomping, whistling. Not so much for me – more for my father, for Clyde, and for Thurman. Cheering, I guess, for what friends mean in all our lives.”

Then Catfish offered his last words as a Yankee: “Thank you, God, for giving me strength and making me a ballplayer.”19

Three weeks later, the Cathedral of Baseball became a cathedral again, welcoming the charismatic Pope John Paul II for a Papal Mass on October 2. The first non-Italian to lead the Church in more than 450 years, Karol Wojtyla had started his life in the World War II Polish Underground, battling Nazi occupiers.

Now 80,000 people came to hear his homily in a festive environment, which included Mayor Edward I. Koch.

The pope arrived in an open car, greeting attendees warmly. Once behind the microphone, the pontiff gave a sterner message, lashing out against the West’s rampant consumerism, warning against “the temptation to make money the principal means and indeed the very measure of human advancement,” adding that it was “a joyless and exhausting way of life.”20

Another devout, if raucous, Catholic, Billy Martin, made his memorable speech on August 19, 1986, when his number 1 was retired in a grand ceremony. It included a collection of gifts, his entire family in attendance, and the unveiling of a plaque in Monument Park to honor Billy, his lifelong dream.

Dressed in a light beige suit with boutonniere, “Casey’s Boy” told the audience, “The fans always lifted me up no matter the circumstances. If I ran faster and hit the ball farther, it was because you gave me the strength. I know you were always rooting me on. I wanted to make you proud and I hope I did. I may not have been the best Yankee to put on the pinstripes, but I am the proudest.”21 Those words were engraved on his tombstone after his death three years later.

Another powerful voice for humanity spoke at Yankee Stadium on June 21, 1990, when 71-year-old Nelson Mandela, freshly released from South Africa’s prisons as apartheid ended, visited New York in a whirlwind tour that included the usual ticker-tape parade up the “Canyon of Heroes.”

A fundraising concert was held that evening at the Stadium, with 55,000 in attendance. The climax came when Mayor David Dinkins presented Mandela with a Yankees jacket and hat, the African leader donned them, and addressed the audience, saying, “Now you know who I am. I am a Yankee.”22 A moved Yankees owner George M. Steinbrenner promptly wrote a check to cover the costs of Mandela’s entire visit to New York.

September 27, 1998, saw an embarrassing moment for the Yankees when, realizing that the Yankee Clipper was dying, they hurriedly slapped together Joe DiMaggio Day,23 on the final day of the season. It should have gone better. … The present team was setting records, the weather was perfect, and in a blue suit, the “Greatest Living Ballplayer” was driven around the warning track in a vintage 1956 Thunderbird. The highlight saw DiMaggio’s old teammate Phil Rizzuto presenting the honoree with replacement World Series rings for those that had he had lost in a robbery. The lowlights included misspelling DiMaggio’s name on the Instant Replay screen, shots of Marilyn Monroe in the highlight reel, and when the ailing Hall of Famer tried to climb up the Yankee dugout steps, he nearly tottered and collapsed.24

During the presentations, DiMaggio twice tapped at the microphone to see if it would transmit his prepared speech, but it didn’t work. Visibly fuming, after being given his rings, he strode back to the Yankee dugout for the last time. Nor did he ever wear the rings – he was hospitalized a few days later with terminal cancer.25

Hordes of speakers and singers took the stage at Yankee Stadium on September 25, 2001, in the wake of the ghastly 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the “Prayer for America” multidenominational service. Television host Oprah Winfrey served as mistress of ceremonies, introducing Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York, and Fire Department Chaplain Rabbi Joseph Potasnik to give the invocations. They were followed by four more rabbis; singer Placido Domingo to sing “Ave Maria”; and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who discussed the attacks, New York’s strength, and those lost.

Alternating with political leaders, series of speakers read prayers from many faiths: Christian, Sikh, Islam, the Armenian Church in America, and the Greek Orthodox Church. Governor George Pataki and former President Bill Clinton paid tribute to the first responders and the fallen. In his benediction, New York Police Chaplain Izak-El M. Pasha said, “We Muslims, Americans, stand today with a heavy weight on our shoulder – that those who would dare do such a dastardly act claim our faith. They are no believers in God at all.”26

The year 2008 saw the final major speeches at the Stadium, the first on April 20, when the last of a trifecta of popes delivered a homily and mass there. Some 57,100 attendees greeted Pope Benedict XVI by chanting in unison, “Be-ne-dict, Be-ne-dict,” and “Viva Papa!”

The Pope told the audience, “Our celebration today is a sign of impressive growth which God has given to the Catholic Church in your country in the past 200 years. From a small flock like that described in the first reading, the Church in America has been built up in fidelity to the twin commandments of love of God and love of neighbor. The Catholic Church has contributed significantly to the growth of American society as a whole.” Noting the joy and hope he had seen in youth in his visit to New York, he urged attendees to give them “all the prayer and support you can give them.”

After the homily and mass, 500 priests offered Communion to tens of thousands of attendees.

The very last speech at Yankee Stadium was another impromptu address, and came from another Yankee captain who defined excellence in his play and character. Unlike Lou Gehrig, Derek Jeter was able to end his career and the life of Yankee Stadium on his own terms.

On September 21, 2008, the final home game at the old Stadium, behind Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera, the Yankees defeated the Baltimore Orioles, 7-3. With two out in the top of the ninth, Yankees manager Joe Girardi pulled Jeter out of the game, so that the captain could hear one last personal round of applause before the game ended. As he left, Jeter realized that he would be called upon to bid farewell to the House that Ruth Built on behalf of the current tenants. “Two outs in the ninth, I better think of something,” he told reporters later, when asked how he came up with the speech.27

After the final out, the Yankees assembled in front of the pitcher’s mound. Someone handed Jeter a working microphone. With Jorge Posada at his left and Rivera at his right, Jeter began his impromptu speech.

“For all of us out here, it’s a huge honor to put this uniform on and come out every day to play. And every member of this organization, past and present, has been calling this place home for 85 years. It’s a lot of tradition, a lot of history, and a lot of memories. Now the great thing about memories is you’re able to pass it along from generation to generation. And although things are gonna change next year, we’re gonna move across the street, there are a few things with the Yankees that never change. That’s pride, tradition, and most of all, we have the greatest fans in the world. And we’re relying on you to take the memories from this stadium, add them to the new memories to come at the new Yankee Stadium, and continue to pass them from generation to generation. So on behalf of the entire organization, we just want to take this moment to salute you, the greatest fans in the world.”28

With that, Jeter doffed his cap, his teammates followed, and he led them on a lap around the field.

DAVID H. LIPPMAN is an award-winning journalist on three continents, for 45 years. He has been a senior press information officer for the City of Newark, New Jersey, for the past 25 years. He is a member of SABR, serving on the BioProject, Games Project, and Black Sox research committees, and as an officer of the Casey Stengel Chapter. He is a graduate of the New School for Social Research with an MFA in creative writing and from New York University with a B.A. in journalism and history, 

NOTES

1 Mark Vancil and Alfred Sanastiere III, Yankee Stadium, the Official Retrospective (New York: Pocket Books, 2009), 90.

2 Yankee Stadium, the Official Retrospective, 82.

3 On newsreel footage of the speech, Gehrig seems to be saying “brag.”

4 Jonathan Eig, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 317.

5 Richard Sandomir, Pride of the Yankees (New York: Hachette Books, 2017), 42.

6 Sandomir, 236-237.

7 Hy Turkin, “Ruth Whispers His Gratitude to Cheering Fans,” New York Daily News, April 28, 1947, which also provides other quotes that follow.

8 Leigh Montville, The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth (New York: Anchor, 2007), 359.

9 Montville, 359.

10 Turkin.

11 Montville, 359.

12 Montville, 364.

13 Bob Klapisch, New York Yankees Official 2008 Yearbook, 238.

14 Marty Appel, Pinstripe Empire (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012), 279. The Yankees beat the Red Sox that day, 5-4, creating a tie for first place, and necessitating the deciding game the following day. The Yankees won that one, too, and faced the Dodgers in the 1949 World Series.

15 Edward Cardinal Egan, “10 Monumental Moments,” New York Yankees Official 2008 Yearbook, 281.

16 Tony Castro, Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son (Dulles, Virginia: Brassey’s, 2002), 303.

17 Castro, 224.

18 Bobby Murcer with Glen Waggoner, Yankee for Life (New York: Harper, 2008), 124.

19 Catfish Hunter and Armen Keteyian, Catfish (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 206-207.

20 Klapisch, 280.

21 Bill Pennington, Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), 439.

22 Ryan Cortes, “#RememberWhensdays: Nelson Mandela visits Yankee Stadium,” The Undefeated, June 22, 2016, h​ttps:​//and​scape​.com/​featu​res/r​ememb​erwhe​nsday​s-nel​son-m​andel​a-vis​its-y​ankee​-stad​ium/. Accessed October 27, 2022.

23 Richard Ben Cramer, Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 497. Cramer writes: “You could count on one hand the people in the stadium who knew enough to see how quickly this had been thrown together – and how it failed to live up to the standard. … Those three words on the scoreboard: no capitalization for the letter “M” in DiMaggio … The film clips on the big TV: there was the newsreel footage from the day Joe got put out of Marilyn’s house on North Palm Drive … and that bent old man, who looked frail and ill, as the T-Bird drew to a stop at the Yankee dugout. Joe could barely get out of the car – and almost killed himself when he stumbled on the dugout steps.” While the Cramer book was an extremely hostile biography of DiMaggio, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, which gives this author a sense of inconsistency to puzzle out. My belief is that the top Yankees management, knowing that DiMaggio was dying, wanted to honor him while he still lived, doing so on the last day of the season when they could control pregame events (as opposed to postseason events), and had very little time to plan the event.

24 Ben Cramer, 498.

25 Ben Cramer, 498; h​ttps:​//www​.yout​ube.c​om/wa​tch?v​=_SFk​WNPRv​5k.

26 The Paley Center for Media Summary of the service. The service also included musical performances by the Boys Chorus of Harlem singing a medley of hymns and spirituals, Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless the USA,” Bette Midler singing “Wind Beneath My Wings,” and Marc Anthony singing “America the Beautiful.” h​ttps:​//www​.pale​ycent​er.or​g/col​lecti​on/it​em/?i​tem=T​:67​939.

27 Danny Peary, Baseball Immortal: Derek Jeter, A Career in Quotes (Salem, Massachusetts: Page Street Publishing, 2015), 276.

28 Peary, 277.

The history of baseball in America has always been closely tied to the history of race in America. The progression of baseball from an exclusionary sport to a beacon for integration and eventually to a global game has paralleled our country’s movement from slavery to the civil rights movement to modern day multiculturalism. While the changes have taken place nationwide, they have played out differently in cities and regions across the country. In each city, the story of race and baseball is enmeshed with the city’s history and culture as well as with the actions of professional organizations and the attitudes of the fans. In Philadelphia, historic hostilities to integration blemished the city’s reputation of racial acceptance. Current Phillies fans have gradually embraced diversity but some still sense lingering racial tensions.

Cities are important for the ways in which their local contexts influence ideas about race and ethnicity, but also for their function in building community and “place bonding.” Sports teams produce strong positive identifications with cities or regions, produce a communal spirit, and unite the city as whole.1

For if residents invest themselves in favor of their local athletic teams, it is partly because those teams are exponents of a community to which they feel themselves somehow bound and in whose destiny they find themselves in some way implicated. The connection, however, is by no means a simple one. A local team is not only an expression of the moral integrity of a community; it is also a means by which that community becomes conscious of itself and achieves its concrete representation. Therefore, an athletic team must be something more than just an assemblage of skilled performers whose activities conform to physiological or psychological necessity. It is in fact, and above all, the representative of something beyond itself.2

Because baseball teams invariably come to represent their cities, the meanings and ideas about race and ethnicity that are generated on the baseball field are important elements of the local context and the way the local context is projected outward toward others. This article examines this process in Philadelphia by briefly reviewing the city’s history of racial acceptance and by illustrating current fan attitudes on the subject.

Philadelphia has been a home to professional baseball teams for over a century, but currently hosts only Major League Baseball’s Phillies.3 The Phillies were infamously involved with integration in the early years. Early in Jackie Robinson’s rookie season, Manager Ben Chapman and several Phillies players notoriously harassed Robinson with racial taunts and remarks. Later that season, Phillies’ general manager Herb Pennock tried to dissuade Branch Rickey from bringing Robinson to Philadelphia. Rickey did not relent and Jackie traveled with the team, which had booked several rooms at Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin hotel. When the team arrived, they were turned away by the hotel manager who told them not to come back “while you have any nigras with you!”4

The Phillies were slow to integrate despite pressure from the black press, leaders of the black community, and the local NAACP. Phillies’ owner Bob Carpenter said, “I’m not opposed to Negro players. But I’m not going to hire a player of any color or nationality just to have him on the team.”5 The Phillies finally integrated their major league roster in 1957—ten years after the Dodgers broke the modern day color barrier—leaving the American League’s Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox as the only teams with all-white rosters.6,7 Once integrated, the Phils continued to struggle with racial issues. The organization didn’t end segregation in spring training facilities until 1962. In addition, they didn’t feature any star black players until Dick Allen’s rookie campaign in 1964. Until then, while most major league teams were hiring prominent black players with big drawing power, such as Robinson, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron, the Phillies only employed some marginal black and Latino players.8

It wasn’t only the organization that had a negative image when it came to racial issues; Philadelphia fans were perceived to be a hostile bunch.9 Roy Campanella, who was born and raised in the Philadelphia area, disliked playing in Shibe Park because he felt that the white fans “spewed racial hate.”10 Philly fans seemed to take things to the next level with Dick Allen who wore a helmet in the field to withstand the objects that were thrown at him during games.11 Allen was known to speak his mind, to act out, and to complain about the adverse treatment. The white media described him as arrogant, militant, malcontented, and radical but rarely acknowledged the racism that Allen faced and described. The black media portrayed him as misunderstood. Kuklick wrote that “in Philadelphia’s racially charged atmosphere, Allen’s own situation was inevitably distorted, not only by the press but also by the city’s baseball fans.”12

As the civil rights movement swept across the country, some white fans still harbored prejudice against blacks, but the organization tried to move forward. General Manager John Quinn, hired in 1959, began to increase the amount of black talent in the organization through free agency and trades. In 1958, the organization had only three black players in its minor league system, but by 1961, that number increased to 34 and continued to rise through the mid-Sixties.13 Even with these efforts, the Phillies had few black players and even fewer black stars throughout the 1970s and 1980s—a time when black players thrived in the big leagues. The 1993 National League Champions were one of the few teams in MLB with an all-white starting lineup, though they did feature several black platoon players and role players.14 In Great White High Hopes, sports scholar Benjamin Phillips describes how the ’93 team was symbolized by a “rugged, white masculinity emblematic of working class males.” Phillips shows that when speaking about the team, both the fans and the media most often spoke about qualities like teamwork, work ethic, hustle, scrappiness, and grit, qualities which are commonly associated with white athletes. He argues that fans celebrated the whiteness of the team by emphasizing these character traits over the athleticism and physicality of the players.15

Today the Philadelphia Phillies, like most major league teams, have a diverse roster. Of the 49 players who appeared for the 2012 Phillies, 69 percent of the players had a white European background. This is slightly higher than the league average of 61 percent.16 The Phillies had five African American players, two of whom played prominent roles on their five consecutive division championship teams. Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard each have three All-Star games and an MVP award to their credit. The Phillies have recently strengthened their presence in Latin America and their 2012 roster listed eight Latino players from four countries: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Panama, and Venezuela.17 One Hawaiian player and one player of mixed Chinese/European ancestry also appeared for the Phils in 2012.

The current roster demonstrates that the Phillies have moved away from racially intolerant attitudes and towards embracing diversity. A great deal of research exists on how this transition has happened with major organizations such as the Phillies and the MLB; however, far less research exists on current fan attitudes towards these issues.18,19 Their viewpoints are important because fan actions and behaviors have always been intertwined with attitudes about race and ethnicity in Philadelphia, as illustrated by Dick Allen’s career. It isn’t only negative attitudes about race that are important. Bruce Kuklick notes that “white rooters seemed to come to the stadium to witness in Allen’s behavior the attraction and the revulsion of this time of shifting race relations. The park was the place where many white people expressed puzzlement, rage, along with a modicum of grudging respect.”20 Matthew Jacobsen, in his essay, “Richie Allen, Whitey’s Ways, and Me: A Political Education in the 1960s,” probably spoke for many when he cited Allen’s career as the issue that inspired him to learn about race and politics.21

Most of what researchers know about race has come through historical records and media analysis. Very few researchers have conversed with fans to ask them how they think about and understand race and ethnicity.22 In the spring and summer of 2011, I conducted focus group interviews with baseball fans. The interviews, part of a larger project, generated great conversations about baseball in Philadelphia, including some about race and ethnicity in today’s game and in the Philadelphia area. From these interviews, I was able to gain a sense of how fans think and feel about this issue. The ideas and opinions expressed in these conversations were informed by the history of the organization, the city, and the personal lives of each participant.

Over the course of four months, I conducted eight focus group interviews with fans from across the Philadelphia region that I recruited through online advertisements, social networks, and email lists.23 In the focus group interviews, I placed various pictures of the Phillies on the table to spark discussion. I asked the respondents many questions about baseball and about Philadelphia; one subject that we discussed was race. I report the findings below including some thoughts and quotes from our conversations, using pseudonyms for all fans. My intention is not to amass data capable of addressing the level of racial equality in baseball today but to report on how at least some Philadelphia fans view and understand the issue. Overall, the fans I spoke to perceived race and ethnicity as issues that should not matter when it came to baseball, but had a range of opinions as to whether and how much race and ethnicity still do matter in today’s game.24

Many of the older fans in my focus groups were able to articulate feelings about baseball and racial progress. Nick, a white fan, recalled some of his early memories of the Phillies as he “grew up in [Philadelphia’s] very racist Kensington” neighborhood and began to root for the “mostly white” Phillies in the 1960s and 1970s. He vividly recalled the racial overtones associated with Dick Allen’s career and the Phillies’ poor reputation with racial issues. Nick remembered that his dad often commented on the team’s lack of black players. For Nick, the Phillies only really achieved progress when they “got Hispanic players and more African Americans. That’s when the team started taking off.” He pointed to Gary Maddox, Manny Trillo, and Bake McBride as three minority players whom he admired while growing up.

Other fans noticed these changes as well. Dave, another white fan, found it a shame that in Philadelphia “there was a long period of time where ownership made a conscious effort to try to discriminate against certain racial types of ballplayers” but felt that “there’s not nearly the sort of bias about baseball that there was in the sixties and all through the seventies… I think that’s sorta [sic] gone away now because…it’s a different world.” The changes did not just occur within the Phillies organization, but in the media as well. White fan Andrew stated that the “newspaper used to talk about people of a racial overtone as dark-skinned or dusky, or some other adjective that they used to attach to them. You don’t see that anymore.” In another group, Lisa, also white, commented that the Philadelphia media brought up race frequently when they covered education and other social issues, but not when they discussed sports.

The changes have made a difference to many, including some Latino fans that I interviewed. Long-time fan Mateo recalled a time when the “Phillies weren’t that friendly to Latinos” and expressed how changes in the organization’s position have made rooting for the local team more enjoyable to him (though he admitted that winning didn’t hurt). The other participants in this group echoed Mateo’s sentiments by recognizing differences in the mainstream English language media. “I remember when I started living in Philadelphia,” said Ramona, “I used to watch the game and get infuriated because the name Guzmán, for example. They [the media] would say GUZman. Now, they say GuzMAN, and you know that they make an effort to pronounce it correctly, and that for me has been a sign of improvement. They pronounce Ruiz’s name correctly, Polanco’s name correctly, and Valdez’s name correctly, whereas before there was no effort put in.” Hank, an African American fan, probably best expressed the change when he exclaimed, “Here in Philly we have broke that barrier and said to hell with that. You don’t have to be just white. You don’t have to be almost black. You don’t have to be this or that. You can be anything.”

These changes have an impact on all fans, who valued diversity on the field as symbolic of what we hope to achieve in our communities and our relationships. When talking about the facets of the game that were most important, Paul used a photo of three players celebrating at home plate to bring up the topic of team chemistry. He also pointed out that “two of these guys are Hispanic, Ibanez and Ruiz, and then you got Ross Gload who is Caucasian, so it really does reach across all races.” To Paul, who is white, baseball has taught him not just about teamwork, but that good teamwork spans racial differences. Lenny, an African American fan, also commented on how he enjoyed seeing “a group of diverse guys from diverse backgrounds and countries and languages have a really nice collective vibe.” Numerous other fans spoke of how they enjoyed seeing players from different ethnic groups and appreciated learning about those players’ cultures and histories. Fans learned about teamwork from the players but they also learned about it from the leadership. Hank noted that Ruben Amaro Jr. “is the first Latino that’s general manager for us and he’s making all the right moves. He got Lee, he got Halladay. I mean this guy is doing yeoman’s work and he’s a Spanish guy.” Hank admitted that in admiring the Hispanic American’s work, he gained more respect for Latinos working in baseball leadership.

Fans commented on the fact that while this rich cultural learning can take place in many sports, baseball is “probably the most racially mixed now that I think about it. I mean think about the Eagles and the Sixers and the Phillies. You have more of a mixture on the Phillies than you do on the other teams.” In a separate focus group, Nam, who is black, added that “thanks to Asia and Latin America, [baseball] is the one sport where you can really find equality.”

Our discussions were not limited to the diverse pool of competitors. A number of focus group respondents also talked about how baseball functioned as a way to bring the city’s residents together, regardless of racial or ethnic divisions. White Philadelphian Tammy stated that “when the Phillies win, the whole city is in a good mood.” In another group, Dave waxed triumphantly that baseball was the greatest sport because when the “team is going good, you got the whole city—even strangers talk to each other. People hold the door for you at Wawa [convenience store].” The other fans in Dave’s group were of various races and ethnicities. This diverse group noted how they could talk about the Phillies with strangers in restaurants, on the subway, and in other public places in the city. The respondents felt that baseball united them with other city residents, rather than divided them. A third group, composed of multicultural fans, felt similarly. Rafael, who identified as Latino, mentioned that this “spirit of Philadelphia” carried over to the players, proudly claiming that it was one of the incentives that caused Cliff Lee to spurn millions from the Yankees.

It is clear that the focus group respondents witnessed positive racial change within the Phillies organization. These changes are important because they serve as symbolic representations of racial equality, both on and off the field. Despite the many positive messages that the game can teach about diversity, fans realized that the game “still has a long way to go” in order to reach true racial equality. They mentioned language barriers, changing demographics, lack of minority representation in key leadership positions, and the lack of minority fans. They also discussed potential biases within the media and within the fans themselves.

As the game has brought in a more diverse player pool, the number of players speaking different languages has increased. While some saw baseball players bonding across differences, others noticed how they could also be separated by cultural barriers such as language. At a Reading Phillies game, white fan Tommy was watching warm-ups and noticed that “all the American players, white and black, were all together and all of the Latino players kind of separated themselves together.” Tommy also observed that Asian players with translators have a far different experience from Latino players who have to rely on teammates for communication assistance. Like Tommy, other fans discussed how language might actually prevent the type of teamwork-spanning difference that Paul described earlier. They even noted how it could be a barrier to promotion for some players. Many thought Carlos Ruiz was a great leader but worried that his struggles with English would prevent him from becoming a coach or a manager someday. Others agreed that while there were many talented, knowledgeable Hispanic players, they probably “could not get into the booth with an accent.”

In addition to language differences, numerous fan groups discussed the decline of African American ballplayers. Multiple fans were concerned with this issue and believed that MLB should continue programs such as Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities (RBI) in order to ensure that the game remains a diverse representation of our country. Other fans noticed the corresponding rise in Latino players. Hank sees the impact of Hispanic players on the city. He observed that if you “go to certain [Latino] neighborhoods in North Philly, Latinos have little league for the teams. And those kids can play!”

Despite the changing player demographics, fans largely agreed that opportunity to make the big league hinged more on a player’s ability than his race. They did, however, observe a lack of minority players in key leadership positions on the field. Academic sport researchers refer to this phenomenon as “stacking.”25 In a group of black fans, Hank joked that if you had “a white guy, a Latino guy, and a black guy—tell me who plays second base? The white guy!” In a group of white fans, Paul turned to the group and asked, “Off the top of your head, can you think of any African American starting pitchers other than CC Sabathia?” In nearly all of the groups, fans commented on the abundance of white pitchers and the dearth of minority pitchers. In doing so, they were calling attention to the fact that while baseball has made many advances towards racial equality, there were still some signs that all groups did not have equal opportunities. These fans felt that baseball was truly at its best when the best athletes were given a shot to be the best at any position. Paul lamented having to imagine a baseball world without the likes of Sabathia, Dave Stewart, and Bob Gibson.

While some fans talked about the composition of teams, others talked about the demographics of other baseball personnel. They noted that there were more minority managers and coaches than in the past but felt that baseball “still had a long way to go.” Marcus, a Puerto Rican fan, felt as if organizations “were not interviewing Hispanic candidates for managing positions at the same rate that they do with whites.” Data published by Richard Lapchick confirm that the number of minorities in high leadership positions has improved, but is still low when compared to whites.26 The fans in other groups stressed that best baseball leaders were the ones who could gain respect of others—regardless of their race. Paul felt that policies encouraging organizations to hire more minorities were helpful because such policies “forced people [owners] to look in a different direction rather than going back to the same pool of candidates, many of whom stunk.”

Just as some fans noticed that full racial equality had not been achieved on the field, another set of fans questioned the ability of baseball to bridge racial divides among fans in the stands. Dave noted that he rarely saw any black fans at Phillies games. Salina, a Latina fan, agreed and stated that she noticed “mostly white men” at Phillies games. She questioned the ability of the team to bring the city together if sports fans were racially polarized and if only certain social classes could afford to attend the games. Many agreed with Salina, showing that fans can have a range of opinions about how a sport can affect a community.

Fans also had differing opinions on how the media deal with race and ethnicity. As stated earlier, many noticed that the amount of racism in the media has decreased over time, though some claimed that was only because broadcasters needed to “be more careful” about what they say and how that say it. Lai, a Chinese immigrant, stated that while broadcasters may not make explicit references to race, he “feels from the tone that it is a little different” when the media discuss players of different races. He gave the example of media coverage of Barry Bonds versus that of Mark McGwire and said that he observed subtle differences in how the players were described and criticized that he attributed to race. In another group, Andrew, who earlier claimed that the media ceased to use overt discriminatory terms, said that he thought racism could still be “hidden in code words.” Andrew felt that “there was a little bit of a racist attitude from the sports writers who were reporting on some of the things that Jimmy Rollins did,” such as being benched by his manager for failing to run hard to first on a weakly-hit ground ball. The other fans in this group unanimously agreed that Rollins was in the wrong and should have hustled but they were unsure as to whether or not a white player in a similar situation would have been treated differently than Rollins was.

Phillies fans had varying opinions on how the media treated African American players such as Rollins. They also had a number of opinions on how the fans themselves treated the same group of players. Dick Allen’s case was illustrative of the negative reputation that Philadelphians had regarding African American players during the sixties. The world around baseball has changed drastically since that time, but the negative reputation has lingered. Several days after the Phillies were eliminated from the 2010 playoffs, Philadelphia sportswriter Marcus Hayes was conducting an online interactive chat with fans. During this conversation, Hayes noted how fans did not seem to be too upset with the numerous fielding miscues that Utley had made in the final playoff series while they harshly criticized Howard for striking out looking in the final at-bat. Hayes believed that the fans gave Utley this “free pass” because he was white.27

I asked the fans what they thought about Hayes’s remarks and if they thought fans still treated black and white players differently. Most fans agreed that Howard was criticized more harshly than Utley, and many admitted to being some of the worst critics. A few fans thought that race played a role in this difference—Tommy even confessed that he had “a friend who went on this tirade of racial slurs after that [incident]—like ‘he’s a big monkey’ and ‘blah, blah, blah.’ And I was like ‘Dude, calm down!'” Most other fans believed that criticisms of Howard were due to the fact that he was the highest paid player on the team who failed to come through with a clutch hit. Erica stated that “some fans came down harder on Howard for that [failure], and part of it, I think has to do with his race, and the other part of it has to do with the situation.” In another group, Mike also contended that Howard’s race may have been a partial factor but Mike’s opinion was quickly overwhelmed by the other fans, who attributed the differences entirely to the situation.

While Hayes was only using Howard’s performance in the playoffs as an example of a larger phenomenon, most fans could not separate their overall opinions about Howard and Utley from their opinions about that particular situation. None of the fans shifted the conversation to a discussion of other examples, perhaps from a less dramatic moment, that might illustrate the feelings of Philadelphia fans towards these two players. The groups focused so much on the situation that they ignored the second part of the question asking whether fans preferred white players over black players, until after they came to the conclusion that race didn’t matter. At this point, they began to name other situations where race did not play a role rather than thinking about ones where it might. Because most fans believed that baseball players were judged only by their talent and not by their race, I concluded that it was easier for them to find examples of meritocracy rather than examples of racism. Based on my research I have come to believe that those fans who were personally disappointed by Howard’s performance wanted to make it clear that their dissatisfaction was due to the strikeout so that their attitudes were not perceived by other fans as racism.

Baseball is an intricate game and this situation is no different. In this case, Howard’s role on the team, the pressure of the situation, and his race are all plausible explanations for the criticism he received; but sorting through those layers of complexity to isolate the role of race can be very difficult. There was a time in American society where unequal treatment of racial groups was far less complex; white and dark-skinned players could not play in the same baseball leagues, dine at the same establishments, or ride together on public buses. Since Jackie Robinson’s ground-breaking achievement and the successes of the civil rights movement, many racial barriers have fallen but not all racial issues have fallen away. American society and the game of baseball are both still dealing with the complexities of race and racism. So is Philadelphia.

In these interviews, Philadelphia fans demonstrated that the city is moving away from its sordid racial past. Many fans have adopted more open-minded attitudes and behaviors towards racial issues, though some racial tensions still remain. In the sixties, fans threw batteries at Dick Allen but now they cheer loudly for black players. Despite this change, some still believe that white players remain the true fan favorites of the city. Many minority respondents reported that they felt more welcome and respected as Phillies fans today than they did in the sixties, seventies, and eighties and others still feel out of place among a largely white fan base. Some fans value how diverse groups of players model the cooperation that we hope to achieve in our society while others are skeptical at the lack of diversity in leadership positions and unfair treatment in the media.

Struggles within the game of baseball have always symbolized larger struggles in our nation and in our cities. Over time, baseball has become multicultural and the US has transformed into a diverse nation, but full equality has still not arrived in either sphere. This trend is reflected in Philadelphia, where baseball fans show that the local game has made great strides but still faces persistent challenges to full racial equality. It is my hope that the game of baseball will continue to serve as a symbol of diversity but more importantly that this wonderful game will also forge ahead in the push for racial justice and equality.

JENNIFER McGOVERN earned her Ph.D in sociology from Temple University. She presented and volunteered at past SABR conferences. She is primarily interested in sport and equality, sport fan narratives, and social issues within sports, though baseball is her favorite sport to study and to watch.

NOTES

1 John Bale, “The Place of ‘Place’ in Cultural Studies of Sports,” Progress in Human Geography 12, no. 4 (December 1, 1988): 507–524.

2 Barry Schwartz and Stephen F. Barsky, “The Home Advantage,” Social Forces 55, no. 3 (March 1977): 657.

3 In addition to the American League Philadelphia Athletics, the region also was home to many prominent professional and semi-professional Negro League organizations including the Philadelphia Pythians, Excelsiors, Giants, Stars, and the Hilldale baseball club. For more information on black baseball in Philadelphia, see Jerrold Casway, “Octavius Catto and the Pythians of Philadelphia,” Pennsylvania Legacies, May 2007 and Robert Gregg; “Personal Cavalries: Sports in Philadelphia’s African-American Communities, 1920–1960,” Ethnicity, Sport, Identity: Struggles for Status, edited by Andrew Ritchie, 1st ed. Routledge, 2004, 88–115.

4 Harold Parrot. The Lords of Baseball. (Praeger 1976)

5 Bruce Kuklick, To Every Thing a Season (Princeton University Press, 1993), 148.

6 John Kennedy was the first African American to appear on the Phillies’ major league roster.

7 Kuklick, To Every Thing a Season.

8 William C. Kashatus, September Swoon: Richie Allen, the ’64 Phillies, and Racial Integration (Pennsylvania State Univ Pr, 2005).

9 The fans’ poor reputation is not limited to racial issues. According to Kuklick, a gang of fans once mobbed Ty Cobb after an Athletics game at Shibe park and later disconnected the electric cable to the trolley that Cobb attempted to escape on. Additionally, the national media can’t seem to forget that Eagles fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus.

10 Kashatus, September Swoon; Neil Lanctot, Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campanella, 1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).

11 Kashatus, September Swoon.

12 Ibid., 158.

13 William C. Kashatus, “Dick Allen, the Phillies, and Racism,” NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture 9, no. 1 (2000): 151–191.

14 Benjamin Phillips, “Great White High Hopes: Race, Masculinity, and the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies,” NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture 19, no. 2 (2011): 61–76.

15 Ibid.

16 Richard E. Lapchick, “2012 Racial and Gender (sic) Report Card: Major League Baseball,” 2012, http://web.bus.ucf.edu/documents/sport/2012-MLB-RGRC.pdf.

17 Paul Hagen, “Phillies Boost Their Latin Grade,” Philadelphia Daily News, May 3, 2011.

18 Max Blue, Philadelphia Baseball (PublishAmerica, 2012); David M. Jordan, Occasional Glory: The History of the Philadelphia Phillies (McFarland & Company, 2003); Kashatus, September Swoon; Kuklick, To Every Thing a Season; Christopher Threston, The Integration of Baseball in Philadelphia (Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub, 2003).

19 Alan M Klein, Growing the Game: The Globalization of Major League Baseball (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006); Adrian Burgos, Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007); Rob Ruck, Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game, First Edition (Beacon Press, 2011); William M. Simons, The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 2003 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003); Sumei Wang, “Taiwanese Baseball: A Story of Entangled Colonialism, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism,” Journal of Sport & Social Issues 33, no. 4 (November 1, 2009): 355–372.

20 To Every Thing a Season, 163.

21 Matthew Frye Jacobson, “‘Richie’ Allen, Whitey’s Ways, and Me: A Political Education in the 1960’s,” In the Game: Race, Identity, and Sports in the Twentieth Century, ed. Amy Bass (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 19–46.

22 One of the few published articles about fan opinions was published by Alan Klein, “Latinizing Fenway Park: A Cultural Critique of the Boston Red Sox, Their Fans, and the Media,” Sociology of Sport Journal 17, no. 4 (2000): 403–422.

23 The recruitment method was not intended to yield a representative sample of Philadelphians, but to locate individuals who were willing to engage in conversation about baseball. The recruitment did result in a diverse subject pool. Twenty five percent of the participants were women and the remaining seventy five percent were men. Thirty-six respondents listed their racial or ethnic identification: White/Caucasian (14), Black/African American (8), Asian (8), Hispanic/Latino (4), Jewish (1), Afro-Latino (1).

24 Most of the opinions did not differ by racial group; however, I listed each participants self-identified racial or ethnic group to show how these opinions were shared by a diverse group of Philadelphians.

25 Eric Smith and Wilbert M. Leonard II, “Twenty-Five Years of Stacking Research in Major League Baseball: An Attempt at Explaining This Re-Occurring Phenomenon,” Sociological Focus 30, no. 4 (1997): 321–331.

26 Lapchick, “2012 Racial and Gender (sic) Report Card: Major League Baseball.”

27 “Phillies Chat with Marcus Hayes,” Philadelphia Daily News, October 26, 2010,” accessed November 21, 2010, www.philly.com/philly/blogs/ phillies/Phillies_chat_with_Marcus_Hayes_102610.html.

In the second grade, I developed a fondness for Hall of Fame pitcher Addie Joss. He played from 1902 to 1910. His career was cut short by meningitis. There was no picture of him in my almanac, but I used his 1.89 career ERA and .968 WHIP to construct an image in my head of a sturdy and precise man — stirrups even and pressed, face placid and clean. Only a wild pitcher, I had thought, would grow an unruly beard. Indeed, if Joss were the most precise pitcher ever, he would have no facial hair. I wouldn’t know for sure what his face looked like until I was in middle school when I encountered a Joss tobacco card at a collector’s convention in Chicago. In the image on the card, he was mostly as I’d imagined: straight-faced with a popped jersey collar. But I did not expect his hair parted down the middle, his bangs curled and waxed like some dorky pre-war actuary.

Each time I attend a baseball card show, I’m introduced to another of my hero’s faces and can’t help but imagine that player at work. In my imagined scenes, actions and dialogue are derived from a unique baseball vocabulary: bases load like guns, changeups fall off tables, and frozen ropes earn doubles. This vocabulary has influenced the way I organize and retrieve my memories. In my brain, I file cable news clips of war next to Josh Hamilton’s 2008 Home Run Derby performance, tie my two weeks in the Ecuadorian jungle to Rick Ankiel’s wild fastball, and place my father’s death beside the 1997 World Series, which the Cleveland Indians lost. When I study baseball-related language, I am studying myself — my history, assumptions, and proximity to the world. Language and cognition are inseparable, and so our passions impact our perceptions, thought organizations, and communications.

In their book Metaphors We Live By, cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson claim that “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of a thing in terms of another.”1 We cannot make sense of our complex inner and outer worlds without conceptual metaphors, through which we decipher and describe non-tactile or ambiguous concepts by comparing them to concrete objects and experiences. Metaphors are not merely “characteristic of language alone,” but “pervasive in everyday life…in thought and action.”2 To strip our lives of metaphor is to live in a single dimension, to know nothing but unnamed, immediate sensations. Metaphors allow us to name and play in confounding depths — everywhere from our psyches to the cosmos — which is, I think, to be human.

Here, I’ll examine orientational, ontological, and structural metaphors used to describe baseball games. As I do, I hope some of the core assumptions and perceptions that are common amongst baseball fans, and perhaps humanity as a whole, become more evident. Most importantly, I hope this basic survey will bolster my — and hopefully my readers’ — ability to intentionally and effectively recognize and construct metaphors, then employ them in communication, to better describe the human experience.

I live vicariously through Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw. We’re about the same age, and both have four-year-old daughters. But Clayton is five inches taller than I, left-handed, and induces major-league whiffs with a swooping, 88-mph slider. At this point in my life, my fastball peaks at 73 — that according to a carnival speed gun. In an alternate reality, I sometimes think, there is a tall, athletic version of myself who throws physics-bending curveballs. I watch every Kershaw start on television. He is in California while I am in Philadelphia. Our time zone difference means that I will likely stay up past midnight once every five days during the baseball season. My wife heads to bed without me on Kershaw nights.

On June 18, 2014, Clayton Kershaw no-hit the Colorado Rockies. Baseball wordsmith Vin Scully provided the color commentary. Scully began his career as a radio announcer. His descriptions of that game were so vivid that pictures weren’t necessary. The baseball, according to Scully, “dips” and “drifts,” gets “punched” and “speared.” In the third inning, a Rockies batter hit a “soft line drive.” Scully, always concerned about his words’ clarity, defined his terms, “The use of the word line-drive is describing the trajectory.” In the eighth inning, when it seemed the Rockies might not get a hit, the camera panned to Kershaw’s wife. Scully, speaking like a proud family member, noted, “There’s Ellen, applauding her hubby.” In contrast to the elated Dodgers, the Rockies looked dejected. Scully used a refrain to describe struck-out Rockies: “Down he goes.” “Down he goes.” “Down he goes.” I imagine the Colorado hitters knew their doom was inevitable, like characters in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five: “So it goes.” “So it goes.” “Down he goes.” Here, I am concerned about that metaphorical downward movement toward outs.

According to Lakoff and Johnson, many conceptual metaphors are the result of our spatial orientation. Indeed, they “arise from the fact that we have bodies of the sort that we have and that they function as they do in our physical world.”3 Through orientational metaphors, we “organize a whole system of concepts with respect to another.” That is, we make sense of abstract ideas by way of physical perceptions, “up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral.”4 We often describe abstract concepts, such as emotions, as physical entities within our perceived spaces: I am feeling down; Things are looking up; Her spirits are high.

Based on linguist William Nagy’s research (1974), Lakoff and Johnson suggest nine spatial concepts which drive orientational metaphors:

• “Happy is up; sad is down.”
• “Conscious is up; unconscious is down.”
• “Health and life are up; sickness and death are down.”
• “Having control or force is up; being subjected to control or force is down.”
• “More is up; less is down.”
• “Foreseeable future events are up (and ahead).”
• “High status is up; low status is down.”
• “Virtue is up; depravity is down.”
• “Rational is up; emotional is down.”5

As these orientational concepts are dependent upon subjects’ immediate environments, they will not be uniform across all cultures. However, most of these concepts appear as driving forces in baseball descriptions.

In his essay collection The Summer Game, Roger Angell — a J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner and long-time New Yorker fiction editor — describes baseball in the 1960s. His book, like the sport during that decade, is dominated by images of the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, and Cardinals — and hopeful considerations of the pitiful, fledgling Mets. Occasionally, Angell constructs essays by watching games on television, but most of the time, he writes about his first-hand experience as a fan at the ballpark.

Of a 1962 playoff game between the Giants and Dodgers, Angell writes, “One out of every three or four [Dodgers fans] carries a transistor radio in order to be told what he is seeing, and the din from these is so loud in the stands that every spectator can hear the voice of Vin Scully.”6 Like many of my own potent baseball memories, those fans’ recollections — including Angell’s — are forever linked to Scully’s voice, his turns of phrase, his metaphors.

Using language similar to Scully’s refrain from that 2014 Kershaw no-hitter — “Down he goes” — Angell describes an important moment from the ’62 series: “[Maury] Wills stole second, and the Giants’ catcher, in attempting to cut him down, relayed the ball to center field and to the possessor of the best arm on the club, Willie Mays, who then cut down Wills at third.”7 The speedy Maury Wills, like a tree chopped down and removed from the forest, was, when tagged out, removed from the field of play. If health and life are up and sickness and death are down, then we might conclude that the base paths on a baseball field are reserved for wellness and vitality; they are up. As such, it is common for fans, commentators, and writers to describe winning teams as riding high and losers as fallen.

Perhaps some people are attracted to baseball because it is a quick and obvious representation of their struggle to remain upright. We are all bound to the world by gravity and celebrate many human achievements which work against it: first steps and bike rides, stolen bases and home runs. Orientational metaphors, then, which are rooted in near-universal physical perceptions or at least common language related to those perceptions, are strong connecting points between the orator or writer and the audience.

In 1963, the New York Mets lost 111 games. The previous year they’d lost a historic 120. Still, Roger Angell made his way to the Polo Grounds, where he and a boisterous crowd rooted for that lovable but struggling team. Angell writes about those Mets:

Last year when the team trailed the entire league in batting…its team average was .240. So far this year, the Mets are batting .215, and a good many of the regulars display all the painful symptoms of batters in the grip of a long slump — not swinging at first pitches, taking called third strikes.8

Slumps, it seems, are heavy diseases which attach themselves to baseball players, then pull them downward toward outs. On the literal surface, the Mets may have looked strong and confident, but beneath a metaphorical lens, they might have appeared hunched over, straining to stand — let alone hit — in the batter’s box.

Angell suggests that if the Mets’ offensive woes continue, their manager “will be forced to insert any faintly warm bat into the lineup, even at the price of weakening his frail defense.”9 We understand temperature in up-down terms; it rises and falls. Cold is, perhaps, closer to rigidness or death than heat, or at least away from free movement and vitality; it is down. In baseball, a players’ metaphorical temperature is equivalent to their readiness to enter the game and their likelihood to remain upright, which is to help their team win. Players who have consistently performed at an elite level are often described as hot. Struggling players are cold.

While hot-cold metaphors are grounded in our spatial orientations, they also draw from our direct experiences with objects: snow, campfires, coffee, etc. Lakoff and Johnson call such metaphors “ontological.” Through ontological metaphors, we understand abstract concepts as concrete entities. Ontological metaphors might be richer or more specific than orientational metaphors:

One can only do so much with orientation. Our experience of physical objects and substances provides further basis for understanding…Once we can identify our experiences as entities or substances, we can refer to them, categorize them, group them, and quantify them — and, by this means, reason about them.10

Through ontological metaphors, we might understand a struggling baseball team as more than simply fallen, but rather a defective machine — a complex physical entity. One might describe those 1963 Mets as rusty or not firing on all cylinders. Roger Angell describes that team’s manager as a novice mechanic whose “Tinkering [of the lineup] can lead to the sort of landslide that carried away the Citadel last year.”11 As machines are full of unique parts and movements, the ontological metaphors built from them — by way of direct observation or experience — might be intricate and action-packed.

If people construct ontological metaphors through specific, past physical experiences, how might they impact our physical states when called upon in the present? Do fans feel literally cold when their favorite player strikes out, stuck in a frigid slump? In a close game, do fans literally feel hotter when they see their All-Star closer warming up in the bullpen?

In their paper “Cold and Lonely: Does Social Exclusion Literally Feel Cold?” University of Toronto social psychologists Chen-Bo Zhong and Geoffrey J. Leonardelli write, “Metaphors such as icy stare and cold reception are not to be taken literally and certainly do not imply reduced temperature. Two experiments, however, revealed that social exclusion literally feels cold.”12 In one experiment, Zhong and Leonardelli asked sixty-five undergraduate students to recall “a situation in which they felt socially excluded or included.”13 Then, at the request of a supposed maintenance staff member, those students estimated the current room temperature. Consistently, students who had been asked to recall memories of social exclusion estimated lower room temperatures. For those students, social exclusion felt cold. Therefore, metaphorical concepts primed literal, physical sensations. Commenting on their experiment’s results, Zhong and Leonardelli note,

[These Findings] highlight the idea that metaphors are not just linguistic elements that people use to communicate; metaphors are fundamental vessels through which people understand and experience the world around them…It is possible that people use coldness to describe social interaction patterns partly because they observe, at an abstract level, that the experience of coldness and the experience of social rejection coincide.14

Metaphors are bridges by which people connect abstract concepts to literal, physical perceptions. For example, uncertainty is chilling, ambitious plans are lofty, and depression is dim. In this way, abstract and concrete concepts and their connecting metaphors are tied together in our brains. When someone entertains a metaphor, they may also experience any of the abstract or concrete concepts that metaphor was initially built to bridge.

The metaphors that Vin Scully and Roger Angell use to construct images of baseball games in their listeners’ or readers’ minds affect their psychological, emotional, and physical states. I imagine if I were a Rockies fan watching that Kershaw no-hitter on mute, in the absence of Scully’s voice, the images on the screen would frustrate me. Perhaps I’d curse at Colorado pitcher Jorge De La Rosa after he allowed five runs in the third inning. Maybe I’d pound my right fist on my knee when Rockies catcher Wilin Rosario struck out for the third time. But if I turned on the volume and let Scully tell me what I was seeing, he might lull me from mere frustration into depression. Maybe after I heard his refrain, “Down he goes,” I’d hang my head, then hunch my back. Perhaps if he said that the Rockies’ hitters looked “scared and lonely” at the plate, I’d also feel alone, and possibly cold. If Scully called the Rockies’ offense broken, I might be moved to sadness, as I was in the third grade when my dog destroyed my Sammy Sosa rookie card, chewed beyond repair.

One of the most iconic calls of Scully’s career came in Game Six of the 1986 World Series. The Red Sox led the Mets three games to two and were on the verge of their first championship since 1918. In the bottom of the 10th inning of the sixth game, with the score tied 5-5 and Mets infielder Ray Knight on third, Mookie Wilson, a speedy bean-pole-of-a-man, hit a “Little roller up along first.” Before Wilson’s hit, Red Sox first basemen Bill Buckner had positioned himself 20 feet from the bag. As Wilson swung, Buckner shuffled five steps to his left and crouched to receive the ball. At that time, Buckner — strong, handsome, and mustached — was one of Boston’s stars. He’d won a batting title in 1980 and twice led the league in doubles. But at that point in his career, Buckner was not sure-handed and he failed to field Wilson’s grounder. Vin Scully yelled, “Behind the bag! It gets through Buckner. Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it!”

In the months following his error, Buckner would receive death threats from crazed Red Sox fans who blamed him for that World Series loss. His name would become synonymous with failure. But in that moment, Scully did not say “Buckner missed it” or “Buckner made an error,” but rather that the ball went “through” Buckner. Scully deemed the baseball, not a player, the main actor.

Often in baseball commentary, the ball is described as a creature. After a player swings at and misses a 95-mph fastball, an announcer might say that the ball ate the batter up. Or if a batter pushes a perfect bunt down the third-base line, so the ball rolls to a stop before the catcher or third baseman can field it cleanly, a writer may explain that the ball died on the field.

Sometimes, baseballs are described like people which dance, race, baffle, and hum. According to Lakoff and Johnson, such attributions “allow[s] us to comprehend a wide variety of experiences with nonhuman entities in terms of human motivations, characteristics, and activities.”15 Roger Angell personifies the baseball in his description of a 1968 matchup between the Red Sox and White Sox. In the third inning, Chicago’s left fielder Tommy Davis hit “a two-base screamer just inside the bag at third.”16 Maybe Davis swung so hard, made such true contact, that the baseball did not merely hiss as it usually does when rushing through wind, but yelled. Imagine standing at a street corner, an angry man shouting obscenities as he runs in your direction. Can you blame Boston’s third baseman for stepping to the side of that screaming grounder, letting it pass?

Perhaps if baseballs always moved as expected, and weren’t consistently fooling or injuring players, people might see them as fair and honest characters which, when batted, deserve secure send-offs rather than harmful hits. However, baseballs, so far as most baseball people know them, are crafty and unpredictable, worthy of punishment. Broadcasters happily describe batted balls as smacked, crushed, walloped, destroyed, slapped, rapped, struck, banged, pounded, cracked, punched, swatted, belted, and shot. Baseball language is often violent.

Radio commentator John Sterling creates a unique home run call for every Yankee. He often uses alliteration and rhymes. In the past, he called each Derek Jeter home run a “Jeter Jolt,” and with every Chris Carter blast he exclaimed, “Carter hits it harder!” Often Sterling utilizes battle-like phrases: “Bernie goes boom!” “Kelly killed it!” “It’s a nuke from Youk!” “It’s an A-bomb for A-Rod!”

On March 29, 2018, when power-hitting right fielder Giancarlo Stanton hit his first home run as a Yankee, John Sterling exclaimed, “It is gone! In his first Yankee at bat! Giancarlo, non si puó stoparlo! (Giancarlo can’t be stopped!) It is a Stantonian home run. A two-run blast.” Many Yankees fans did not like some of ways Sterling had described that home run. On social media, they questioned Sterling’s poor Italian and dismissed his use of that added suffix in “Stanton-ian.” “Ruthian” is already a common word in the Yankee vernacular, and any comparison between Stanton and Ruth might be blasphemous in the Bronx. But nobody challenged Sterling’s use of the word “blast.” Few people ever question his war words.

Maybe John Sterling, like many baseball fans, not only thought that Stanton’s home run ball resembled a soaring weapon or that the slugger’s buttoned uniform looked like battledress, but has conceptualized the entire sport as war. Maybe he’s mentally organized baseball atop an existing schema of battle, and so he cannot separate the motives and strategies of literal war from his metaphorical understanding of the game. Perhaps a single structural metaphor, baseball as war, drives most baseball commentary.

While orientational metaphors help us to understand abstract concepts in broad physical terms, they “are not,” write Lakoff and Johnson, “in themselves very rich.”17 And though we might personify inanimate objects through ontological metaphors — know ourselves and the world in more complex terms than up and down or in and out — they are limited by their necessary relationship to tangible items. We might only comprehend our inner and outer worlds as specific intangible systems through structural metaphors. Of all conceptual metaphor types,

Structural metaphors…provide the richest source of elaboration. Structural metaphors allow us to do much more than just orient concepts, refer to them, quantify them, etc., as we do with simple orientational and ontological metaphors; they allow us, in addition, to use one highly structured and clearly delineated concept to structure another.18

Perhaps the most common example of a structural metaphor is rational argument as war. Like all animals, humans “fight to get what they want.”19 However, unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, we have instituted rational parameters around conflict and developed “sophisticated techniques for getting our way.”20 We not only participate in reckless fights but structured battles, not only physical altercations but rhetorical situations. In verbal arguments,

Each sees himself as having something to win and something to lose, territory to establish and territory to defend. In a no-holds-barred argument, you attack, defend, counterattack, etc., using whatever verbal means you have at your disposal — intimidation, threat, invoking authority, insult, belittling, challenging authority, evading issues, bargaining, flattering, and even giving “rational reasons.”21

We spend much of our social lives in arguments, many of them subtle and nuanced. Our default rhetorical moves in those arguments are often combat-like, designed to maneuver metaphorical battle flags toward us. As protective animals in a society often framed by war, we might perceive any two-sided contest as a battle, and so, as with rational argument, we may conceptualize and describe baseball as war.

In 1951, New York Giants utility player Bobby Thomson hit a walk-off home run to win the National League pennant, sending his team to the World Series. The following day, the New York Daily News dubbed Thomson’s home run “The Shot Heard ‘Round the Baseball World,” a play on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1837 “Concord Hymn,” written to commemorate the beginning of the Revolutionary War. In that poem, Emerson writes, “Here once the embattled farmers stood/And fired the shot heard round the world.”22

In the prologue to his novel Underworld, Don DeLillo imagines J. Edgar Hoover at the Polo Grounds the day Bobby Thomson hit that famed “shot.” In DeLillo’s fictionalized account, just before the Thomson blast, Hoover learns of a secret Russian atomic test, the deployment of an enemy “instrument of conflict…a red bomb that spouts a great white cloud like some thunder god of ancient Eurasia.”23 Hoover is not concerned with the outcome of the baseball game, but “the way our allies one by one will receive the news of the Soviet Bomb.”24 After Thomson’s hit soars into the stands beyond Dodgers left fielder Andy Pafko, the Giants fans and players erupt into victorious mayhem. People toss thousands of newspaper clippings, receipts, and ripped magazine pages into the air. Paper rains over J. Edgar Hoover like confetti. Here, he stands at the intersection of the literal and metaphorical, between the tangible by-products of victory — streamers and joyous chants — and the complex intangibles which often drive war strategy and baseball language: morality, justice, purpose.

Fans who conceptualize baseball as war, their team’s seasons as moral and just conquests, might employ battle terms in discussions about gameplay: Koufax has coerced ten players to swing at his curveball; The manager should have deployed his closer earlier; Henderson evaded the tag at third; The Cubs pitching staff lacks firepower; Hershiser looks tired but will not surrender; That Cabrera double might spark a breakthrough; Griffey is patrolling center field; Acuña was plunked, but took the high ground and did not rush the mound.

The baseball as war metaphor is compelling, but we might not only know the game that way. The sport is many things to many people. To some, baseball is a meticulous, practiced craft performed through improvisation, and so it is jazz. To others, baseball is athletic leaps performed by sculpted men in matching costumes, a ballet. Still, others may know the game as a matrix where player actions resemble numbers which collide and change and reveal or echo mathematical truths. Perhaps the depth and breadth of our passions apart from baseball are among the few limits on our metaphorical conceptions of it.

In her essay “I Remember, I Remember,” poet and essayist Mary Ruefle writes about making a metaphor:

I remember — I must have been eight or nine — wandering out to the ungrassed backyard of our newly constructed suburban house and seeing that the earth was dry and cracked in irregular squares and other shapes, and I felt I was looking at a map and I was completely overcome by this description, my first experience of making a metaphor, and I felt weird and shaky and went inside and wrote it down: the cracked earth is a map.25

Humans are miraculous metaphor-making machines. Our brains are full of beautiful, complex connections between formless mysteries and tactile or structured elements. We construct most metaphors unconsciously. But some people, like Ruefle, can make rich metaphors actively. Active metaphor construction is a practiced craft, honed through repeated and deep deliberations of undefined concepts, and perhaps bolstered by a basic understanding of how humans conceptualize their worlds: orientationally, ontologically, structurally.

When we invent metaphors, we satisfy a primal human urge to decipher and organize thought and experience. Mary Ruefle explains how she felt after constructing that first metaphor, “It was an enormous ever-expanding room of a moment, a chunk of time that has expanded ever since and that my whole life keeps fitting into.”26 I imagine, with each new metaphor I construct, fractal-like synapse paths grow in my brain, connecting emotions, senses, and objects in new, unique ways.

Recently, my mother retired and moved in with my family. She brought boxes full of my childhood things with her: baseball cards, model cars, and wide-ruled notebooks. I did not read or write many stories as a child. My early notebooks mostly contain black and white drawings. On the first page of my fifth-grade notebook, I drew Bob Feller mid-pitch, his left toe pointed high in the air. On the second page, I drew a cartoon of Mark McGwire flexing, the word slugger printed across his chest. On the fourth page, I drew a hodge-podge of baseball players, only identifiable by the last names scrawled above their heads: Thomas, Vizquel, Griffey, Belle, Justice, Maddux, Bonds. Below that player lineup, I identified an important metaphor that many of my experiences keep “fitting into”: baseball is my life.

DANIEL ROUSSEAU is a Philadelphia-based writer. His work has appeared in Cimarron Review, The Briar Cliff Review, and Salon, among others. He has been a finalist for the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, and his essay “Retrieving Charlie Gehringer” received a notable citation in Best American Essays 2018.

Sources

Angell, Roger. The Summer Game. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

Delillo, Don. Underworld. New York: Scribner, 1997.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson.” Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45870/concord-hymn.

Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Ruefle, Mary. “I Remember, I Remember.” Poetry Foundation, July 2, 2012. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/69829/i-remember-i-remember

Zhong, Chen-Bo, and Geoffrey J. Leonardelli. “Cold and Lonely: Does Social Exclusion Literally Feel Cold?” Psychological Science 19, no. 9 (2009): 838-842.

Notes

1 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 5.

2 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 3.

3 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 14.

4 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By.

5 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 15-17.

6 Roger Angell, The Summer Game (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 72.

7 Angell, The Summer Game.

8 Angell, The Summer Game.

9 Angell, The Summer Game.

10 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 25.

11 Angell, The Summer Game, 50.

12 Chen-Bo Zhong and Geoffry J. Leonardelli, “Cold and Lonely: Does Social Exclusion Literally Feel Cold?” Psychological Science 19, no.9 (2008): 838.

13 Zhong and Leonardelli, 839.

14 Zhong and Leonardelli, 840.

15 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 33.

16 Angell, The Summer Game, 21.

17 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 61.

18 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 61.

19 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 62.

20 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 62.

21 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 62.

22 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson,” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45870/concord-hymn.

23 Don DeLillo, Underworld (New York: Scribner, 1997), 23.

24 DeLillo, Underworld, 30.

25 Mary Ruefle, “I Remember, I Remember,” Poetry Foundation, July 2, 2012, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/69829/i-remember-i-remember.

26 Ruefle.

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.