Presidential Medal Of Freedom Recipients

"One day last spring, I was walking toward the clubhouse and I saw Clemente standing by himself at home plate with a bat in his hands. The workout was over and everyone else had left. Roberto would take four or five strides with his front foot, keeping his bat still. Then he’d swing it and run hard to first base. He did it again and I finally walked over and asked what he was doing."Well," he said, "I'm in good shape physically, but I’m pretending it’s opening day. We play the Mets and I know Seaver will pitch. I know how he pitches me and I’m pretending that’s what he’s doing. I’m getting myself ready mentally.”"

"Low and away from what I have seen. High and away—forget it—it'll be a shot over the wall!"

"I guess the best words I could use, when he first come up: great ability, played hard, but he was somewhat of a hot dog. Maybe he didn't run out a ball. He was known for that when he first come up. And, uhh... then, as he matured, he became the leader of the club, and [pause] the hot dog was gone. He just matured and became... became the guy that he was... that he was destined to be."

"Clemente was No. 1 on the lists of four or five major league teams. We've had several men scout him. Clyde Sukeforth did a thorough job on him. We know he can field, run and throw. He has power for sure. He didn't hit for average in Montreal, but we're hoping he'll do it for us."

"I had a good line on this boy. Three different members of the scouting staff observed his play. On the reports I would have paid more than the $4,000 it cost the club. I would have paid $10,000 or even gone high as $30,000 for him. But for $30,000, I would have gone out myself and checked on him."

"We can't go overboard on what we've heard. It might be hard on the boy if he gets a lot of rave notices. The people might expect too much of him. I've had so many good reports on this boy, I'm anxious to get a look at him myself."

"I have been told very often from sources about his running speed. His running form is bad, definitely bad, and based upon what I saw tonight, he has only a bit above average major league running speed. He has a beautiful throwing arm. He throws the ball down and it really goes places. However he runs with the ball every time he makes a throw and that’s bad. He has no adventure whatsoever on the bases, takes a comparatively small lead, and doesn’t have in mind, apparently, getting a break. I can imagine that he has never stolen a base in his life with his skill or cleverness. I can guess that if it was done, it was because he was pushed off. His form at the plate is perfect. The bat is out and in good position to give him power. There is not the slightest hitch or movement in his hands or arms and the big end of the bat is completely quiet when the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. His sweep is level, very level. His stride is short and his stance is good to start with and he finishes good with his body. I know of no reason why he should not become a very fine hitter. I would not class him, however, as even a prospective home run hitter. I do not believe he can possibly do a major league club any good in 1955. It is just too bad that he could not have his first year in a Class B or C league and then this year he might have profited greatly with a second year as a regular say in Class A. In 1956 he can be sent out on option by Pittsburgh only by first obtaining waivers, and waivers likely cannot be secured. So we are stuck with him, stuck indeed, until such a time as he can really help a major league club."

"I saw Clemente several years ago in Puerto Rico and made up my mind at the time to get him somehow. When the Dodgers gave Clemente a bonus and left him on the Montreal roster, I jumped. I knew this was it. The only person I told about Clemente was Clyde Sukeforth and I sent him on a trip to check on Roberto.★ He came back raving. Clemente was good last year, but he’ll be better this year, and in about three years you’ll really see something."

"This boy may not possess the color of Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays, but he has enough natural ability to be spoken of along with any of those fellows. I suppose I have a peculiar attachment to Robert [sic]. That's because we got him for a "steal," you might say. I was with the Dodgers when we acquired Clemente after scouting him in Puerto Rico. So I was thoroughly acquainted with the boy when the major league draft came up in the winter of 1954, after I had come to Pittsburgh from Brooklyn. The Dodgers were apparently bent on "hiding" Robert when they transferred him to the Pacific Coast League.★ But since I knew what he could do, and that he was somewhere in their farm system, I withheld the Pirates' draft selection until I found the boy. We got him for the relatively small draft price—perhaps the biggest steal in baseball."

"Here he was, thirty-seven years old, and they said he had to have a great World Series or else people would not know how great he was. He was so ashamed. He’d tell me, "Oh, when I was younger, I was so much better.""

"In the finals against Mayaguez, 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 some 420 feet to dead center in Mayaguez 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 I realized he caught the ball with his back facing the infield. The game was over."

"While Radatz, Face and Schwall leaned to Howard for distance, all thought Jackson a power man of note. " and Roberto Clemente can hit 'em downtown with the best of them," Schwall interjected. Face nodded in agreement."

"I never saw a guy so dedicated to playing ball. He’d have a clubhouse meeting and it’d sorta be funny… he’d talk for an hour, and not get tired of talking! He was speaking in halting English, but he meant every word. And you’d see him hit a tap to the pitcher, and he’d run just as hard as he did on a hit. He always said it might be that one time that something would happen, that you’d put pressure on a guy and make him make a mistake. Maybe we aren’t blessed with his talent, but there’s no reason we can’t hustle like he did."

"There was a lot of pressure on Roberto to activate himself," Singleton recalls. "He was a hero down there, and he could still play better than anybody. But he refused to take somebody’s place in the lineup. He said he would go with the guys who got him that far. A team is a team, he said. I never forgot that." Neither did Singleton forget how those playoffs ended in 1970. Clemente came up in the ninth inning, bases loaded, his team trailing by a run, with two outs. The count went to 3 and 2. The crowd was screaming, and Clemente seized the moment. "Line-drive double," says Singleton, smiling. "Two runs, we win the game. He contributed to the cause, but he didn't forget everybody else who contributed."

"Today he said that he would wager "up to a dollar" that Roberto Clemente would hit 30 points higher this season. "He was moving his head around. It was up in the air most of the time when he swung. That’s why he was troubled so much by curves. Now after one bit of instruction, he is holding his head steady.""

"A thinking hitter, the kind I like. I don’t like ‘guess’ hitters."

"I think Clemente will hit 35 points higher this season."

"This is a young team and one of the advantages of working with youngsters is they’re eager to learn and they’re good students. They’re willing to accept advice. We don’t have too many power hitters on the Pirates and naturally it isn’t my aim to develop the singles hitters into home run hitters. I feel if they’ll just meet the ball solidly, they’ll fill the bill. I think the averages have declined in recent years because most players are looking for the home run every time at bat. But we’ll be satisfied with a good, consistent performance. Virdon and Clemente hit only 17 home runs between them but they ran two-three in the National League batting race."

"He could hit .400 someday. He hits the pitch where it's thrown. He's not trying to pull everything over the fence. He uses his intelligence along with his ability."

"Clemente always chose average over power. He could have hit a ton of home runs. Playing around in batting practice, he’d hit one ball after another over the fence. But in the games, he just wanted to make hard contact."

"I had been with other teams before I came to the Pirates. I had been with clubs in Kansas City and before that in Baltimore. But I had never been with a ballplayer like Clemente. I knew he was going to be great. I saw him make plays in ’60 and I saw someone like Al Kaline try to make plays like that, and he couldn’t. Clemente could throw the ball. There were few who could throw the ball like him. Rocky Colavito could and Kaline could, and Carl Furillo and Willie Mays could, but not many of them. He was such a great athlete. He could stop and go. He could’ve played football. He was just a natural, instinctive ballplayer. If someone said, ‘Hey, Roberto, let’s go pitch horseshoes,’ he’d probably win all the time. He had great speed – he was just such a natural athlete. I was in awe of his ability."

"After a month or two, he and I became good friends. He was my buddy. I could talk to him. I could kid him. I could counsel him. He liked that. One day we were changing clothes, getting into our uniforms at Forbes Field, and I moved close to him and tugged at the lapel of his uniform shirt. I said to him, "Roberto, are you aware that if you play every day this year, we’re gonna win the pennant?" He said, "Smitty, are you kidding?" And I said, "I’m serious. You’re that great. You’re great!" He smiled at me, and he said, "Smitty, I’ll play every day." And he did, or just about, anyhow. I had talked to Murtaugh about him before I said that. I said, "What’s the deal with Clemente?" I heard he had aches and pains and he pulled himself from the lineup now and then. Murtaugh told me, "He did that to me last year. This year I just put his name down on the lineup card, and I hide from him the rest of the time before the game starts. I don’t talk to him the rest of the day. I don’t give him a chance to tell me about his aches and pains." Clemente was young. He was different from the rest of us. Maybe he wasn’t always comfortable in the clubhouse or the dugout, in the beginning. But he needed a pat on the back, that’s all. When he found out the team needed him, he really responded. He learned a lot that year, probably more than in any other year in his major league career. He learned a lot about himself, and about his teammates."

"The best and most complete ballplayer I’ve ever seen is Roberto Clemente. He responds in any situation and the guy will come up with a base hit in any situation, or a catch, or a throw, or whatever you need."

"I especially respected and admired Clemente, who later became one of my best friends. Roberto was superhuman on the ball field. He played right field with the grace and style of a ballet dancer. His agility and strength enabled him to perform plays some fans thought to be impossible. But he was also an intensely fierce warrior who played each game as if it were his last."

"He was a winner. He taught me many things about succeeding in baseball and in life. As a result, we were able to put many things together. Even after his death, the spirit of Roberto remained in Pittsburgh and, with him in mind, many persons accomplished things that perhaps seemed impossible years ago. He exemplified what a World Series is all about… the glamour and the physical and mental endurance needed to perform. Anybody who has a World Series ring knows what I’m talking about."

"It was something that he worked on. First of all, he would make sure he had good balance in throwing. Everything was across the seams. And he knew how to throw the ball so it could land in a certain spot and take one perfect hop to the infielder or the catcher so that it doesn’t handcuff him. He would take a garbage can and put it at third base where the opening was facing him. He would have somebody hit him the ball in right field, he would run in, bring his body under control, pick up the ball, and throw it one-hop into the can. Tough to do. But that’s what made him shine a little brighter, stand a little taller."

"He worked at it. One of the things that he taught me was every time we’d go into a stadium – or even at home – to spend a little extra time working on things: have balls hit to you, not just fly balls or ground balls, but hit ‘em off the wall at different angles. Find the sun, hit the ball into the sun and be able to shield the sun in such a way that you don’t lose the ball in the sun. His ability was no accident. He put a lot of time and effort and intelligence into his game. And what people saw was the finished product."

"We were taking extra hitting. I was throwing to him and he was throwing to me. So the time I was throwing to him, he said, "Look, this round, I’m gonna hit everything back up the middle, so be alive." Maybe three out of ten pitches a guy could do that, hit the ball right back at the pitcher. The first pitch I threw, as soon as I threw it, a bullet went right by my ear. Phew. I said, "Whoa!" The next one – phew, by this ear. The next one was coming directly toward me, and I had to duck. That’s three out of three. Then I got the message – I’m gonna be alive ten out of ten."

"Sure, I know Mantle led the American League in homers, but we got a couple of guys besides myself who can hit home runs, too. Clemente can hit a ball as far as anyone. He leans toward left field and hits to right."

"There must be the best 169-pound slugger in baseball."

"Don’t let anybody kid you he can’t hit for distance. When he wants to, he can power one as far as anybody in baseball. He's smart enough to go for line drives at Forbes Field. That's no park for home run hitters."

"Clyde Sukeforth, another Pirate scout of the era, remembers having dinner with Max Macon, then manager of Montreal. "I don't care if you never play him," said Sukey, with corner-curl grin of his, "we're going to finish last, and we're going to draft him number one.""

"Sukeforth went to Pittsburgh and consulted with Branch Rickey, who had moved from the Dodgers to the Pirate organization and was engaged in a "five-year plan" to recruit young players for the perennial losers. A few days later, Sukeforth went to Montreal to see more of Roberto. That night, while having dinner with Max Macon, the manager, he said with a mischievous grin, "I notice you haven't been playing Clemente much lately." Before Macon could reply, Sukeforth said, "You might as well use him. He's better than anyone we have in Pittsburgh right now. We're going to finish last, and we're going to draft him number one." Then rising from the table, Sukeforth waved and said, "Take care of our boy.""

"Late in the season, Clyde Sukeforth went up to Montreal for one last look. "I notice you haven't been playing Clemente much." Sukeforth smiled across the dinner table at Macon. The two men had known each other for years. There was no sense in their trying to fool each other. "Well, I don't care if you never play him," continued the Pirate scout. "We're going to finish last, and we're going to draft him number one." With that, Sukeforth got up from the table. "Take care of our boy," he said."

"Clyde Sukeforth actually was the first man connected with the Pirates who saw Roberto Clemente when the Puerto Rican was playing for Montreal last summer. Sukeforth, a Bucco coach, was sent to Richmond, Va., last June to get a look at pitcher Joe Black of Montreal. The Pirates and Dodgers were talking about a Sid Gordon trade at the time and the Bucs asked for Black in the deal but wanted a first hand report on how he looked. But Sukey practically forgot all about Black when he caught his first glimpse of Clemente. "I arrived at the Richmond ball park where Montreal was playing just in time to see the pre-game workout," Sukey relates. "I saw Clemente throwing from the outfield and I couldn't take my eyes off him. Later in the game he was used as a pinch-hitter and I liked his swing. He impressed me a great deal. I started asking questions and learned he was a bonus player and would be eligible for the draft. I knew then he'd be our first draft choice. In fact, I told Montreal manager Max Macon to take good care of 'our boy' and see that he didn't get hurt. Clemente was such a good looking prospect and so young that if we hadn't grabbed him, he would have been snapped up quickly by the other teams. There weren't many other good draft choices and Clemente was a standout.""

"A duster thrown to leadoff batter Roberto Clemente by Sal Maglie in the September 21 game was credited with playing a major role in the Pirates' 2 to 1 win over the Dodgers. "You should have heard our players on the bench," said Bucco coach Clyde Sukeforth, formerly of the Dodger staff. "They were madder than at anytime I've seen 'em this season. It was a stupid thing to do. It got the guys fighting mad. It would have been better to let sleeping dogs lie.""

"Around the seventh inning Montreal was behind, and who should go up to pinch hit but this kid? He hits a routine ground ball to shortstop and turns it into a bang-bang play at first base. God, he could run. He could fly. Well, I said to myself, there’s a boy who can do two things as well as any man who ever lived. Nobody could throw any better than that, and nobody could run any better than that."

"“Well, boys," Mr. Rickey said, "We’re finishing last, so we’ve got the first draft choice. Who is it going to be?" Somebody suggested a pitcher out on the coast. Somebody else said an infielder out of the Southern League. Then he looked at me. “Clyde, do you have a candidate?" “Yes, sir," I said as emphatically as I could. "Clemente, with Montreal." “Any of you other boys see Clemente?" he asked, looking around. One fellow spoke up. “I have," he said. "I didn’t like him." “What didn’t you like about him?" Mr. Rickey said. “I didn’t like his arm," the fellow said. “Clyde,’ the old man said, "did you see this fellow Clemente throw?" “I sure did," I said. “What did you think of his arm?" “Well," I said, "there’s a question in my mind as to whether or not it’s better than Furillo’s." "It’s right in the same class as Furillo’s, and it may even be a little bit better." “I see," Mr. Rickey said. "There seems to be some difference of opinion here. One man doesn’t like the arm, while another says it’s as good as the best. We’ll have to sort this out." So he sent George Sisler and another scout up to Montreal to see Clemente. I guess they decided he could throw as well as do a few other things, because they recommended we draft him. That’s how the Pirates got Clemente for $4,000."

"The worse he felt physically, the better he seemed to play. He gave it 100% every day, every play. No one played the crazy right field in Pittsburgh better. I think my favorite quote from him came when Bobby Bragan asked him why he didn’t find one batting stance and stick with it. Bob replied, "Bobby, it don’t matter how you stand, it matter where you end up!”"

"Clemente would just plop down on the grass and hold court. He loved to talk about hitting. He’d be sitting there, talking to all these young kids. It wasn’t about mechanics, you know – like how to hold the bat, or where to stand, or stuff like that. It was more about theory, what he was trying to do as a hitter. It helps explain his unorthodox style. You’d never teach anyone to stand up at the plate like he did, or to hold the bat like he did, or to swing at some of the pitches he lashed at. He wanted to hit the ball with the bat going down through it. The ball would come off the bat with backspin. It will carry that way. I realized it more when I played golf because the same thing applies there. If you hit up at it you get topspin and the ball goes down. Most guys just want to make contact; they’re happy if they can put their bat on the ball. But Clemente was more precise in what he wanted to accomplish. He wanted to keep his hands back, and hit down on the ball with that heavy bat he used. Hearing him talk, you knew he was somebody on a separate level. They say Ted Williams was like that. He’d sit there four or five innings a day, just talking about things. Like balance, things he was trying to accomplish at the plate. I probably learned more about pitching to good major league batters from Clemente than I did from any pitching coaches."

"That '79 team was Stargell's team. he was 'Pops' and we were the 'Fam-i-lee,' and all that stuff. But all the things that Stargell showed us he learned from Clemente. Whenever I'd question Stargell about something, he'd smile and say, "That is Roberto. You're getting it secondhand from Roberto." That's what he told me. He was like Clemente in many ways. He didn't say much. "just watch me," that's what he was saying. I sat on the other side of the clubhouse from Stargell. Looking at him after a game, you couldn't tell if he was 4-for-4, 0-for-4, whether he struck out four times or whether he had 7 RBIs. There was a consistency about his behavior. Not too high, not too low. We all drew from his personality. And he'd say, "That's the way I got it from Roberto." What I really got from Roberto, and from Stargell, is how analytical you have to be. What are you trying to do? That's what you have to ask yourself, whatever sport you are playing. Whatever job you are doing."

"Just watching him play [when he first came up in 1955], his actions, right then and there you knew he was a pretty good little player. I said the same thing about Hank Aaron when I first saw him … I just felt that the way Clemente and Aaron swung the bat, so quick, and the way they handled themselves, that they had it. They had God-given ability. They just had to work to bring it out. I played with both of them. I liked Roberto, but people ask me, "Which one would you take if you had to make a choice?" and I’d take Henry. He could hit the ball harder, with more power, and he hit a lot more home runs. I’d love to have both of them on my team."

"I used to get mad at Clemente in his early years with the team. He was a great ballplayer, and he had a great arm, but he did things that hurt the ball club. He’d throw the ball over the head of the cut-off man to home plate. If he didn’t get the guy, the hitter would get to second base instead of having to stop at first. That could lead to more runs. I was playing first base at times, and I’d holler to him, "Throw the ball down!""

"He played the wall as well as anyone I’d ever seen. I saw Paul Waner play the wall well, too, when I was a little kid, but Clemente knew every nuance of that wall."

"He played his best baseball when we played the Giants. He tried to outdo Willie Mays, and he did many times. He worked at being a great outfielder, just like Virdon worked at it to become the great center fielder he became."

"There were many guys on the Pirates who had leadership qualities: Roberto Clemente, Dick Groat, Don Hoak, Vernon Law, even Smoky Burgess. Clemente led with his play. There wasn’t a better player than Roberto Clemente. Clemente, Mantle and Kaline were the best all-around players I ever saw, and I think Clemente was the best."

"There’s no doubt that Roberto’s the greatest right fielder in baseball. It’s phenomenal the way he plays the tricky wall in Forbes Field. He takes ordinary doubles off it and throws the runners out at second. He’ll snap throw to first and pick them off when they round the bag wide. He has real strong hands and the best arm in the business."

"Baseball won’t be the same in Pittsburgh without Clemente. When you think of baseball in Pittsburgh, you think of Clemente. There’s no way to replace him. We will just fill the spot. I’ll see Roberto every time I see a great play. That’s where we’ll miss him most – on defense. We’ll have to do the routine flawlessly because we won’t get the spectacular as often."

"Everything has been harder this year. Tempers have gotten away. We haven’t been able to hit the tough pitchers like [Wayne] Twitchell and Seaver. That is where we miss Clemente more than anything, because he could hit the good pitchers. He hit them better than anybody else. [Al] Oliver can hit them maybe in the seventh inning, but Clemente would hit them right off. His steady bat set the tone for our other hitters."

"There was never anybody better at his position than Clemente. In my time playing, managing, watching, he was simply the best in the business, not only because he could catch a ball better than anyone – which he could – or because his arm was so strong, but in every phase of play. He did everything exceptionally well and then his judgment was even better than that. He always threw to the right base, he was always where he was supposed to be, backing up, taking balls off the most difficult fences. His arm was powerful, but it was also deadly accurate. Nobody ran on him and when they did, it was from ignorance, not knowledge. Usually the ones who tried him were the young guys or the guys who were just coming into the league – the rest of the league simply didn’t run on him. He knew the outfields he played in, he knew the hitters and pitchers, what was going on in a game perfectly. He came in on a ball, went back to the wall, always knowing what he was doing."