Presidential Medal Of Freedom Recipients

"In a game at Forbes Field, he caught the ball over his shoulder and ran into the concrete wall in right field where the fence angled out. There were some ornaments on the fence that jutted out, and he was going headfirst into it. Somehow he threw his head back and he got cut under the chin instead of getting hit in the throat. It probably saved his life. He caught the ball and hung onto it. When I got there and turned him over, all I could see was the gash under his chin. But other than that, he didn’t hurt himself."

"I played in the outfield with Roberto Clemente all ten years I played with Pittsburgh. Usually a center fielder will call off the other fielder on a catchable ball, but with Clemente on your side, you don’t get carried away with that. And you’d know Roberto would be there if you were not able to get it."

"Bob Bailey, Willie Stargell, Donn Clendenon, Jim Pagliaroni and Bob Veale are practically strangers to Walker. He has never seen them play. But in the last few months Walker has studied their records and asked questions of the men who have seen them in action. "If we can get just a little more out of each Pirate, we're bound to be better," Walker reasons. "This isn't too much to ask. Maybe Roberto Clemente can drive in 100 runs, maybe Bailey can bat in about 80 runs, maybe Stargell can hit a few more homers. Just a little more from each player, a little more than he did in 1964 could start us on the road back.""

"I've been studying the records of all the Pirates and I feel if we can just get a little more production out of every man, we can have a good team this season. I don't think that's asking too much. I'd like to have Roberto Clemente drive in 100 runs, Willie Stargell give us a few more homers than the 21 he had last season and maybe Bailey can push a few more runners home."

"It all depends on Roberto's health. He's the leader of this team, and we'll go as far as he can take us."

"I dont care how bad he looks at the plate, or how many bad balls he swings at; as long as he keeps hitting like he has, I'm not changing his style."

"Well, of course one thing a lot of people are confused about, he steps a little bit toward left field with his front foot. But his weight is on the back foot when he starts. And then when he drives forward, he drives his weight off the back foot onto the front foot. And his back hip always goes with his hands. In other words, when his hands start here, his hips go up there with it. This is why he drives the ball, and stays on top of the ball. If he were to dip, like this, he would hit a lot of fly balls. But when he comes forward, he gets up on top by bringing the back foot. See that back foot, how he brings? And it makes a short stride. He finishes up with a stride about like this, rather than a big long stride. And this is important, because that keeps him on top of the ball, and that's why he hits a lot of line drives. He watches the ball, and he's got great hands. One thing: he'll be fooled on a ball, and he'll be like this, but his bat is always back. That way he can pull the bat at the ball. This is one of the things that makes him a great hitter."

"There’s just no way to pitch to him. He can hit everything. I don’t know why he’s hitting more homers this year, though. He’s just going into the ball and meeting it."

"One of his biggest boosters for the MVP is his manager, Harry Walker. "I don't know of any other player who deserves it more," he said of Clemente. "Willie Mays is having a good year but not as good as Clemente's. I can't see anybody else who can win it but Roberto." At Ft. Myers early last March, Walker told Clemente he looked for him to have the biggest campaign of his career. "He's doin' just that," the Bucs' leader crowed. "Maybe Roberto is not going to hit for the highest average he ever got, but he's topped his best RBI and home run figures. I told him he would do just that.""

"He ran every step of the way this year. That's rather unusual for a star of his caliber. He ran as hard for us in our last game of the season as he did in our first. The way he performed this year, Clemente was one of the greatest players I have ever seen. It seemed to be a matter of pride with him. I really don't know what motivated it. All I know is he had it."

"What makes Bobby Clemente the best hitter in baseball is that he waits longer than most of them before committing himself to the pitch. That gives him a better opportunity of correcting himself to meeting a changing pitch. A lot of fellows are already lunging when the ball is halfway to the plate. Clemente gets that extra look at the ball."

"We were just a fraction short in those years. If we had a little better pitching, we could have won it. What I really regret is not being able to stick around another couple of years. With Sangy, Richie Hebner and Oliver coming up, we had the players to fill in around Clemente and Stargell. That's why I felt bad."

"Walker regards Clemente as "the most exciting player" he managed and Clemente and Stan Musial as the best."

"We got along great. He was a great player and a great man. When I first went to Pittsburgh, I had heard that he said he wouldn't play for me, but I sat down and asked him about it. I told him I knew he was a great ball player, and I wanted him to play his way. After that, we got along great. After they fired me, he didn't play for two or three days."

"He was great in the clubhouse, too. He would start telling a story, get excited about it, and there'd be so much noise coming from the clubhouse that you'd think somebody was fighting. You'd go in there and the noise would be caused by people laughing at his stories. One that he told was about his days in the army. He was on the army's relay team, and he had a tough sergeant who took the team to a track meet. He told them they'd better win the race or they'd pay. Roberto was running the anchor leg. When he took the baton, he was a few steps behind the other runner. In telling the story, he said,"I ran as hard as I could, my sides seemed to be almost splitting, until I was up right beside the other guy. I knew I couldn't go much longer, so I turned to him and said, 'What say we make it a sprint for the last 50 yards?' The other guy was in the same predicament that I was, but he just gave up after that, and we won." He'd bluffed him out of the race."

"We had some very good young ballplayers – Maz, Groat, Clemente, Dale Long – though Clemente was a big piece of nothing his first years. Virdon and I would get all over Clemente. If a tough right-hander was going to face us, Clemente all of a sudden would get a headache or a bad back. I challenged him one day – I said, “You don’t want to play tonight because Drysdale’s pitching and he might knock you on your ass.""

"He'll do all right. Roberto can do all right doing anything. But he will never be as good as he is on the ball field. With a bat or glove in his hand, Roberto is super. He is a super-star. He is a superstar. To win a pennant a club needs a superstar. We had Koufax in Los Angeles. The Giants have their Mays and the Orioles didn't win until they got a superstar—Frank Robinson. The Yankees won for years with Mickey leading 'em. Clemente is our superstar. He makes the club that little bit better which is so important in a pennant race."

"I had played against Clemente for years and I always realized he was an outstanding player. But after playing 162 games a season with him for two years at Pittsburgh, I realized I hadn’t rated him high enough. As a fielder he is as great as anyone in baseball. When it comes to hitting, I think Clemente is the only batter in our league who is a real match for Bob Gibson. He has outstanding power to all fields. I know Tommy Helms has said that the hardest ball ever hit at him was a ball hit by Clemente, a righthanded hitter hitting to the right side."

"I’ve been asked if I ever saw anyone better than Willie Mays. The answer is, yes. Roberto Clemente was much better than Willie Mays. It wasn’t just his arm. He could do everything better."

"He used to do things there that I thought no outfielder could possibly do. I am, you see, no baby. I know this game and I know the people who play it and I have seen them all ... all of them. But I tell you as I look there where once he wore our Santurce uniform, I tell you that when they hit that line drive ... you know that Roberto would of course have to be playing over toward center for a right-handed batter. And when the right-handed hitter put the ball toward the foul line, then Roberto would have to turn his back and sprint in the wrong direction. This is, you see, a most difficult play, but all the good ones make it, so you cannot build a memory upon the fact that he could turn and run and catch the ball. But what followed, ah, my friend, what followed. Ah, what followed was that as soon as you heard the sound of that baseball sticking in the pocket of the glove, you knew that Roberto would make this incredible pivot and sometimes without even looking he would throw the ball and heaven help the man on third base who thought he could then tag up and run home after such a play. Heaven help him, my friend, because his legs couldn’t. Roberto would throw him out by three feet. I am no child. I get older. I have seen them all. Yes, DiMaggio could make this play and maybe one or two others. That’s all. Upon a sight like this one can build a memory that almost measures up to the greatness that was Clemente."

"Aaron whistled when he talked of the two shots Roberto Clemente drilled. One struck the left field wall and bounced back on the field for a double. The other traveled over Mack Jones’ head in dead center (450 feet?) and he got a triple."

"Tired of hearing that Pittsburgh's Roberto Clemente was baseball's best, Aaron went on the rampage against the Pirates Sunday and fired the Braves to a 7-2 victory with a pair of two-run homers and two singles in a perfect day at the plate. "When you're second best, you have to try harder," Aaron quipped after his hitting outburst. [...] "I'm not mad. People can say whatever they want about who is the best player." [...] Aaron had been needled by Walker's public praise of Clemente, who the Pirate manager said was a better player than Aaron. The Atlanta right fielder hit the roof when Atlanta announcer Milo Hamilton introduced Clemente at a luncheon as the man who beat out Aaron for the right field job in the All-Star game. "I got more votes than Clemente," Aaron said. "I played center field because Walter Alston asked me to." Aaron and Hamilton ironed out their differences at a clubhouse meeting, but the 33-year-old slugger was determined to prove his point. He was particularly elated about throwing out Clemente when the Pittsburgh standout tried to take third on a long hit to right field. "Sure, that made me feel good. But I feel good when I throw anyone out." Aaron just laughed when a teammate said that, from now on, he's going to say before every game, "Clemente's better than Aaron.""

"Clemente has the misfortune of playing in a big park. If he played in a smaller one, there’s no telling how many home runs he’d hit."

"We talked about pitchers a lot. He’d want to know what I did against a certain pitcher. He had his own ideas, of course, and liked to use reverse psychology. He would take about five bats to the on-deck circle and sometimes changed bats. He would make the pitcher think he was going to use a heavier bat to punch the ball to the opposite field or something. Then he’d take a big cut."

"He had a batting stance that was a little peculiar. He had a little crouch in his stance, and when he swung at the ball, his rear popped out and he looked like he was almost jumping at the ball. He always got a lot of the fat part of the bat on the ball, though, and he hit more and more long balls at the end of his career."

"There was a cat who could gig. He played the right field wall in Forbes Field like Oscar Peterson working the piano. As a kid, I made a study of Roberto. I noticed [that] when a hitter took a wide turn around first base, he would sometimes gun the ball back to first behind the runner instead of throwing it into second. He used to catch a lot of guys that way. Now it’s years later and I’m up against the Pirates. I hit the ball to right field – Clemente Country. I round the bag real wide, but instead of stopping, I stutter-step and keep on running. When Clemente throws the ball to first to try to catch me, I’m already on second base, standing up."

"You take liberties with other guys you never take with him. He’s already thrown out five or six of our guys at home plate."

"He’s the only wild swinger who hits .300 every year."

"Johnny Roseboro looks like a .320 hitter up there at the plate and Roberto Clemente looks like a .230 hitter. How come Clemente outhits Roseboro by a hundred points?"

"He’s really something. He hits some other people pretty good too. He used to be able to hit Sandy."

"The big thing about Clemente is there is no one pitch that he can not hit. He may strike out on a ball low and away and the next time at bat hit the same pitch out of the park."

"I know Stargell is currently hitting almost twice as much as Clemente, but over the years Clemente has been twice as good a hitter as Stargell, especially against southpaws. O’Brien had handled Stargell the first time he faced him and you just can’t ask a youngster to pitch carefully to Clemente. He can hit it no matter where it’s pitched."

"Clemente can do everything on a ball field that any man can do. He has one big thing going for him. He can do most things better than anybody else"

"A 37-year-old with a body like that. It's not fair to other people. For one day he may be the best player in baseball."

"Walking away… Roberto Clemente is my premier outfielder – period. I saw more of Clemente than I wanted to when I managed against him. He could hit for power when he had to. When he wanted to slap it to right, he shot the ball like a bullet. Plus, he could fly. When he hit a ground ball to the infield, he was flying to first. That fielder better not be napping. Clemente was a remarkable man because at the ages of thirty-four and thirty-five, he played like he was twenty-one. I never saw anything like it. I remember once when the Pirates came to Cincinnati for a five-game series in four days. Clemente didn’t play in any of the games. Believe me, it didn’t bother me to have him out of there. But I was curious, so I queried Danny Murtaugh, the Pirates’ manager. “He’s been very tired," said Murtaugh. "He’s been resting. But watch what happens next week and the rest of the season." I checked the box scores every day. There was Clemente – three hits, two hits, three hits, four hits, two hits, day after day. Clemente came back and led the Pirates to the pennant. The man got tired just like everyone else. But once he was rested, he was like a kid again. That’s how I’ll always remember him – as a man who played with youthful energy."

"Bobby could do more things than any player I've ever seen. I used to coach third base for Preston Gomez in San Diego. Once he told me, "Now, I want you to know about Clemente cause he’ll play a game with you. If we have a man on first and there’s a base hit to right field, he’ll pretend to be loafing in on it. The moment you start to wave for that runner to come to third – look out, there’s gonna be an explosion." Well, sure enough, I don’t know what inning it was, but the situation came up, he put me in his trap and I did it. And let me tell you, my runner was about two-thirds of the way to third when the ball arrived. I came into the dugout and Preston was laughing. He said, ‘What did I tell you?’ But that was Roberto. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do."

"The best player I personally ever saw — and I never saw Mays in his prime, so I can't argue that — but the best I have ever seen to this day is Roberto Clemente. Bobby was unreal. He was better the last couple years before he got killed than he was in his younger days. He had the body of a kid in his mid-20s. People didn't realize how fast he was. He only stole bases if it meant something. In the outfield, nobody could play that position like him."

"He's a great outfielder. I'd put him close to Clemente, and I never saw one better than Clemente."

"I'd put him in the top five I've ever seen. Mays, Aaron, Clemente. That's pretty good company. He was a disciplined hitter, not just a wild swinger. He could hit a lot of pitches. I remember one time at Forbes Field, a pitcher dusted him with an inside fastball. Clemente got up and hit the next pitch over the wall. That's 440 feet at Forbes Field."

"Some of you fans may remember the ball he knocked out of Wrigley a few seasons ago, just to the left field side of the scoreboard. That’s the longest one I’ve seen hit there and we all agreed it must have traveled more than 500 feet on its trip into Waveland Avenue."

"To say the least, Sergio’s got an unorthodox setup – swing too, maybe, and so did Clemente. A pitcher could throw a ball over his head and he’d hit a line drive to right field. Man, could he hit! Sergio can really knock it out there, with power. He’s flashy, charismatic. Clemente was like that. He’d make an underhanded catch or run out from beneath his cap. Sergio’s got the looks, Clemente had the looks. Natural stuff, you can’t just invent – that’s these guys."

"I saw Roberto when I was trying to get into the big leagues. I was impressed that he gave 100 percent in winter ball, just as he did in Pittsburgh. Some people used to say he was a crybaby – that he wouldn’t play if he had an injury. But I saw him play hurt and he was better then than most players when they’re healthy. He was all business on the playing field. I was pretty quick then. I was on second base and tried to score on a hit up the right center alley. Roberto scooped up the ball and got it to the plate so fast I didn’t have a chance."

"Clemente was an awesome talent. He was a right-handed batter, but he would hit the ball to me at second as hard as any power-hitting left-hander. He used a very heavy bat and had an inside-out swing. He was very difficult to defense. He would hit shots at you, and the balls would come out of his uniform. The second baseman and the first baseman really had to be on their toes when he was hitting."

"Clemente was like me. He liked balls up and away. Sanguillen swung sort of like me."

"Mota's drive jarred me and so did Clemente, hitting my high change. Nobody ever hit my change-up farther than Clemente did."

"You’d have to go with each club. Everybody has a couple of fellows who can really hurt a pitcher. If I had to name one guy on each club, I’d say Williams on the Cubs, Rose or Vada Pinson on the Reds; with the Dodgers last year it was Gilliam, with Pittsburgh it’s Clemente."

"I used to kick myself whenever a guy got a single that fell just in front of me and Willie would say, “That’s all right, you held the guy to a single.” It stared making a lot of sense. It took a while to learn but I’ve finally got it. Take a team like Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell is the guy who hits all the homers, but I’ll play Roberto Clemente deeper than I’ll play Stargell. If Stargell hits it out, it doesn’t matter where you play. All you can do is lean on the fence and watch it go out. But Clemente hits a lot of line drives, so I play back and hope to keep him to a single, not a double or triple."

"I talked with Clemente a lot last season. I asked him his philosophy on hitting and playing. I learned some things. Roberto told me if you can’t give your best every time you hit a ball, why play? Then I asked myself, "When did Roberto ever loaf?" The last time I saw Clemente, he said he’d talk with me more this year. Now he’s gone. But Roberto opened my eyes – a player should always give 100 percent or not play."

"He is one of the worst-looking great hitters I’ve seen. Everything is a line drive. There isn’t one phase of baseball in which he doesn’t excel."

"If we changed places and Ken played in New York, he'd be in the Hall of Fame today. It's like Roberto Clemente. He was by far the greatest defensive right fielder who ever lived, but because he played in Pittsburgh, he didn't get the credit he deserved. I played with Roger Maris and against Al Kaline, and they were both great right fielders. But they weren't in Clemente's class."