United States Marines

"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."

"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."

"One of my favorite memories of Roberto is that year when Santurce, with Clemente and Mays, went to Caracas, Venezuela, to play in the Caribbean Series – representing Puerto Rico against Cuba, Panama, and the host country. There were many major leaguers on the rosters. In the deciding game, Clemente was on first in the final inning and Mays hits one to right, where the outfielder bobbled the ball for just a second. Clemente took off like a shot the moment that Mays connected and flew around third, although the coach tried to stop him. Gus Triandos was the catcher for the other team. The ball arrived at the same time as Clemente slid, spikes in the air, and we won the game. That exhibition of Clemente’s great speed and spirit was one of the most emotional moments in my life. He made many fine plays in the United States, but to win a game for Puerto Rico for our club in the Caribbean Series was a great moment. In fact, not long ago in Pittsburgh someone asked Clemente if he had ever played on a team with the slugging power of the 1971 Pirates. He said yes – the Santurce Crabbers, when they won the Caribbean Series!"

"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."