"I was trying to waste a pitch,” he said of Roberto Clemente’s home run. “I wanted to have him swing on a bad pitch. I didn’t care if I walked him. I wouldn’t even care if I hit him. I had two bases open.” Clemente is the kind of fellow who drives pitchers crazy. Stallard fired a fastball near Clemente’s ear. Roberto swung and missed. The crowd cheered. They like that kind of extravagance. Then came the next pitch. This was up near Clemente’s eyes and a foot outside. He flicked his bat, lined a ball upstairs. Foul, motioned umpire Ed Sudol. This confused the crowd. Some cheered. Others booed. They were obeying orders. One of the signal-men held up a bedsheet. It said: BOO. “I knew the two bases were open; I figured maybe I could get him to swing again at a pitch around his head,” said Stallard. Stallard, a marvelous Met in his own right, just couldn’t let the drama build any longer. He threw a real pitch to Clemente, the kind any human being hitter would duck away from and scream for the umpire. Naturally, Clemente hit it upstairs [i.e. right field upper deck]. “He never gets a strike to swing at,” said Danny Murtaugh. “He likes those kind.""
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Baptists from the United StatesPresidential Medal of Freedom recipientsUnited States MarinesPeople from San Juan
Original Language: English
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Sources
Maury Allen: “Don’t’ Mention Clemente to Stallard,” The New York Post (Sunday, July 7, 1963), p. 34
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roberto_Clemente
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Roberto Clemente
baseball player
1934 – 1972 · United States
Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker (August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a Puerto Rican Major League baseball player from 1955 through 1972, exclusively with the Pittsburgh Pirates. A posthumous inductee to the National Baseball Hall of Fame (following his fatal plane crash on December 31, 1972, en route to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua), Clemente became both the first Latin American and the first C
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