"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."
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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
Frank Thomas (Teammate, 1955–1958) in Remember Roberto (1994) by Jim O'Brien, p. 130
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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