"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.”"
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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
Harding Peterson, as quoted in "Clemente Remembered" by Ross Newhan, in The Los Angeles Times (Friday, August 9, 1973), p. D8
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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