"We went into his trophy room, if you will, which was unbelievable. The thing that impressed me most was when he was talking to a couple of hitters, it had something to do with hitting. It was not something I was particularly interested in. So I was looking at the stuff on his wall, listening only half-heartedly. He picked up a maximum dimension bat that he had in the corner. He was showing the guys what he was talking about. I don’t know if anybody knows what a maximum dimension bat is, but it’s the biggest bat that you’re legally allowed to take to home plate. It’s about the size of a grapefruit [at the barrel]. It is monstrous. He picked it up and was waving it around like it was a toothpick. So when they were all done, I thought, "Let’s see what this is all about." I walked over to the corner and grabbed ahold of the bat. I could barely pick it up. The fact that he was strong enough to wave it around like a toothpick was somewhat astonishing."
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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
Jon Matlack, speaking on September 19, 2015 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum; as quoted in "Recalling Roberto at BaseballHall.org
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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