Roberto Clemente

"The best way to pitch him is to roll the ball."

"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."

"Roberto Clemente – Roberto was an awesome hitter, a great talent, a super human being. Without him in Pittsburgh, in the 60’s and 70’s, the team would have just been another ball club. Roberto was the backbone of that team."

"In addition to his great arm, Roberto Clemente could possibly be a great master if he put his mind to it. I've never seen him play a wall off the wall and be in bad position. Now, he catches balls off irregular walls, he's always in the right place, and he has made some of the longest singles look pretty futile when base-runners try to go for two."

"I used to hear how great Clemente was. This year he has showed me. The man plays as hard as any man I've ever seen."

"When I gave up that hit, I had no idea it was his 3,000th. None. I’m thinking, "What’s going on around here? This is a stinking double." The crowd is standing and cheering. The umpire’s handing Clemente the ball at second base and I’m standing there with my arms crossed glowering at him like, "Give me the baseball. We’re trying to play a game here." Anyway, somebody took a picture from the dugout of me with the umpire handing the ball to Clemente in the background. A couple of days later, that photo was sent to me in the clubhouse. It came from one of the clubhouse kids, but I’m assuming Clemente sent it. When you’re going through the competition, trying to win a ballgame is all that matters in the world. Clemente’s death just brings the importance of other things to the forefront very quickly. He was a great player, and what from I knew of him he was a dynamite individual. Baseball and the world lost that day."

"I remember one time we pitched out on him and he hit a homer, right into the right-field corner. Billy McCool was our pitcher. Roberto just reached out and belted the homer. He could do everything on the field. If he didn't kill you with his bat, arm or glove, he'd do it on the basepaths, taking the extra base. And he always seemed to rise to the occasion."

"The two best batters in my first seven years in the National League were the late Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron. These men were gifted with natural ability more than others. Each one of them, day in and day out, year after year, did his job superlatively. They made very few mistakes as hitters; they did not try to overpower the ball, but they hit it as far and as often as any batters ever have. Aaron and Clemente were the true superstars of the National League. They ran, threw, hit, and did everything required of a baseball player as well as it could be done. If they went without a hit on one day, you knew that they were going to get three or four the next. Their ability was natural, but they worked hard to maintain it."

"Doesn't matter what I throw Clemente, he hits. He hit two home runs off me last year that I still remember. One at Forbes Field, the other in Los Angeles. I can't remember anybody hitting a longer homer off me than Clemente did Sunday on the ball that reached the center field light tower."

"Clemente, Mays, Aaron. Koufax didn't worry too much. Perhaps he didn't have too much to worry about, but free from worry, he was able to concentrate more. "The good hitters are going to hit you," he explained. "You can't get 'em out all the time. And they're not the guys you have to get out to win. Maybe there are two good ones on each team and they're going to get two hits each. That's only four hits, so you must keep the others under wraps. They're the one who beat you." Koufax placed Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron in one category as hitters. "Mays always told me how hard it was to get a hit off me and every time I looked up, he was on second base. Yet, even with Mays, I had an idea what to do. When I pitched to Clemente and Aaron, I had no idea. They seemed to hit everything.""

"Hank Aaron. But there are more than Henry. Clemente, Willie Stargell, Williams, Pete Rose – they’re all tough."

"We were playing Pittsburgh, and our first baseman, Earl Torgeson, hit a deep drive to right. I don’t know how far, but it went a long, long way. Clemente quickly retrieved the ball in the corner. Torgeson was on his way to third, and he was a pretty good runner, when Clemente threw the ball to third all the way from the right field corner on a fly and Torgeson was out by 15 feet. Torgeson felt a breeze go by his ear and knew he didn’t have a chance. Clemente had the most powerful arm I have ever seen."

"Watching him hit – sometimes with both feet off the ground at contact – and having the best throwing arm in baseball are things I will remember. I also saw him hit a long home run over the scoreboard at Wrigley Field."

"It’s early in the game. I had thrown five consecutive fastballs. He fouled a couple off. So I’ve got him two-and-two and I’m thinking, ‘If you drop the curve ball over the outside corner, you got him.’ When I throw the pitch, I’m instantly disappointed because I know it’s not a strike, that it’s gonna be outside. So I’m thinking, "Oh no, now it’s three-and-two." That’s the instantaneous thought process because I knew this was a ball. I think initially it may have fooled him because he took his normal stride, but his hands stayed back. He was great at that. He must have recognized the spin and thought, "Hey, I can do something with this," and proceeded to one-hop the left-center-field wall with a pitch that wasn’t even a strike. An interesting piece of hitting."

"It was a fastball. It got about six inches of the plate. It was high, about eight inches over his head and I just couldn’t see how he could possibly hit that ball, let alone hit it out of the park. That guy is absolutely incredible."

"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."

"He ... goes to the plate half-scared. [...] He won the 1961 batting championship and there's no telling how good he would be if he wasn't scared."

"I think Clemente is the only superstar in our league. Well, he and Hank Aaron. Today, he just hit everything I had. He hit a slider for a single, a fastball for a triple and another slider for the home run. He’s something."

"Cubs' reliever Darold Knowles remembers when he was with the Phillies years ago and the manager, Gene Mauch, ordered a brushback pitch to Roberto Clemente. "I threw a pitch that was headed for Clemente's left ear. Clemente didn't duck. Instead, he hit the hardest line-drive double I ever did see.""

"I'm the wrong guy to ask because everything I throw up there he hits. Maybe I should roll the ball to the plate against him."

"What makes Bob the kind of hitter I don’t want to see at bat with runners on is that he’s liable to hit anything. He could hit a pitchout for a home run. A lot of pitchers will try to jam him, but if you try that you’ve got to get it way inside. You can’t throw him two of the same pitches in a row. He may look terrible on the first and hit the darnedest shot you’ll ever see on the next.1 You wonder if he’s looking for you to repeat the pitch in the same place, but I hardly think so.2 He’s so unorthodox you just can’t figure out a way to pitch to him."

"I try to keep the ball away from Clemente, but I got this one right down the middle and he hit it pretty good."

"Mays is the best player I've seen and Aaron is the best hitter... which raises the question of where you put Clemente; he's right there."

"Clemente was to right field what Ozzie Smith is to shortstop."

"Clemente is one of the three best hitters I’ve seen among those I’ve had a chance to watch on a regular basis. The others were Stan Musial and Hank Aaron. I never had a chance to see much of Ted Williams."

"I don’t know what they mean about not hitting home runs. In the All-Star game two summers ago at Tiger Stadium, Clemente swung at my outside pitch and put it up in the center field bleachers."

"I got the pitch on the inside half of the plate, but Clemente stepped back and hit it out of sight. I was actually aiming for the outside of the plate."

"Before I threw the ball I prayed a little bit to God: "Please let this pitch be in a good spot for him not to hit it too hard." I think I was lucky enough to throw the ball in a good spot. It was a ground ball out. I remember one time in Pittsburgh – I struck him out three times. I think that was the greatest day in my life."

"Clemente was the toughest out in the National League during his prime."

"Another guy that never got attention was Roberto Clemente. He was something else. He had a great arm and he could hit. He was a little more flamboyant than Hank, but not like Mays. Willie constantly threw to the wrong base, though, or overthrew the cutoff man to show off his arm. We always kept running on Willie. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great player, but I would take Aaron or Clemente over Mays any time."

"What a ballplayer! He had great speed, and could hit the ball like a rocket anywhere. He stood way back in the batters’ box. Rogers Hornsby liked that about Clemente because he used to do the same thing. Clemente would stand in the back corner on the outside, away from the plate so he stepped into everything. You couldn’t throw him a ball away from the plate and get him out because he could reach them all. He could bust that inside ball, too. He didn’t take a big stride, but he was always moving into the ball so that when he hit it, he hit it with everything in his body."

"Your question is an interesting one because there are a lot of interesting players in the game today. If I picked a player from our league, I’d pick Al Kaline of the Tigers. Al never makes a mistake. I’ve never seen him throw the ball to the wrong base, he takes advantage of anything that's fumbled in the outfield, he’s a great hitter, a great outfielder and a great thrower. But still I’ve got to go with Roberto Clemente. He’s got to be the best around today because he demonstrates year in and year out that he can hit the ball. To me he’s got to be one of the great stars in the game of baseball. The funny thing is – though I never really thought it was so funny – is that we just missed getting Clemente in the 1954 draft. That’s when we were in Washington. We were going to take him as our first pick but Pittsburgh was ahead of us and they selected Clemente off Brooklyn’s Montreal roster. So, today, Clemente would be with the Minnesota Twins instead of Pittburgh – and I wouldn’t mind paying him $100,000 a year."

"Coach Buddy Hancken, who has been in baseball 36 years, said it was the greatest catch he had ever seen."

"It's difficult to rate one great player over another. Clemente belongs in the class with the great ones."

"Every time I hear that Clemente has an ache, I look for him to go four-for-four."

"He must have fouled off six curves, and the ball he hit out was the same kind of curve I struck him out [with] in the previous inning. It was a good pitch. The one Stargell hit was a bad one. Heck, I supplied half the power myself."

"I don’t give up any cheapies. I make ’em bring out the tape measure. I thought I had Clemente this time, because the Pittsburgh park is big and I made him hit the ball where I wanted him to – to the deep part of the outfield."

"He was the only player I ever saw who would hit a single to left field and round the base so hard he would get halfway to second and have to hit the dirt and slide to stop himself, then pop up and get back to first base. If the left fielder bobbled the ball, he would be into second easily – but he always got back to first if he had to. He played that hard and intensely all the time."

"He’d come up with a big hit in the eighth or ninth inning to beat me 2-1 or 3-2 with a double. He had that knack. He beat a lot of people, but when the Cubs faced Pittsburgh—and I would get five or six starts against them—I just knew psychologically Pittsburgh was the team we had to beat, and unfortunately, I didn’t have a winning record against them. I can remember a game against the Pirates I was winning 1-0 in Chicago – a short fly ball was hit to right field, Johnny Callison misjudged it, and then Clemente came up and hit a home run. I can see it like yesterday."

"The best hitter I ever saw was Clemente. He could hit from line to line, line drives and long balls."

"I started using it a while back, mostly as a waste pitch. I got ahead of Bob Clemente and decided to go with the slider, and he knocked it out of the park."

"I was experimenting with a slider Tuesday night. After Roberto knocked it over the 406-foot mark in left field, I gave up on the pitch."

"There’s only one way to classify Bob Clemente and that’s as the strangest hitter in all baseball. Figure him out one way and he’ll kill you another. You can be having your best day against everybody else and he’ll treat you as though you had nothing. It’s so hard to say what he’s going to hit or what should be thrown to him. He’s very strong and is extremely quick with his hands. You look at him swinging sometimes on his front foot, sometimes on his rear, sometimes with both feet off the ground, and you’re inclined to think, ‘This guy can’t hit the ball.’ That’s the biggest mistake you can make and I’ve made a few of them against him."

"The longest ball I ever saw hit to the opposite field was hit off me by Clemente at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1961. It was a fastball on the outside corner, and he drove it out of the park – not just over the fence, he knocked it way out. I didn’t think a right-handed batter could hit it out of the field just at that point but Clemente did."

"Even when I brought my record up to 5-4 by getting a win in Pittsburgh, I was hit very hard and knocked out of the box in the eighth inning. Roberto Clemente hit an outside fastball that was still rising when it hit against the light tower in left center field, 450 feet away from home plate. And on a 1-2 pitch at that.""

"But there is no such thing as a good pitch to Clemente. Ask me how to pitch Clemente and I’ll tell you with complete confidence, "How do I know?" Roberto can hit any pitch, anywhere, at any time. He'll hit pitchouts, he'll hit brushback pitches. He'll hit high inside pitches deep to the opposite field, which would be ridiculous even if he didn't do it with both feet off the ground."

"Mays was the best player I ever saw. Aaron was the best hitter. But that raises the question of where you put Clemente – with Willie, with Henry? He’s right there."

"I also threw the slider a couple of times. I threw the slider to Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente, because I figured if it worked on those two great hitters, then I had something there. So I threw it to Aaron and almost hit him in the face. He reached out to get it, and it came right at him. And I threw it to Clemente. You may remember that in Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, there was a light tower by where they used to park the batting cage. Halfway up. there was a bunch of transformers. Well, Clemente hit it off a transformer. I said, "Well, maybe I don't have a slider," and I gave it up.So, I never came up with a third pitch."

"Those extra base hits [by Clemente, Manny Mota and José Pagán ]… you couldn’t take a gun and hit the holes better. Anyone who says Clemente isn’t a tough hitter is full of baloney. He’s tough because he’s a free swinger, can hit the outside pitch, inside pitch, high pitch, low pitch, fastball, curveball… So what else is left to throw him?"

"He comes off the bench swinging. I like those kind of hitters. He swings at anything he can reach."