United States Marines

"If Roberto Clemente were named Ernie Banks, the Giants would have defeated the Pirates last night. San Francisco manager said recently that he would walk Banks with the bases loaded in a late inning provided the Giants had at least a two-run lead at the time. But "my name is not Banks," said Clemente gleefully as he stroked a 2-and-2 pitch out of the ball park for the eighth-inning grand slam homer that overcame a three-run Giant lead and set up a 6-to-4 Pittsburgh victory. The crowd of 23,177 was horrified. Therein one fell swipe of the unprincipled Clemente bat, which has been subjecting the San Francisco corps to ruin all season long, went the brightest opportunity the Giants have had in a month..."

"Then the scene moves to for what proves to be the imaginative highlight of the program. While "" gets the Bartók treatment, the empty stands, the bare field, the portraits of the Pirate members of the Baseball Hall of Fame move slowly across the screen. In a few moments, the music—still the same tune—goes into an up tempo as the crowds file in and, oh, delightful moment, Roberto Clemente belts one over the right center field wall."

"Only recently, he speared a long line drive one-handed and ran face first into Forbes Field's right field wall, knocking himself unconscious. As memorable as that catch may be to the fans who saw it, it could not compare with one he made back in the 1954 season at Montreal. He was playing left field then, and the left field fence was made of wire. A batter smashed a mighty drive that appeared certain to clear the fence. It did, but Roberto lunged over the fence and speared the ball with his glove as it dropped over. There was only one difficulty. Roberto was hung up on the fence. He lay atop it on his belly, his face and arms in home run territory and his legs and feet in outfield territory. The fans in the outfield bleachers went to his rescue and after considerable lifting and tugging, finally extricated him, dumping him back into the outfield."

"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."

"In the age of power, the fact that Clemente has never hit more than 23 home runs (and has never driven in more than 94 runs) weighs heavily against his prestige. There is no doubting that his muscular arms and outsize hands are capable of power, for one of his home runs – a shot over ’s left-center bleachers – stands as one of the longest smashes ever hit out of the Cub ball park.1 Yet because he plays half his schedule in spacious Forbes Field, where the man who guns for home runs undergoes traumatic revelations of inadequacy, Roberto wisely has tailored his style to the line drive and the hard ground ball hit through the hole. Thus he hit only ten home runs last year, but he is certain he can hit 20 home runs any season he pleases, Forbes Field notwithstanding. “If I make up my mind, I’m going to hit 20 homers this year,” he bellows with indignation. “I bet you any amount of money I can hit 20.” A change of style would do the trick, he claims, but what sort of change? Ah, Roberto becomes tight-lipped. He is one of baseball’s most sinister practitioners of intrigue. “Nothing,” he replies. “A little change in the hands, that’s all. I don’t want to tell you what it is.""

"It seems from this corner that the Pirates are fortunate they have Clemente on their side. And just think he almost got away. The Yankees used as bait after the 1962 season. Maris, baseball's record home run hitter for one season, would have seemed a good catch. If Bucs' GM Joe Brown had gone by RBI statistics after the '62 season he would have jumped at a Maris-for-Clemente swap. Maris had knocked in 100—26 more than Clemente drove home. Shudder for a moment, Pirate fans, and just imagine where this year's Buccos would be in the standings if they had Maris instead of Clemente."

"Roberto Clemente has switched from pop-off-pills to pep up pills. The Pittsburgh Pirates have switched, too. They've abandoned the National League's Battle of the Bottom and instead have declared war on the rest of the league. The Pirates, with Clemente at the front of the attack, extended their winning streak to 10 games Sunday by clobbering the New York Mets, 9-1 and 12-0. [...] Manager Harry Walker attributes the change to several factors, Clemente among them. It was only earlier this month that the league's defending batting champion was quoted as saying: "I want to be traded from this club, and I don't want to play for this manager any more." Clemente thought differently soon afterward and now is doing a lot of playing for Walker. He's also taking a lot of pep pills to combat the weakness that remains from the malaria attack he suffered during the winter. The illness kept him away from most of spring training and still has him at less-than-playing weight. The pills apparently are working. During the winning streak, the 30-year-old right fielder is hitting .458 and has raised his season's average to .308. In the New York series he rapped 11 hits in 19 trips to the plate."

"In the field, he was like Barry Bonds with the bat. [...] He didn't see any pitch that he didn't like or couldn't hit."

"I first visited the place June 27 [1971] for a doubleheader between the exceedingly fearsome Pirates and the exceedingly awful Phillies. Willie Stargell, who two nights before had homered into section 601, located approximately in Delaware, was in the middle of a 48-homer summer. In those earliest years, there was an enormous mock mounted on the facing of the upper deck in dead center, maybe 40 feet above and behind the fence, which was and is 408 feet from the plate. Roberto Clemente lined a homer off that bell that afternoon, which was, pretty clearly, unforgettable."

"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 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."

"I wish I had thrown the ball as hard as he hit it."

"Clemente's game winner yesterday puts the upper deck in center field within reach for sluggers in the league who hit the ball for more distance than the great Pirate Veteran. Clemente' shot off rattled off the backdrop just below Philadelphia Phil."

"Roberto Clemente crashed a two-run homer in the seventh and it was a smasheroo. Clemente's drive, off Bill "No-Hit" Stoneman, carried well over the wall in center field. Few right-handed batters have hit a ball out of the park in this sector, which is to the right of dead center between the exit gate and the light stanchion."

"There was a book that came out in the late ’60s called Baseball’s Greatest Players Today. Clemente is not in the book. Not in the book. It’s ludicrous. Just ludicrous."

"Clemente has impressed the scouts who have looked at the Royals. They regard him as an exceptionally promising young player. At the start of the season Macon said he didn’t expect Clemente to help very much. “He’s too inexperienced but we’ve got to keep him,” the manager said. Not long ago Clemente won an extra-inning contest for the Royals here with a home run over the left field fence. Few players have achieved that feat at ."

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

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

"In later years, there would be people who would say that Roberto was a hypochondriac. They could have been right, but if they were, it made the things he did even more remarkable. Because I can testify that I saw him throw his body into outfield fences, teeth first, to make remarkable plays. If he thought he was hurt at the time, then the act was even more courageous."

"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."

"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."

"Roberto Clemente is to me what John Wayne is to Western movies or any tremendous attraction. Every time we broadcast a game in which he plays, we get our biggest audience. I don't know about the other players, but he's the king."

"Roberto Clemente looks like a bad hitter until the bat strikes the ball."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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.""

"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."

"Retired Cub broadcaster Jack Brickhouse, who saw this home run [hit by Dave Kingman on May 17, 1979], revealed that the ball was greatly helped by a strong wind of 35 miles per hour. Brickhouse estimated Kingman's blast in reality went about 500 feet. In fact, Brickhouse stated Kingman's drive was not the longest ball he had ever seen. A 500-foot blast by the late Roberto Clemente remains the hardest hit ball Brickhouse has seen which was unaided by the wind."