United States Marines

"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."

"Clemente, himself, is one of the most powerful hitters in baseball. The Pirates still talk about the line-drive home run he hit this May in San Francisco's . And they still talk about the homer he belted at Wrigley Field last season—the ball traveled about 500 feet and said it was the longest drive he had ever seen."

"Roberto Clemente was one Pirate who made a lasting impression on me when I first saw him cover the ground in right field in Forbes Field. He could chase down and catch balls in right center that seemed impossible to catch."

"Roberto does not hit many home runs. His best season in that regard was 1966 when he had 29. This year he had only 13. But he has power. In Wrigley Field I've seen him hit the ball as far out of the park as anyone and I've seen it often. He has, however, spent the majority of his career in old Forbes Field, where a right-handed pull hitter is going to have more long fly outs than home runs. He decided long ago to go with the pitch and hit for average."

"Sam, who had it all—a crackling curve and a fastball with a tail on it—had a two hitter going into the seventh. Then Clemente tied into a fastball and belted it into what is almost considered never never land. [...] Clemente clobbered it through the wind and beyond the 397-foot marker in left-center. [...] Only the fourth ball hit over the left field fence, it put Clemente back into a tie with McCovey for the RBI leadership. Each has 23."

"Maranda had two out in the first inning when singled, doubled and Clemente slugged one over the fence in left center. They say here it was the hardest hit ball in 's windswept history."

"There will be only two thing people will remember about pennant-winning Pittsburgh's final appearance in yesterday. Roberto Clemente clobbered a history-making homer, a three-run first-inning shot to pace the Pirates to a 6–1 victory and a sweep of the two-game series with the Giants. [...] Clemente's 13th homer was a screaming shot over the left-center fence that banged against the green wall of the stands. A 400-footer plus, it could have been the hardest hit HR in the new park."

"Clemente’s homer – his second in two nights – was a prodigious wallop of some 430 feet that landed about 12 rows up in the steps to the right of the service ramp in center field. In addition to loosening a few boards and frightening small children, it also tied the score at 3-all. was aboard with a walk when Ray tried to fling one pitch too many past the dangerous Clemente. Clemente saw the ball good and he sped up his swing and timed the connection perfectly. Wynn, in center, gave token pursuit of the eighth blast this year off the 34-year-old Puerto Rican hero’s bat. But he’d have needed a ladder to reach the blast which soared far over Wynn’s head."

"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."

"Brosnan made one pitch, high and inside. Clemente drove it against the light standard in left field. Jim King had backed up to make the catch but it was over his head. The ball bounced off the slanted side of the fencing and rolled along the cinder path to center field. Here came Foiles, Virdon and then Cole, heading home and making it easily. Then came Clemente into third. Bragan had his hands upstretched to hold up his outfielder. The relay was coming in from . But around third came Clemente and down the home path. He made it just in front of the relay from Ernie Banks. He slid, missed the plate, then reached back to rest his hand on the rubber with the ninth run in a 9 - 8 victory as the crowd of 12,431 went goofy with excitement."

"I met Roberto Clemente once, after the , which he dominated with his bat, his throwing arm, his fielding, and with his presence. After the Pirates won that Series from the Orioles, Clemente flew to New York City, where the editors of a magazine had a new car to present him. The day wheeled about a luncheon in Leone's Restaurant, where a wearying procession of speakers led into a Purto Rican official, who was supposed to introduce Roberto but instead rambled on boozily for 20 minutes. When at length the man finished, Clemente strode to the microphone, and suddenly the low comedy was done. "I am 37 years old," Clemente said, "and this is the first time I have ever been asked to speak in New York." He spoke on, movingly, beautifully, about his island, his family, about his game. Someone at my table commented, "We are listening to an overflowing heart." That vibrant heart was stopped 26 months later when a time-worn DC-7 shattered in the Caribbean Sea. Clemente had organized the flight to bring food, anesthetics, sugar, and tracheotomy tubes to the broken city of Managua, Nicaragua."

"Here is the greatest player in baseball today. He was the starting right fielder for the National League in the All-Star Game last year."

"Roberto Clemente, a Puerto Rican, drafted from the Brooklyn chain, is only 20, but he can run, throw and smack for distance."

"Finally Jones came in with a blinding fastball, the way Sad Sam [sic]1 used to throw ’em, and Clemente unloaded. The wind was blowing in from left field that day, and blowing hard. This was 1960, remember, before the fences had been moved in, and nobody was hitting home runs at Candlestick. Not Mays, not Cepeda, not anybody.2 Clemente’s bat hit the ball, and the result absolutely clubbed the crowd into awed silence for a long moment. Right into that wet whipping wind the ball carried. Right on through, hit 120 feet high in a long soaring majestic parabola that came down finally over 450 feet away. There is just no way of telling how far Clemente’s home run blast would have traveled had it not been for that wind. Suffice it to say partisan Giant fans suddenly broke their shell-shocked silence and let loose a gigantic roar. For two innings the stadium buzzed. For days the Giants talked about it. Even today if you slip up behind a Giant pitcher and suddenly whisper in his ear: "Remember the home run Clemente hit?" he’s likely to jump as high as if he’d been caught putting spit on baseballs."

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

"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 threw me out on a bang-bang play at third. I should have remembered what a tremendous arm he had."

"In 1953, Roberto Clemente tossed away the heavy bat he’d been using, and went to a lighter model. Styles in bats change nearly as much as styles in women’s skirts. Bats have been thick-handled and thin-handled, bottle-shaped and straight, long and short, heavy and light. In the days of Babe Ruth and before Ruth, home run champion , 50-ounce bats were not unique. Today, they do not exist, nor do 40-ounce clubs, and the 32- and 33-ounce bats prevail. Sluggers today whip their light bats the way lion tamers slash away in a den of spitting cats. The secret in hitting home runs today is getting the bat around on the ball, and whiplashing it. With a lighter bat, you come around more quickly, and with a thin handle you catapult the meaty end of the bat against the ball. While at Santurce, Clemente noted that some of his teammates had switched to lighter weapons, and the ball suddenly had started to go out of sight. Ernie Banks would become a tremendous home run hitter in the National League because he shifted to a lighter bat. Hitters are a proud lot. They measure the distance of their blows the way anglers weigh their tarpon. Clemente, too, wanted to see baseballs disappear over the most remote fence. He picked up a new light bat, he swung from his heels, and POP! No, not the ball – his back. Out it flew, and the man who had entered the International League in the spring of 1954 was simply another human being with an aching back."

"A reliever strikes out Mays, McCovey, Howard, and Clemente tonight. Believe it or not, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Frank Howard, Roberto Clemente play in the same game—and get struck out—on the first annual "All-Star Celebrity Softball" special. The reliever is , known as "King of Softball" after 22 years as pitcher in the sport throughout the United States and Canada."

"Well, Buzz old boy, there are a few things for which the 11,089 cash clients in would like to say “thanks.” They thank you for Roberto Clemente, the Puerto Rican kid who should be a very popular player here. He runs well and yesterday he went three-for-four with his salary stick. They call him Momen and I don’t know why."

"Pittsburgh’s exciting right fielder, Roberto Clemente, waged a one-man war against Los Angeles with a spectacular display of throwing and batting. The fiery Puerto Rican smacked a triple, double and single to keep Koufax in hot water, but it was his arm that captured the fans’ fancy and left two baserunners for dead. ended a promising scoring spree in the second inning when Clemente’s strike to Ducky Schofield nailed him as he tried to scramble back to second base. When ’s triple eluded Clemente in the seventh, he retrieved the ball and threw it on the fly from the warning track to home plate. And then Roberto took ’s game-winning sacrifice fly and pegged another shot to the plate that nearly nipped Fairly. The next batter, Willie Davis, challenged Clemente’s arm by trying to stretch a single. He was out at second by a couple of lengths. Not since their own was in his prime have the Dodgers seen such a display of throwing as Clemente’s."

"In the matter of home runs, it is evident by now that the Coliseum right-field fence was moved closer to the plate [this season], despite the wails and doubts of some long-ball blasters. In 10 games, five round-trippers were hit to right – by , , , Bill Cunningham and . That’s an average of one every two games. Last year, right-field homers were hit on an average of every 2.75 games – 28 in 77 games, to be exact. The Dodgers hammered 18: Duke Snider (7), John Roseboro (3), (3), and one apiece by Willie Davis, , , and . Visiting athletes connected 10 times: and Billy Williams (twice each), and , , Roberto Clemente, , Bill White and ."

"Koufax also was bombed for one of the longest home runs in Forbes Field annals, which hark back to 1909. In the third inning, with a 1-and-2 count on him, Señor Clemente touched off a moon shot that struck high on a light tower in center field, some 450 ft. from the plate. Had it missed the tower, it certainly would have sailed at least 500 ft."

"If they ever want to rate the 10 greatest catches of all time, Roberto Clemente’s fantastic catch of ’s line drive in Houston’s on June 15 will have to be among them. Houston manager called it the greatest catch he has ever seen. Pirates’ second baseman rates it equal to any catch Clemente ever has made. "It was a lot like the one Clemente made in 1960 against Willie Mays," said Maz. In the 1960 catch, Clemente crashed into the right field wall at Forbes Field and suffered a gash on his chin which required seven stitches. Clemente isn’t sure which catch is his best. Most of the 16,307 fans in the Astrodome felt it was the best catch they had ever seen. They gave Clemente a standing ovation for his feat, which deprived Watson of a home run which would have put the Astros ahead, 2-1. Instead, held a 1-0 lead and the Bucs, after Clemente’s eighth-inning catch, scored twice in the ninth for a 3-0 win. Here was the setting for Clemente’s heroics: Joe Morgan was on first base with two out. The second out had been recorded when Clemente made a sliding grab of ’s hump-back liner in short right. Watson, a right-handed hitter, followed with a vicious liner toward the right field corner. Clemente, going full speed, raced toward the wall and, in one sudden move, made a twisting leap for a one-handed grab, back to the plate, just before the ball would have hit above the yellow line on the wall, which is home run territory. When Clemente came down, his body hit the wall. He suffered a bruised left ankle and his left elbow also was swollen. Blood spilled from a gash on the left knee. Clemente slumped on both knees, back to the infield. The Houston fans stood up and cheered. After Blass hurled a scoreless ninth for his fourth shutout, he said: "This shutout belongs to Clemente.""

"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."

"Then there's the story about The Throw, which happened in the late 60’s at Forbes Field. Clemente made the most remarkable throw I ever saw … and he got an error on the play! The Bucs were playing the Cardinals, it was one of the middle innings and the Cards had runners on first and third. I don’t recall the runner on third, but was on first. I believe singled to right, and the runner on third scores. Cepeda is about to stop at second, but the ball rolls through Clemente’s legs, and Cepeda takes third (reason for the error being charged to Clemente). The ball rolled to the warning track in right (not close to the foul line), and Clemente picks up the ball with his back to the plate. He whirls and throws a no-bounce strike to at home plate and Cepeda is out trying to score. After the play, I looked around the press box to find the oldest baseball observer there. Leo Ward, the traveling secretary of the Cards, had been watching baseball since the teens. His quote: "If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it.""

"The Pirates played long ball with Sandy Koufax Saturday, and they really hit some shots. The trouble was, they didn’t hit ’em in sequence. The result was a 4-1 Dodger victory, only Bob Clemente’s ninth-inning home run spoiling Sandy’s bid for his 36th career shutout. Despite nine strikeouts which raised his lifetime total to 2,134 in 2,057 innings, Koufax was the first to agree that he was not on his stick this time. mauled him for a couple of two-baggers, smashed a 455-foot triple, and chipped in with a double. And but for Ron Fairly’s backhanded catch of Clemente’s drive in the sixth inning and a spectacular running catch of Clendenon’s 350-foot wallop by Willie Davis in the ninth, Koufax would have been in deep trouble. Koufax didn’t begin his strikeout routine until he got {w|Willie Stargell}} and in the third inning. From then on, Sandy had at least one whiff in every inning. One of the few people who wasn’t fooled by Sandy’s slants was Clemente, who at .325 is making a strong bid for his third consecutive league batting crown. “I’m hitting the ball good,” said the temperamental Pirate star. “I feel strong.” He certainly looked robust when he tied into an outside pitch and sent it into the upper deck in right field. Fairly didn’t even move, it was so solidly hit."

"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."

"8 : "Clemente Slam—Ouch!; Pirates Clip SF by 6–4," San Francisco Examiner (Saturday, July 15, 1961), p. 35"

"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."

"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.""

"I wasn't the best hitter, Ted Williams was. I wasn't the best fielder, Roberto Clemente was. I wasn't the best base stealer, was. But I was among the best in everything."

"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..."

"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."

"The Dodgers, who came to town Monday in first place, dropped back down to the ‘show’ spot in the National League race Wednesday night when a former Brooklyn farmhand, Roberto Clemente, beat them with one swish of his bat. Of course, Roberto had lots of help from , who struck out 11 in posting a 3-1 triumph, but it was Clemente’s two-run homer off in Round 1 which decided the contest before 21,952 spectators. Clemente, who is battling teammate for the league batting crown, which he has already won three times, including the last two in a row, lost ground to Alou. While Clemente was 1-for-4 to drop a point to .331, Alou went 3-for-4 to jump five notches to .342. However, Clemente is enjoying another big year against the Dodgers. For 12 games, he is hitting at a .360 clip as compared to his .347 mauling of the L.A. staff last season. Clemente’s 17th homer came with one out after Alou got one of his typical hits - an infield bouncer which he easily legged out. Although a right-hand hitter, Clemente more often than not gets his hits in the opposite field, and his latest blockbuster was no exception. It landed high in the right field second deck. “I try to go to right field most of the time because the pitchers pitch me outside,” said Roberto. “Sutton throws me a fastball low and outside, so I go after it, although I didn’t know it was going to go that far. But I can go the other way if I get my pitch. Maybe you remember the ball I hit into the left field light tower here against the Dodgers a few years ago. It went out pretty good.” We remembered very well that it went out just like he said it did."

"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."

"Then there was the bomb hit by Roberto Clemente, Sosa's idol, in the ninth inning of the second game of a doubleheader on May 17, 1959. The missile left the ballpark to the left of the Wrigley Field scoreboard, landing in a gas station across the street."

"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."

"Baseball survives because guys like Clemente still play it."

"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."

"Max says Chico is a faster runner than Roberto Clemente, the Royals' youthful outfielder, though he doesn't look it, maybe because he's a smoother runner. But what about Clemente? He has enough power to hit the ball out of most parks, though he still chases the curve. He has come up with a number of circus catches and he has a rifle arm, though it isn't always accurate. There isn't any doubt about his ability to run."

"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."

"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."

"Over and over again, I have said Willie Mays is the greatest baseball player I ever saw. But Mays always says Roberto Clemente was the greatest player he ever played against."

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

"Mays and Robin Roberts both told me that Clemente was the best player they ever saw."

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

"When Willie Mays was in Milwaukee last week, he was reluctant to say who he thought the best player was or is in baseball. At least that’s what Mays said during a brief interview this reporter and many others had with him at the . "That’s for you guys to determine," Mays said. Mays did say Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente was the best player he ever saw."

"You are going to a town where the best player in baseball is, but nobody knows it."

"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."