Presidential Medal Of Freedom Recipients

"I soon decided never to change the number that the had assigned me for my debut major-league game—number 21. At the time it was a random occurrence, since that was a number that happened to be available. On the other hand, it felt lucky to me. Even when I later had the choice to change, I continued to wear it—in honor of Roberto Clemente and his contributions to baseball. In time number 21 was to become part of me and who I was, what I expected of myself on the field when I played."

"A friend of mine used to call me Joey U for Unitas. I also admired Roberto Clemente. Those two were my heroes. I never watch a baseball game on TV unless Clemente or Rich Allen is playing. I always watch a game Bob Gibson is pitching."

"He had such a flair. He had such a grace. He was a gentleman. I remember a royal essence about him. He was just so graceful. I wouldn’t dare say that I had an arm like Clemente, [but] I used to catch like Roberto. I stepped into the box like Roberto. Tried to be like Roberto. He was my baseball hero. He was the first hero I had. Big time. I even have an autographed Roberto Clemente baseball at home."

"I knew last year the All-Star Game was going to be here. Ever since then, I wanted to be here where he played. He was the greatest. That's why I wear his number, in honor of him. Not because I can be like him but because of an honor for him."

"Oh, my God. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Really."

"They are honoring a great one in Clemente. I have been watching his career ever since he joined the Pittsburgh club. Roberto should wind up as one of the all-time stars before he is through."

"Here you see him swinging against Jon Matlack on September 30, 1972. The swing resulted in his 3,000th hit, a double to [left] center and the last hit of his career. This is kind of unfortunate, since looking at it now, it’s obvious that it’s not going to be a good swing. I think he’s been fooled by the ball. I think he was probably looking inside and the ball turned out to be away. Consequently, he’s not well balanced and is squatting down a bit. I think he may have [tried to] check this swing but was unable to stop it. Nevertheless, it’s a tribute to his great body control that he still hit it the way he did. It’s the kind of control you often find with great athletes, men who combine strength with flexibility to create a smooth, graceful motion. I think you find that players of Clemente’s caliber also tend to use good mechanics almost naturally, without really having to think much about them. Clemente, for example, stood off the plate, yet he still coped effectively with the ball outside. He had excellent arm extension and, in fact, was one of the first players I noticed taking his top hand off the bat. Nor did Clemente try to pull the ball. In fact, I think he made a conscious effort to hit the ball the other way. He counted a double to right center the same as a double down the right field line, and I think he was proud of the fact that he could do both. All good hitters use the whole field."

"Hitters like Roberto Clemente and Yogi Berra were exceptions. They could get the fat part of the bat on the ball no matter where the ball was thrown. They created their own strike zone because pitchers could not come up with a strategy that would consistently get those batters out."

"I was checking out all the bats he had and kind of rubbing a couple of them on me to get a little bit of luck. It’s pretty impressive what he swung, for someone his size, too. You see the pictures of him, I’m thinking this guys’ 6-5, 6-6 but you hear he was maybe 5-11, 5-10. It’s pretty impressive he was able to swing something like this and produce the numbers he did."

"I saw him on the field and I said, "Tommy, why did you tell that story?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "One: Clemente didn’t hang out with you. Second: Clemente speaks English. There’s some Puerto Ricans who speak English." No, Clemente did speak English. Cepeda speaks English. Puerto Rico, you know, is part of the United States. So, over there, youngsters do have the privilege of taking English in classrooms. He wouldn’t give a speech like Shakespeare, but he knew how to order breakfast and eggs. He knew how to say, "It’s a good day," "Let’s play," or "Why I don’t play?" He could say, "Let’s go to the movies." I played with guys – like when Sandy got on the Dodgers, he knew maybe twenty words of English. That’s why they roomed with me, because I spoke a little Spanish from playing in Cuba. But that wasn’t the case with Clemente. Clemente was able to communicate with those he wanted to communicate with."

"The people that knew Clemente always said, "If you want to wear that number, this is the way you do things." I was playing in 1978 in Arecibo and was my manager. I didn’t run hard on a ground ball. One-hopper to short, I didn’t bust my tail. I went to first base and instead of taking my helmet, the first base coach said, "You’re wanted in the dugout." Jack says to me, "It seems you’re tired. You sit here." Then after a while he said to me, "If you’re going to play in the big leagues and wear that number, you always go hard.""

"He was the first right fielder that I remember that would literally take balls off the right field wall in Forbes Field – it was only three hundred feet down the line – and he’d take the ball off the wall and without even looking, just spin around and throw the ball in behind the runner coming around first base. He’d get the guy going back to first before he could even stop and turn around. Maybe only one time did a runner keep going to second off him, anticipating that he was going to throw behind him. He was just uncanny; those guys wouldn’t even make a turn at first base when they’d hit a ball off the screen in right or off the wall."

"On a single, Andruw rounded first base and put on the brakes to get back to the bag, but he never lost his balance. I hadn’t seen anybody do it that gracefully since I once saw Roberto Clemente do it against the Phillies in old [[w|Shibe Park}} years ago."

"The bigger the guy, the less he argues. You never heard a word out of Stan Musial, Willie Mays or Roberto Clemente. They never tried to make you look bad."

"Junior: I started out as a pitcher and first baseman. I went to the outfield when I was 14 and I had to learn to play center. Dad didn’t help me. He just told me ‘Go, get ’em.’ Willie [Stargell, then a coach with Atlanta] taught me footwork, positioning, how to get a jump, how to read a ball. Senior: And I learned right along with Junior. I could never tell Junior anything because we didn’t know exactly what to do. Coming up with Cinci, they did not coach us, they just told us, "Go catch it; if you can’t catch it, pick it up and hit the cutoff man with your throw." And Stargell knew his stuff. He had learned outfield from Roberto Clemente. Junior was 17 and I was 36, and there we were taking instruction together."

"[One of my] favorite players to watch was Roberto Clemente. It was like watching a wild bull turned loose. He was the only player who ever galloped."

"Roberto Clemente never argued. He didn’t need umpires. He just needed one pitch – the best right field hitter I ever saw. Robby was strong all over. He hit so many line drives in the infield he’s lucky he didn’t kill anybody."

"My two sons, Harry and Nathaniel, my father and my father-in-law and many of my friends idolized Roberto Clemente and so did I. I called him a double superstar."

"Momen, as we childhood friends called him, had the combative fury of very few athletes. I recall very well the day that his older brothers took him to play in the kids’ league at the Barrio San Antón School. He couldn’t have been older than ten and was probably younger. Some of us were much older. For example there was his brother Matino, whose catches at first base were the sensation of the barrio. And Lorenzo, another brother, who gripped the bat cross-handed and whose line drives shook the zinc roof of the schoolhouse. And Andres, who threw underhand style. They were the Clemente brothers: Matino, Lorenzo, Andres, and Momen. All you had to do was look at Momen to know that he had been born to play baseball."

"Roberto Clemente was very quiet. He never said much, but when he was at bat—if he didn't like a call—he could turn and give you a look, and everybody in the crowd immediately knew that Roberto was accusing you of kicking the call. Though he was the quietest of players, Roberto could get you in the outhouse just by looking at you."

"He and Roberto Clemente were the ones I paid attention to as a boy. I loved it that both of them could really drive the ball. I guess that’s what I saw myself doing some day. I loved how they’d thump the ball, how far they could hit it."

"I saw him hit that darned thing with his back foot off the ground. He one-footed that thing. I thought I was watching Roberto Clemente in his heyday."

"When I’m done, I want people to say, "He’s the best." Right field belongs to Roberto Clemente, center field belongs to Willie Mays. I want left field to belong to me."

"There aren’t many guys like him anymore: five-tool guys who use all their tools. I don’t know if there’s anybody quite in his class. He’s a Roberto Clemente-type player – no batting gloves and I’m going to stand up here and you throw it and I’m going to hit it like hell and after I hit it, I’m going to run like hell until somebody tags me out."

"Hank Aaron is making himself look foolish by going around in a pout every time some white athlete wins an award. His latest tantrum involves Babe Ruth being named No. 1 athlete of all time, over Muhammad Ali. A man's mind has to be pretty mixed up to believe Babe Ruth is overrated because he was white ... If Hank really wants to be upset, let him protest the fact that, in the same poll, Jackie Robinson finished 50th to Henry Aaron's 15th, Jack Dempsey finished in a 34th-place tie with , Roberto Clemente was 111th to 's 21st, and Jack Johnson was shut out completely on the 150-name list."

"The best damn ballplayer in the World Series – maybe in the whole world – is Roberto Clemente and, as far as I’m concerned, they can give him the automobile right now. Maybe some guys hit the ball farther, and some throw it harder, and one or two run faster, although I doubt that, but nobody puts it all together like Roberto. [...] In Game 3, Clemente hit a ground ball to the right side first time up. It was stamped DP. The Orioles got one. In the seventh, Clemente led off with a bouncer back to the box. knocked it down, picked it up, was aghast to see the batter streaking down the line, hurried his throw, high, and Clemente was safe. The next batter walked on four pitches, the next batter hit the ball out of the park. Mike Cuellar’s composure was shattered. The game was over. [...] Roberto Clemente is a 37-year-old roadrunner. He has spent 18 summers of those years playing baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He has batted over .300 thirteen times, and for the last three seasons, in his decrepitude, he has hit .345, .352, .341. But everybody has numbers. Don’t mind the numbers. Just watch how Roberto Clemente runs 90 feet the next time he hits the ball back to the pitcher and ask yourself if you work at your job that way. Every time I see Roberto Clemente play ball, I think of the times I’ve heard about how ‘they’ dog it, and I want to vomit."

"It was a bang-bang play at first base and I called Clemente out. And he called me a "blind son-of-a-beeeech." And I said, "You can go, Mr. Clemente." And out came Mr. Murtaugh and he said to me, "Why did you run him?" And I told him what Clemente had said. And Murtaugh said, "He couldn't have said that. He doesn’t speak any English." And I said, "Well you guys taught him some English.”"

"Today, at Leone's Restaurant, Roberto Clemente was handed the keys to the Sport Mag car, for having won the World Series for Pittsburgh. At age 37, he can hit the ball back to the box and beat the car to first base."

"Memories rise up and lap and overlap – the matador stance at the plate and in the field, the special hauteur that only the Latin Americans can muster, the public face and demeanor that (for me) seemed reminiscent of a similar decorum in Joe DiMaggio both on and off the field, the constant concern, as was the case with DiMaggio, to be sartorially flawless. [...] As a fielder, Clemente did not merely play right field; he owned, he diagrammed, he wrote the book on right field. Whether he was playing the bounces when the ball ricocheted off the treacherous angles of the right field corner of ( of the old once knocked himself out by slamming into one of the abutments there) or, on occasion, when he actually threw out from the deepest part of right-center field a runner attempting to score from third after the catch, Clemente fielded and threw like a master. His unorthodoxy frequently included throwing behind the runner as he rounded first or second (a no-no for most other fielders), but many was the baserunner who saw that Clemente’s throw actually beat him to the base that he had rashly passed and tried too late to retouch."

"Ballplayers say he bats with his rear end in the dugout. He is just as likely to back away from a pitch as to step into it, and now that Henry Aaron has learned to pay more attention to the strike zone, Clemente is probably the best bad ball hitter in baseball."

"He is a right handed batter but his power is to right field. Of his 21 home runs this year, 14 have been in that general direction. When he smacks the ball it takes off the with the velocity and trajectory of a golfer's No. 2 iron unless the pitch is high and outside, in which case he is likely to punch it into the stands, as he did Monday night with one of 's sidearm curves. He is likely to pull the inside low pitch to left and has the kind of wrist action that enables him to back away from a pitch and still decapitate an infielder with a line drive. Even the man on the mound experiences something of the feeling of a man peering into an overdue volcano or a loaded when Clemente is at bat."

"Roberto Clemente got less than four hours sleep Saturday night but when he left for San Diego late Sunday afternoon it was the Dodgers who were tired – tired of seeing Roberto Clemente. The man whose career batting average of .316 is unexcelled by any active major leaguer completed the most productive two-game batting splurge in the history of modern baseball, getting five hits for the second time in 24 hours [20 hours, actually] and leading the Pirates to an 11-0 rout of the suddenly inoffensive Dodgers. In the Saturday marathon – the 16 inning struggle that lasted nearly 4 1/2 hours – Clemente singled in his first three at-bats (driving in the Pirates’ first run), lined out in his next two chances, then finished with two more singles (scoring the second and winning run). Sunday afternoon, the 36-year-old native of Puerto Rico had three singles, a double and a home run. He scored four runs and drove in three. , the manager of the Pirates, whistled and said: "Ten hits in two games! When I was playing, that was my quota for a month." It was, sadly, close to the Dodger quota too, and the team that hit .360 in the 11 games before the return to Dodger Stadium Friday night has 11 hits in two games."

"Roberto Clemente recently added up his dependents and found them to be 13. It was at that point that the great Pirate right fielder decided that he could not afford to retire from baseball, even if his right shoulder gives him pain. Therefore, Clemente will continue to earn his $100,000 during the summer for having occasional evenings like last night when he hit two home runs to help Bob Veale and Pittsburgh beat the New York Mets, 6-0. [...] The most valuable player in the National League in 1966 was batting only .276 going into last night’s game. But he drilled a homer deep into the right field bullpen off Tom Seaver to break a scoreless tie in the fourth inning and give him 1,000 runs batted in during his major league career. (This homer was also the 1,000th off Met pitching in almost seven seasons.) Two more runs batted in for Clemente came two innings later after ’s single had made the score 3-0 in the fifth. led off the sixth with a double and Clemente whacked a homer over the center-field fence."

"The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Giants yesterday, 10-5, mostly on the strength of three consecutive home runs by Roberto Clemente. Clemente was incredible. Besides getting home runs number 17, 18 and 19, he added a single, scored four times and drove in four. A resume of the way he hit the homers proves how difficult it is to pitch to this man. He hit one high and away off McCormick over the right field screen in the first, he hit one low and inside over the right field screen in the third, also off McCormick, and then when Bolin challenged him with a high hard pitch down the middle, Roberto crashed it off the flagpole beyond the center field screen to come within one of tying the all-time record of home runs in a single game."

"The superb athlete, with one of the best physiques of any human being, looked like an old man when he walked, hunched over."

"Refusal of the Bucs to trade Roberto Clemente probably was a wise policy but it is a distinct disappointment to Clemente, who would like especially to land in New York, where his popularity among the Puerto Rican populace could double his income in testimonials alone."

"It has just impressed me so much that I'll never forget Clemente. He can do everything so well. He runs well, he's got a magnificent arm, defensively; he does it all! And what a hitter! And that's not to say that Mays and Aaron are any less than a Clemente. But certainly, how could they be any better?"

"Ironically, the Pirates’ only run was driven in by Clemente when Marichal tried to quick-pitch him with the bases loaded in the fifth. With the count three and two, Clemente was standing in the box, but not looking at Marichal, who threw swiftly. “I was trying to smooth out the dirt around the plate,” Clemente said, “not looking, when I hear someone on the bench yell at me. I look up and see the ball, and I try to just punch at it with one hand.” He got just enough of it to drive it into the ground in front of the plate and bounce it so high that Orlando Cepeda had to wait helplessly for it to come down as the run scored and Clemente fled across the base. Clemente laughed in reminiscence. “I don’t remember anybody try to quick-pitch me since do it with Brooklyn. I punch it for double.""

"They say that if you don’t get to Veale early, you never will. The Giants almost did in the fourth and some say third base coach suffered from a flash of conservatism. Willie had singled into left and was wild-pitched to second. Hart struck out, looking. McCovey popped to second base. Two out. strung a line drive single into right field, a ball solidly hit. Fox stopped Mays after Willie had gone 15 feet down the third base line toward home. Willie went to his knees as he applied the brakes and had to scramble back on all fours to get back to the bag. Haller struck out. If Fox had opened the gates and let Mays go, and if Willie had made it, the Giants would have won in nine innings. But I think Clemente’s throw would have eaten him up."

"The Giants, up to the point where Haller decided it all, had their best shot when Schroder walked with one out in the fifth. With the Pirate infield tucked in rather closely, Cline rolled a single past at first base and Schroder was on his way to a certain death. He challenged the best arm in the National League, the rifle that hangs from the shoulder of Roberto Clemente, and Roberto threw out Schroder into the glove of Maury Wills. The throw was so low in its flight from bare hand to glove, Cline could not risk an advance to second. Mays followed with a single that would have scored Bob had he not given Clemente the challenge."

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

"My thoughts about Roberto are not so much about the ballplayer, but more of the man I respected as a teammate and an opponent for nine years. The quality of his play was directly indicative of his values. He gave all he had every game. He was kind and helpful to all of us younger players. He had a desire to be appreciated and drove himself to higher levels of performance than others. He recognized the need to excel in all phases of the game, and he encouraged everyone to do the same. [...] One real important thing – which probably cost him his life – was that if he thought he was right to do something, he did it with all he had in him regardless of the risks or what anyone else thought. He was a hero on and off the diamond."

", Roberto and myself, the three of us palled around. We went out to eat, we went to the movies together, we laughed and we joked. Oh yeah, he was funny. The three of us, we just laughed all the time. See, we joked amongst ourselves. Some people think because you’re colored, they’ve got the stereotype that we’re like those guys in the old days – always cracking jokes. I’m not a joke cracker. Clemente wasn’t either, but we could say things now and then that were funny and we could ad lib things."

"The second Buc run, just before the burst of five, was set up by Roberto Clemente’s blast high off the [right] center wall, above the 436-foot marker. The ball got there so fast, and bounced back to Murphy so hard, that the speedy Roberto got only two bases."

"The key play was one that might have been forgotten in the frenetic scrambling of runs. With men on second and third in the sixth and the score 5-5, Willie Mays smashed a searing low line drive into right field that seemed destined to leave the park. But the amazing Roberto Clemente leaped, glove above the railing, crashed into the wire fence and came down with the ball, as 6,028 fans first groaned in anger, then stood to applaud as fine and brave a catch as an outfielder can make."

"I used to go to Forbes Field as a kid and sit in right field, right behind him, just to watch him throw. He would handcuff the infielders on a throw from right field. – they called him ‘The Tiger’ – played third base for the Pirates, and you could almost see fear in his eyes on one of Clemente’s throws. Clemente had the greatest velocity, but he also had accuracy. Some of the guys coming up now are great throwers, but they have no clue as to where it’s going."

"One more thing for the record: Babe Ruth was far and away the best ballplayer I have ever seen. Closest to him for home run hitting alone, in my book anyway, were Jimmy Foxx, Johnny Mize, and Harmon Killebrew. Hank Aaron would rate in my top half-dozen, along with Joe Dimaggio, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, and Roberto Clemente."

"What's this we hear about the Cubs, who detected a batting weakness of Willie Mays, also learning how to pitch to Roberto Clemente, the sensational outfielder of the Pirates? ... It is said that and Sam Jones, who played winter ball in Puerto Rico, not only got hep to Say Hey Willie, but it is more than a coincidence that Clemente has batted only .158 against the Cubs; in fact, he made only two hits in his last five games against them."

"Clemente could field the ball in New York and throw out a guy in Pennsylvania."

"From a personal standpoint, I have known Clemente since he came up to the Pirates 17 years ago and the thing he did that impressed me most in the Series against the Orioles wasn't that he hit .414 or got off those excellent throws, but that he got up and chased the ball when he kicked it into distant left centerfield after falling down trying for a backhanded shoestringer on 's triple in the first game. "Swoboda would've had it!" said a newspaperman I know. Seriously, though, what impressed me so much about Clemente's get-up-and-go-after- it sequence is this was so typical of his performance. He'd do the same thing in the second game of a series with San Diego as he was doing now in the second game of a series with Baltimore."