"Me and some of the other guys were probably making the minimum, $12,500, and here’s Clemente – a guy making $150,000. Some guys who make this money might dog it a bit, but when he hit one back even to the pitcher he’d run to first like the cops were chasin’ him. I remember thinkin’ to myself, ‘Hell, if that guy can do it, I’m gonna do it.’ Let me tell you, it’s hard to go out there every day, but once Clemente crossed over the white line onto the field, I think his philosophy was: If you’re going to go half-ass, no sense doing it. Maybe he made mistakes when he was younger, but in my years with him I don’t think he made a handful of mental mistakes. He threw to the right base, hit the cut-off man, took the extra base when he should, hit behind the runner, sacrificed himself at the plate. Guy on second he’d hit the ball and move the runner along. Next thing, there’s a wild pitch or a sacrifice fly and we win the game. A lot of people leave the ballpark and say, ‘Well, Clemente didn’t do nothing today.’ But Clemente was the guy who hit the guy over to third. And out in the field, not many guys tried going from first to third on him. He’d fire it in accurate, right on the bag. I tagged plenty of guys with two minutes to spare!"
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roberto_Clemente