"It has been a foregone conclusion for most of his career that Old Aches and Pains from Puerto Rico, Roberto Clemente, the best player in the game who has never won the Most Valuable Player Award, had to have one foot in Mayo Clinic before he could make a shambles of National League pitching. Moreover, Roberto has to feel he is unloved, unappreciated. Roberto, who plays right field as if he invented it, never won a Gold Glove until the voting was taken out of the hands of the Reporter|writers. That he has never won an MVP is as big a crime as if [[Spencer Tracy had never won an Oscar. But, over the years, Roberto had to get an assist from nature. He had to have a virus, a mysterious tropical disease, trichinosis, his foot cut in a lawn mower. He has such a trick back, he can play it for you like a xylophone. He reported to camp 15 pounds underweight from a bout with malaria (or maybe it was typhoid that year – he’s had both) and he had to take aspirin all year just to win the batting championship (which he's done three times). People just thought he was a hypochondriac – partly because people with a fever of 102 do not normally bat .339. He was the Oscar Levant of baseball, the Sick Man of America. He complained about everything but amnesia. He skipped batting practice because he said hitting made him ‘tired.’ Not as tired as it made the pitchers – or the other outfielders – in the game."