Player Quotes - page 57
Another guy that never got attention was Roberto Clemente. He was something else. He had a great arm and he could hit. He was a little more flamboyant than Hank, but not like Mays. Willie constantly threw to the wrong base, though, or overthrew the cutoff man to show off his arm. We always kept running on Willie. Don't get me wrong, he was a great player, but I would take Aaron or Clemente over Mays any time.
Roberto Clemente
That's not like me, but I was giving my honest opinion. It doesn't sound too good, though. [As for the second best player,] I'd have to say Roberto Clemente. He could do anything with the bat and in the field. And then there's Cesar Cedeno. I don't know why he hasn't put it all together. He can do it all.
Roberto Clemente
Bobby could do more things than any player I've ever seen. I used to coach third base for Preston Gomez in San Diego. Once he told me, "Now, I want you to know about Clemente cause he'll play a game with you. If we have a man on first and there's a base hit to right field, he'll pretend to be loafing in on it. The moment you start to wave for that runner to come to third – look out, there's gonna be an explosion." Well, sure enough, I don't know what inning it was, but the situation came up, he put me in his trap and I did it. And let me tell you, my runner was about two-thirds of the way to third when the ball arrived. I came into the dugout and Preston was laughing. He said, ‘What did I tell you?' But that was Roberto. There wasn't anything he couldn't do.
Roberto Clemente
I had a chance to sign him before the Dodgers gave him a bonus. I offered the kid $4,000 to sign with our club, and told him we would send him to an A league. The money meant more to him and we weren't taking on any more bonus players. He can do everything, run, throw and hit. He's a bit crude in some things he does, but that's to be expected. I doubt very much if he can play regularly in the majors this year. But you can't tell. He faced some good pitching in Puerto Rico in 1953 and batted .300. Right now, he is far above that figure. The main thing is to hope he can stay relaxed and loose when he gets to the big leagues. If the kid doesn't tighten up, maybe the Pirates will have a good ball player on their hands.
Roberto Clemente
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.
Roberto Clemente
I saw various. I never saw Willie Mays. I saw Roberto Clemente. He could hit, run, field and throw. Intelligent player. And he played to win. I remember hearing Clemente say that he always tried his best, so that he would never have any self-doubts about whether he gave it his all. I think the same words were attributed to Willie Mays or Joe DiMaggio. I saw Olmo, not a lot. But from what I saw, the way he played left field, you did not forget him. Olmo was elegant. It was Clemente and Olmo.
Roberto Clemente
The House of Representatives of Puerto Rico took official note of the selection of one of its citizens, Roberto Clemente, as the National League's Most Valuable Player. The Puerto Rican House got together three pages of "whereases" and "wherefores" to congratulate both Clemente and the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
Roberto Clemente
Well, Buzz old boy, there are a few things for which the 11,089 cash clients in Delorimier Stadium 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.
Roberto Clemente
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 Delorimier Stadium.
Roberto Clemente
People who didn't see him play look at the stats and say, ‘Well, he didn't hit 500 homers, and he didn't do this or do that.' But again, if you hear the players who played against him, you realize the kind of respect they have for him. Willie Mays always said that for him, Roberto Clemente was the greatest all-around player he played against.
Roberto Clemente
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.
Roberto Clemente
I grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania, which is 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. I got to see Roberto Clemente in his prime. I tohught then and still think now that he was the greatest player I have ever seen. A throwing arm that no one, past or present, could rival. He played hard; played the right way. Power, speed ... he had it all.
Roberto Clemente
He reacted more to rookies than to guys who had been around for awhile, maybe because he would've liked someone to have helped him when he was a rookie. Clemente had known the same problems – the new language, getting acclimated to the big league atmosphere, how to deal with the media, where to eat on the road, how to dress. Sangy got picked off twice in one game. Robby came into the clubhouse, got a big piece of cardboard and put two sticks through it. He told Sangy to pretend it was a machine that he would use to take control of Sangy when he got on base. We laughed for 20 minutes, but it made Sangy realize he didn't have to stick his head in his locker if he made a costly mistake in a game, that we were all in this thing together. That's a valuable lesson and it could've saved Sangy a couple of years anxiety because he learned right away that no teammate holds a player completely responsible for losing a game.
Roberto Clemente
