Willie Quotes - page 5
Ted Abernathy was just one strike away from pocketing a 5-4 Cub decision over the Pirates when he found himself in a head-to-head battle with Roberto Clemente. This was the ninth inning in Chicago and there were two outs, none on. Abernathy had Clemente no balls and two strikes, but apparently the Pirate slugger worried the Cub reliever and he grew too careful. He threw three balls and then Clemente put on a dazzling display of bat control. Abernathy threw eight straight strikes and Clemente fouled off every pitch, seven to right field. Then he drew a walk and Willie Stargell, who always hits Abernathy, hit him again. Abernathy worked the count to 3-and-1 and Stargell fouled two pitches, then rammed a long, line-drive double high off the center field wall to score Clemente from first with the tying run. The Bucs won it with four runs in the eleventh, but it was Clemente who saved it with his remarkable performance.
Roberto Clemente
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 Eddie Feigner, known as "King of Softball" after 22 years as pitcher in the sport throughout the United States and Canada.
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
At Terry Field, the fine new training headquarters of the Pittsburgh club, one may see [, among others,] Roberto Walker Clemente, a teammate of Willie Mays in the Puerto Rican League, who has copied Mays' method of catching the ball against his navel but, alackaday, not his batting.
Roberto Clemente
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.
Roberto Clemente
