Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
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Momen was his nickname: Int. Matino Clemente.
“When I was a little kid”: “A Conversation with Roberto Clemente,” Sam Nover, WIIC-TV, October 8, 1972. For all his confrontations with reporters, Clemente got along well with Nover. “Well, I tell you one thing, I tell you the truth, I don’t like lots of writers,” Clemente told Nover. “I think if I was a writer, one thing I would try to do is have a good relationship with the players. I never criticize a writer that I think is sincere in what he is writing. But a lot of these writers, they go to you, and they put the interview in a way that they sound like and you don’t exactly say that, see?”; Ints. Matino Clemente, Rosa Semprit.
Melchor was a regular figure: Ints. Matino Clemente, Orlando Cepeda, Vera Clemente, Rosa Semprit.
The Cangrejeros were grittier: Ints. Enrique Zorrilla, Juan Pizarro, Diana Zorrilla, Matino Clemente; Thomas E. Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers.
Irvin said later that he enjoyed: Int. Monte Irvin.
When he could, Momen caught the bus: Conversation with Clemente; Ints. Matino Clemente, Juan Pizarro, Monte Irvin.
Cáceres developed a friendship: Cáceres, Reader’s Digest, July 1973.
Zorrilla scribbled the name: Ints. Enrique Zorrilla, Diana Zorrilla.
When Campanis filled out: Zorrilla family scrapbooks, Clemente family collection.
The Three Kings, in a sense: Chicago Tribune, El Imparcial, San Juan Star, El Nuevo Día, Pittsburgh Courier, Sporting News; Ints. Eduardo Valero, Ramiro Martínez, Osvaldo Gil, Luis Olmo, Vic Power.
Five major league teams expressed: Zorrilla family archives, Vera Clemente family scrapbooks; ints. Diana Zorrilla, Luis Olmo, Matino Clemente.
His first bats were variations: Hillerich & Bradsby records maintained by Rex Bradley.
3: DREAM OF DEEDS
Before Momen left home: Int. Matino Clemente. It was a family ritual every spring that his brothers Matino and Andres would drive Roberto to the airport for his flight to Florida.
It is hard to imagine: Montreal Gazette, Canadian Press dispatch, April 1, 1954.
Momen was the youngest player: Montreal Gazette: Int. Chico Fernández.
The International Baseball League lived up: Montreal Gazette, April 15, 1954, International League to Open with two New Teams April 20; Playing the Field, Dink Carroll, Montreal Gazette, April 20, 1954. Carroll wrote of the Sugar Kings: “The big name in Cuban baseball today is Roberto Maduro, president of the Sugar Kings. We met him at the Baseball Writers Dinner in New York in February and noted that he spoke English without any trace of an accent.” “I should.” He smiled. “I graduated from Cornell University.” Tom Meany, Collier’s, July 1954.
“made some sparkling”: Lou Miller, Montreal Gazette, May 1, 1954.
There was talk: The discussion began in New York and made its way to Montreal in a May 5 column by Dink Carroll. If Amoros made the club, Carroll wrote, “the Dodgers would have five Negroes in the lineup on a day that Don Newcombe or Joe Black was pitching. The suggestion was that this was one too many . . .”
The rooming house offered beds: Ints. Chico Fernández, Joan Whitman, Glenn Cox.
At night, Clemente would pour out: Int. Chico Fernández.
Havana was not home for Momen: Ints. Ramiro Martínez, Chico Fernández; Montreal Gazette.
Andy High visited Montreal: Montreal Gazette; int. Chico Fernández.
Rickey sent Haak up to Montreal: Int. Howie Haak; Kevin Kerrane, Dollar Sign on the Muscle; ints. Chico Fernández, Glenn Cox.
Even the batboy: Ints. Don Zimmer, Orlando Cepeda; Zorrilla family archive.
Foreigners: make space: Enrique Zorrilla, “Dream of Deeds”; Zorrilla family archives.
Mays was embraced joyously: Tom Meany, “Señor Mays Hit in San Juan,” Collier’s, January 7, 1955; Zorrilla family archive; int. Don Zimmer.
Clemente admired Mays: Ints. Orlando Cepeda, Enrique Zorrilla, Vic Power, Eduardo Valero, Monte Irvin, Luis Olmo; Zorrilla family archive.
At eleven on the Monday morning of November 22: Notice No. 29, Office of the Commissioner, October 29, 1954; C-41-54, National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, Warren C. Giles President, November 3, 1954; UP, November 22, 1954; UP November 23, 1954. “The Puerto Rican Negro batted only .257 in eighty-six games at Montreal last season, where he was used chiefly for defensive purposes, but impressed the Pirates and several other teams with his brilliant play this fall in the Puerto Rican winter league.”
Herman Franks’s lineup card: Ints. Don Zimmer, Orlando Cepeda, Enrique Zorrilla, Zorrilla family archives; Thomas E. Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers.
When the road trip was over: Ints. Matino Clemente, Vera Clemente. Luis was a schoolteacher. His wife, Victoria Carrasquillo, was fearful of the operation and tried to talk him out of it. He was buried at the Cementerio Municipal de Rio Grande.
4: THE RESIDUE OF DESIGN
All of this was overseen by: Branch Rickey Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LCMD); Arthur Mann, Branch Rickey, American in Action; Branch Rickey’s Little Blue Book; Galbreath Collection, Darby Dan.
With aide-de-camp Blackburn: Memorandum of Game, January 18, 1955. Following Game in Havana, Cuba, Between Cienfuegos and Havana, Branch Rickey Papers, LCMD.
He kept his own scorecard: Ruben Gomez pitched that day, and Clemente was bracketed in the lineup by Don Zimmer batting second and Buster Clarkson at cleanup. Harry Chiti was behind the plate. Rickey, in characteristic acerbic fashion, was not impressed: “Had no life, looked slow in his physical actions, and I could not help thinking that he was somewhat indifferent about his work.”
it appears that this was the first time: Memorandum of Game Between Santurce and Ponce at San Juan, Puerto Rico, on January 25, 1955, Branch Rickey Papers, LCMD.
“The other is Ron Necciai”: Branch Rickey Papers, LCMD. According to Branch Rickey’s Little Blue Book Necciai once struck out twenty-seven opponents in an Appalachian League game.
On his way back to Pittsburgh: “Mack, Rickey Meet at Terry Park,” Fort Myers News-Press, January 29, 1955; int. Len Harsh. The News-Press was published seven days a week. “I was the whole sports department,” Harsh recalled a half-century later. “And filled in covering the police beat on Sunday nights.”
Clemente and other black prospects: Ints. Len Harsh, John Yarborough, Pat McCutcheon, Bob Veale.
to young Clemente the prevailing culture: Sam Nover, “A Conversation with RC,” 1972; ints. Vic Power, Ramiro Martínez, Len Harsh.
It is not clear where: Fort Myers News-Press, January 15, 1955, to April 1, 1955; int. Len Harsh. “He was such a great ballplayer that they respected him,” Harsh said of south Florida fans. “He may have done a few things that people thought was hot dog but he was so doggone good it came natural to him. He was as respected as any of them.”
“ ‘Roberto, you better’”: Sam Nover, “A Conversation with RC,” 1972.
filed regular dispatches: Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh weekly edition, February 15, 1955, to April 1, 1955.
old man Rickey remained uncertain: Observations in the game between the Chicago White Sox and the Pittsburgh Pirates, March 23, 1955, Fort Myers, Florida, Branch Rickey Papers, LCMD.
Roberts was another: Pittsburgh Courier, March 1955; Ronald Barlow, “A True Hometown Hero,” Beaumont News (Pineland, Texas); Baseball Almanac; Rich Shrum, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 25, 2004; Joe Monaco, Beaumont Enterprise, May 2, 2004.
only a lost battle: Ric Roberts, Pittsburgh Courier, April 14, 1955. In the column it was noted: “If Jackie Robinson had remained with the Kansas City Monarchs all the years since he joined them back in 1945, he would have earned no more than $35,000. At Brooklyn his income has certainly aggregated more than $252,000! He is the leader in a glittering procession . . .”
Rickey was feeling the harsh sting: Confidential letter to Mr. Joe Bradis of the AP from Branch Rickey, Branch Rickey Papers, July 30, 1954, LCMD.
Freese liked to tease Clemen
te: Int. Gene Freese.
On stationery with a Bing Crosby/Hollywood logo: Before reaching Rickey’s desk, Crosby’s note was read by the Mahatma’s friend and aide Ken Blackburn, who added this handwritten message: “Mr. Sisler has already written Mr. Crosby re these boys and their clippings . . . Ed McCarrick is also following and will again contact these boys when he returns home, K.B.”
The fiberglass and plastic batting helmet: Supplementary Financial Information, American Baseball Cap Inc., Branch Rickey Papers, June 30, 1962, LCMD.
Two weeks later, after another hot streak: Bill Nunn Jr, Pittsburgh Courier, June 16, 1955; int. Bill Nunn Jr.
“he speaks only a little broken English”: Pittsburgh Courier, June 16, 1955; ints. Bill Nunn Jr., George Kiseda, Roy McHugh, Nick Koback.
GO TO HILL! NEGRO FAMILY TOLD: Pittsburgh Courier, July 2, 1955; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 25, 2004. Courier reporter George E. Barbour began his story: “ ‘I’ll throw you out,’ Richard Cook, burgess of Glenfield, told this 200-pound reporter Monday when he went to Cook’s office to learn why the latter had advised a Negro family last Friday not to move into an all-white residential section.”
Clemente’s first friend in Pittsburgh: Ints. Duane Rieder, Bill Nunn Jr., Bob Friend; Jim O’Brien, Remembering Roberto.
The Garlands had let rooms: Ints. Vera Clemente, Bill Nunn Jr., Carolyn Rauch.
Looking south and downhill: Observations of Schenley Park geography and sociology drawn from leisurely tour of the area provided by longtime resident Bill Nunn Jr.
with no help from the baseball team: Stefan Lorant, Pittsburgh, The Story of an American City; Sports Town, David Shribman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2004.
5: ¡ARRIBA! ¡ARRIBA!
Bob Prince, the play-by-play announcer: Ints. Howard Fineman, Richard Santry, Bruce Laurie, Myron Cope, Nelson Briles, Bob Friend, Harding Peterson; baseballLibrary.com.
Clemente wrote Brown a letter: February 26, 1960, Duane Rieder collection, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Native Pittsburgher Duane Rieder, a first-class photographer, has turned the second floor of his firehouse studio into a shrine to Roberto Clemente. Along with a fine collection of photographs, he has accumulated baseballs, letters, even a blue pinstriped suit that Clemente bought in Chicago.
The regular season started on the road: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press, April 12–15, 1955.
A face in the crowd: Int. Howard Fineman. As a native Pittsburgher, who became a national political writer for Newsweek, Fineman was fascinated by the role of department stores in the cultural sociology of his hometown: “Pittsburghers had this thing of always being the biggest or best between New York and Chicago. People in Pittsburgh never looked to Philadelphia for anything. As far as we knew, Philadelphia never existed. If you had ambition in Pittsburgh, it was for New York. One of the ways in which Pittsburgh was the training ground was the department store business. What came to be called the Golden Triangle, the central part of downtown Pittsburgh, was compact and Manhattanlike in its own way. And it was a training ground for the guys who would end up running Macy’s or whatever. When I was a kid [1950s and early 1960s] there were five department stores in downtown Pittsburgh: Kauffman’s, Gimbels, Horns, Frank and Seder, and Rosenbaum’s.”
During an Easter Sunday doubleheader: Ints. Bob Friend, Dick Schofield; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press, April 18–22, 1955.
The Pirates were as consistent: World Champions Pittsburgh Pirates 1960 Statistical Résumé, Pittsburgh Baseball Club, Galbreath Collection, Darby Dan.
One of the paper’s weekly features: Pittsburgh Courier, May–September 1960. In his guest column, utility infielder Gene Baker, who was widely respected by baseball insiders, wrote optimistically about the future of blacks in the game’s management. “I’m one of the optimists who like to think the day will come when Negroes are accepted in front-office jobs the same as they are on the playing field. When that day arrives, I would like to be ready to fit into the pattern.” Baker went on to become a scout and minor league manager for the Pirates, but never got his full shot at a top job.
“Som’ Co-lored people”: Pittsburgh Courier, June 25, 1955. Courier sports editor Bill Nunn Jr. followed in the tradition of his father, Bill Nunn Sr., a longtime editor at the Courier. The son played basketball at Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh and then at West Virginia State, returning to work at the Courier in 1948. He was a close friend of most of the black major leaguers, starting with Jackie Robinson. The baseball player guest column began with a regular article under Robinson’s byline that was ghost-written by Nunn.
The Pirates had several candidates: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 2, 1960; Pittsburgh Courier, August–September 1960: Ints. Bill Nunn Jr., Roy McHugh, Myron Cope, Bob Friend, Dick Schofield, Joe L. Brown.
Less than a month later: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press, August 15–September 15, 1960; The Incredible Pirates, We Had ’Em All the Way, LP (Rare Sport films Inc., 1960).
6: ALONE AT THE MIRACLE
The last time the Pirates played: Bob Addie, Washington Post, October 5, 1960; Edward Prell, Chicago Tribune, October 5, 1960; Pittsburgh Press, October 4, 1960.
“We’ll fight ’em until our teeth fall out”: Will Grimsley, AP, October 4, 1960.
The Pirates would win: Int. Bill Nunn Jr.; Pittsburgh Courier, October 1960.
Another scouting report got in more digs: Life, October 5, 1960.
Among those making the trip: Int. Matino Clemente; Pittsburgh Courier, October 1, 1960. In another Courier story headlined FIVE TAN PLAYERS READY FOR SERIES, Ric Roberts noted that not since “1950, when the Yankees routed the Phillies in four games, have we seen an all-white World Series. We can be certain that at least one of our heroes will be in the call to arms at Forbes Field on Wednesday, October 5. Over 40,000 Pirate fans will greet his appearance at bat with the Spanish urging ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!”
A fellow named Ralph Belcore: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press, AP, October 5, 1960.
“Only in Pittsburgh”: Red Smith, New York Herald Tribune, October 5, 1960.
A telegram had been taped: Branch Rickey Papers, LCMD; Pittsburgh Press, October 6 1960.
Law had the stuff: San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, October 4–7, 1960; The Incredible Pirates, LP; ints. Bob Friend, Roy McHugh, Harding Peterson, Bill Nunn Jr., Dick Schofield.
“Any questions?”: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dick Groat, October 6, 1960.
The first-inning rally: Account of Game 1 drawn from ints. Bob Friend, Harding Peterson, Dick Schofield, Roy McHugh, Joe L. Brown; The Incredible Pirates, LP; Baseball Classics, 1960 World Series (Rare Sportsfilms Inc.); articles in the Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Pittsburgh Courier, Chicago Tribune, New York Post, and Washington Post.
It rained all that night: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Pittsburgh Press, Washington Post, October 7, 1960.
“I don’t blame Danny”: Int. Bob Friend.
In the mess of this slaughter: New York Herald Tribune, Washington Post, October 7, 1960; The Baseball Encyclopedia; Ralph Berger, The Baseball Biography Project, SABR.
The batting star: New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh Courier, October 7, 1960; int. Dick Schofield.
“If you quit on the Pirates now”: Don Hoak column, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 9, 1960.
For the critical fourth game: Game account drawn from columns by Vern Law, Don Hoak, and Pennsylvania Governor David Lawrence in Post-Gazette; Washington Post, New York Times, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Press, October 10, 1960; ints. Bob Friend, Dick Schofield, Joe L. Brown.
Bob Friend was ready: Int. Bob Friend; Don Hoak column Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 12, 1960.
In the locker room after the game: Ted Meir, Associated Press, publish
ed in San Juan Star, October 12, 1960. The Star article ran under the headline: CASEY ADMITS ROBERTO IS GOOD RIGHT FIELDER.
The focus of the world: Washington Post, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Chicago Tribune, October 12, 1960.
“The fellow who did the most throwing”: New York Times, October 13, 1960.
The thirteenth of October: Account of Game 7 of World Series and postgame drawn from Baseball Classics, 1960 World Series; The Incredible Pirates, LP; ints. Bob Friend, Dick Schofield, Harding Peterson, Joe L. Brown, Roy McHugh, Myron Cope, Bill Nunn Jr., Howard Fineman, Matino Clemente; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh Press, New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune.
Nunn noticed that Clemente: Ints. Matino Clemente, Bill Nunn Jr.; Bill Nunn Jr., Pittsburgh Courier, October 22, 1960. After describing Clemente’s actions in the clubhouse and during the walk to his car, Nunn’s concluding paragraph read: “And as the auto pulled away from the curb and Clemente sat back and relaxed, it was obvious that here was a player who had enjoyed his victory celebration a lot better on the streets of Pittsburgh than in the clubhouse he shares with his teammates.”
7: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Handmade welcome-home placards: San Juan Star, October 17, 1960. HOME FROM BATTLE read the cutline above a Star photograph accompanying the front-page story that showed Clemente kissing his mother.
There was only one small note: Jim Douglas, ROBERTO SAYS HE’S NOT SURE HE’LL PLAY HERE, San Juan Star, October 17, 1960.
The winner was indeed a Pirate: Ints. Matino Clemente, Vera Clemente, Roy McHugh, Myron Cope, Bill Nunn, Jr., Bob Friend, Dick Schofield, Joe L. Brown; San Juan Star, November 18–19, 1960, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Sam Nover, “A Conversation with RC,” 1972.
“My father was a boy”: Int. Enrique Zorrilla.
Power and Clemente were fast friends: Ints. Vic Power, Matino Clemente, Luis Olmo, Eduardo Valero; Zorrilla family archive; Thomas E. Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers.
On the day he reached Fort Myers: New York Times, March 2, 1961.