Roberto Clemente's 'Toolbox': The Legs

Clemente's Contemporaries Chime In

__________ Witnesses __________

_ Al Campanis can't believe his eyes _

Al Campanis recalls the Dodger tryout during which he 'discovered' Clemente [at least from the vantage point of North American baseball] in the summer of '52):

"Then we had the timed races – 60 yards. Everybody’s running about 7.2, 7.3, which is average major league time. Then Clemente came and ran a 6.4-plus. That’s a track man’s time! And in a baseball uniform! I asked him to run again, and he was even a little faster. He could fly!" "Hell, the world’s record then was only 6.1. I couldn’t believe it."

_ Clyde Sukeforth spots Pittsburgh's premier pick by pure happenstance _

Clyde Sukeforth recalls the June 1954 Montreal-Richmond series during which he 'discovered' Clemente for the Pirates [on a scouting trip whose assigned purpose had been to scout the newly demoted pitcher Joe Black]:

“Around the seventh inning Montreal was behind, and who should go up to pinch hit but this kid? He hits a routine ground ball to shortstop and turns it into a bang-bang play at first base. God, he could run. He could fly. Well, I said to myself, there’s a boy who can do two things as well as any man who ever lived. Nobody could throw any better than that, and nobody could run any better than that.”

In fact, Sukeforth's 20-year-old recollection is unsurprisingly imprecise regarding the game details:

• Clemente did not pinch-hit but rather batted after having entered the game as a defensive replacement.
• It occurred not in the seventh, but the ninth inning.
• Montreal was not behind but up by three.

On the other hand, it was a late-inning at-bat - his first of the game - which did drive in an insurance run which proved to be the game-winner after the Royal bullpen had coughed up the other 3/4 of their newly assembled margin. In the final analysis, though, Sukey was not being paid to provide play-by-play or to compile comprehensive stats, least of all for Clemente, a teenage prospect who, as Montreal manager Max Macon would tell Bill Christine almost 19 years later, "just radiated ability." That 'radiation' is palpable in Sukeforth's comments.

_ Howie Haak has trouble seeing RC, but persistence pays off _

Clyde's colleague Howie Haak, who, like Sukeforth, had followed GM Branch Rickey from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh, would have little to show for his subsequent efforts to follow Sukeforth's original Clemente sighting with one of his own; fortunately, Clemente would have a dramatically higher profile with 1954's defending Caribbean Champions, the Santurce Cangrejeros. And of course Haak would have countless opportunities to observe Clemente over the following 18 years:

“Rickey was a fanatic about speed, and I guess I am too. And you can see for yourself: the [teams that] are built on speed win. I like to get a stopwatch time on a kid in a sixty-yard dash, because in baseball you run sixty yards more than you do anything: first to third, second to home, center field to right-center. But I never time a hitter from home to first. What good does it do you? Clemente – I don’t think he ever ran to first base under 4.4 or 4.5. That follow-through of his brought him up and toward third base, so it took him three tenths of a second just to get out of the batter’s box [see below], but he was still the fastest man on our club.”

Clemente himself had made this point on at least one occasion:

“Look, here is the way I swing. I swing hard. I don’t punch the ball. I have bat control, and I don’t go for home runs, but I still swing as hard as some fellows who swing for the fences. My back is practically to first base when I finish the swing. I have to turn around before I can start running. Sometimes the ball is in the fielder’s hands before I drop the bat.”

_ Vernon Law loves having Clemente on his side _

Vernon Law, a career Pirate, was with Clemente for 13 seasons. Both were enormous factors in Pittsburgh's successful 1960 pennant drive, Clemente somewhat less so in the World Series victory, but the two were headed in opposite directions, careerwise, thereafter. RC's dominant decade stretched out in front of him [though even here injuries and illness would make it something of a bumpy road]. On the other hand, with the exception of a remarkable mid-decade resurrection, Law's best years were behind him. By 1967, when Clemente's career was reaching its zenith, Law's was petering out. While cultural and linguistic differences prevented the two from becoming truly close off the field, there was a great mutual respect, both personal and professional, born of their shared priorities, i.e. family, faith and a strong work ethic:

“He was the best in so many aspects of the game. He could go from first to third as fast as any player I saw or played against, and that included some of the best – Lou Brock, Maury Wills and Willie Davis.”

_ Sparky Anderson wishes he had him on his side _

"People didn’t realize how fast he was. He only stole bases if it meant something..." "He could fly. When he hit a ground ball to the infield, he was flying to first. That fielder better not be napping."