Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero (59 page)

“So I say to Joe Brown”
:
Sam Nover, “A Conversation with RC,” 1972.

When the Fort Myers Boosters Club
: Fort Myers News-Press,
March 8, 1961.

When the Fort Myers Country Club
: Fort Myers News-Press,
March 27, 1961. Manager Danny Murtaugh said he shot his “best round ever,” a 104, which was said to be a few strokes better than Joe L. Brown, “who had a few difficulties”: ints. Bob Friend, Dick Schofield.

Change was slow
: Pittsburgh Courier,
May 20, 1961; Wendell Smith columns in
Chicago’s American,
April–August 1961; Carroll,
Wendell Smith’s Last Crusade.

Clemente was not to be ignored
: New York Times, Fort Myers News-Press,
March 28–29, 1961,
New York Times,
March 29, 1961.

Sisler’s first breakthrough
:
Sisler hitting analysis, Branch Rickey Papers, LCMD;
Fort Myers News-Press,
March 10–30, 1961.

But by 1961 he was using
:
Hillerich & Bradsby bat documents maintained by Rex Bradley; int. Rex Bradley.

The All-Star setting offered
: Pittsburgh Courier,
AP,
San Francisco Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press,
July 11–12, 1961.

A trivial manifestation
: New York Times, Chicago’s American, Pittsburgh Courier,
August 1, 1961; ints. Bill Nunn Jr., Bob Friend.

One night that August
:
Jack Hernon, “Roamin Around,”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
August 13, 1961. In that same sports section, the
Post-Gazette
ran a photo of Smoky Burgess, Dick Groat, Clemente, and Bill Virdon holding a bat that read 1,000 hits. Clemente had reached the 1,000-hit club a week earlier, Burgess a day earlier, and Virdon needed four more hits to join them.

This was not just Clemente’s rise
:
Ints. Orlando Cepeda, Vic Power, Eduardo Valero, Osvaldo Gil, Matino Clemente, Luis Olmo;
El Imparcial, San Juan Star,
October 8–10, 1961. A front-page photograph on October 10 showed Cepeda and Clemente inside Sixto Escobar stadium, waving to the crowd. Clemente kept his sore right elbow at his side and waved with his left.

8: FEVER

On a December day in 1963
:
Narrative of Clemente-Zabala courtship drawn from several interviews with Vera Clemente and Matino Clemente; also M. I. Caceres,
Reader’s Digest,
July 1973.

To Steve Blass, a rookie pitcher
:
Int. Steve Blass.

First base that year
:
Int. Donn Clendenon.

The Tobs had a rivalry
:
Ints. Bob Veale, Donn Clendenon.

He had become
:
Int. Tony Taylor.

“ ‘Clemente’s a mean man’”
:
Sam Nover, “A Conversation with RC,” 1972.

“I always had a theory”
:
Int. Steve Blass.

Leppert placed the blame
:
Int. Don Leppert.

“it becomes a vicious circle”
:
Myron Cope,
Sports Illustrated,
March 7, 1966.

“He’d crawl in a shell”
:
Bill Mazeroski,
Sport,
November 1971.

Clemente took offense
:
Int. Roy McHugh.

“Everybody in that clubhouse”
:
Int. Tony Bartirome.

The Pirates were in the middle
: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press, San Juan Star.

In his ellipses-dotted
:
Al Abrams,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
July 7–8, 1964.

The trip was a success
:
Int. Vera Clemente.

Rickey scouted for general manager
:
Branch Rickey Papers, LCMD.

Groat went on to hit .292
:
Halberstam,
October 1964,
pp. 33-36.

Here, in Carolina
:
Ints. Vera Clemente, Matino Clemente;
San Juan Star,
November 15, 1964.

One woman in New York
:
Letter to RC, Duane Rieder collection, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Clemente organized a group
:
Ints. Vera Clemente, Juan Pizarro;
San Juan Star,
February 4, 1965;
San Juan Star,
February 15, 1965.

What was wrong
?
Ints. Vera Clemente, Juan Pizarro, Eduardo Valero, Ramiro Martínez, Joe L. Brown, Matino Clemente.

9: PASSION

Every move Clemente made
:
Ints. Bruce Laurie, Howard Fineman, Rex Bradley, Roy McHugh, Richard Santry, Donn Clendenon; Jim Murray,
Los Angeles Times,
October 15, 1971.

During the first two months
: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press,
May 3–7, 1965. On May 3, in his “Sidelights on Sports” column, Al Abrams wrote from St. Louis: “The ‘Hat’ went into a monumental rage. He not only banged and threw things around in the small cubicle in which the visiting players dress, he let his men know in the most earthy and sulphuric language at his command that he is far from pleased with the way they were playing.”

The malarial funk was long forgotten
:
Ints. Vera Clemente, Luis Clemente.

During a home stand late in September
:
Int. Gene Garber.

Home now was a funky modernist house
:
Observations of Clemente home in Rio Piedras. Ints. Vera Clemente, Roberto Clemente Jr. The ponds in the front became filled with frogs that were collected by neighborhood children.

One visitor that winter
:
Ints. Myron Cope, Roy McHugh, Vera Clemente; Myron Cope,
Sports Illustrated,
March 7, 1966.

A few days after Cope left
:
Brown letter, Duane Rieder collection, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

she wrote a note to Phil Dorsey
:
Duane Rieder collection, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The truth was he had a temper
:
Account of the punch incident drawn from ints. Bernard Heller, John Heller;
Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
May 7–9, 1966.

The punch seemed more instinctive
: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
May 6, 1963;
Baseball Classics, 1960 World Series;
Ints. Vic Power, Juan Pizarro, Luis Olmo, Ramiro Martínez.

Carol Brezovec would only see
:
Ints. Carol Brezovec (Bass), Carolyn Rauch, Vera Clemente.

“So the story goes”
:
Int. Steve Blass.

“When you have the world’s best base runner”
:
Int. Gaylord Perry.

making it feel more like home
:
Ints. José Pagán, Vera Clemente.

“Sore arm, my foot!”
: New York Daily News,
September 18–19, 1966.

You have to visit me
:
Ints. Carol Brezovec (Bass), Vera Clemente, Roberto Clemente Jr.

10: A CIRCULAR STAGE

Ask him how he felt
:
Ints. Tony Bartirome, Bob Veale, Steve Blass, Myron Cope, Roy McHugh, Harding Peterson, Les Banos. The training room, Bartirome recalled, “was like a playroom. Everybody’d come in there, not for treatment, just to screw around.”

One nagging concern
:
Flight time calculated from Pirates 1968 schedule and 1968 national flight records; ints. Vera Clemente, Bob Veale, José Pagán, Juan Pizarro.

He bought his cologne
:
Int. Les Banos.

When a sales clerk met
:
Sam Nover, “A Conversation with RC,” 1972; int. Vera Clemente.

Al Oliver, a black teammate
:
Int. Al Oliver.

What Clemente admired
:
Sam Nover, “A Conversation with RC,” 1972.

The Clementes spent twenty-two days
:
Int. Vera Clemente

“Love and hate”
: Pittsburgh Press,
April 14, 1969; ints. Roy McHugh, Juliet Schor; Bill Mazeroski,
Sport,
November 1971.

No National League pitcher wanted
:
Int. Ferguson Jenkins, Tony Taylor; Bill Curry and George Plimpton,
One More July,
1978.

One other event that season
:
Ints. Vera Clemente, Matino Clemente; Bill Christine,
Roberto,
1973.

The most significant event in baseball
:
Minutes of Executive Board Meeting, Major League Baseball Players Association, Sheraton Hotel, San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 13–14, 1969; int. Dick Moss;
San Juan Star,
December 12–15, 1969;
New York Times,
December 14–15, 1969.

Listening in on the conversation
:
Int. Enrique Zorrilla.

“I don’t know why they invited me”
:
Int. Nancy Golding.

In Pittsburgh two days later
: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press,
July 15–18, 1970.

July 24 was Roberto Clemente night
:
Account of night drawn from ints. Vera Clemente, Luis Clemente, Matino Clemente, Roy McHugh, Al Oliver, Richie Hebner, Howard Fineman, Ramiro Martínez; Martínez’s tape-recording of speeches, July 24, 1970;
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press,
July 23–25, 1970.

11: EL DÍA MÁS GRANDE

In Baltimore on the eve
:
Ints. Vera Clemente, Carolyn Rauch.

“I’m never sorry”
: San Francisco Chronicle, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, New York Times,
October 5–9, 1971.

“Anger, for Roberto Clemente”
:
Roy McHugh,
Pittsburgh Press,
October 15, 1971; int. Roy McHugh.

Russo and Youse returned
: Baltimore Sun,
October 9, 1971.

Game 1, on the Saturday afternoon
:
Game account drawn from ints. Steve Blass, Al Oliver, Richie Hebner, Nellie Briles, José Pagán, Roy McHugh, Joe L. Brown, Tony Bartirome, Harding Peterson, Earl Weaver, Paul Blair, Vera Clemente;
Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, New York Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Press, Chicago Tribune,
October 10, 1971.

No bad clams at the restaurant
:
Ints. Vera Clemente, Carolyn Rauch.

“I had the ball and he was sliding”
:
Int. Richie Hebner.

the baseball writers had all quit
:
David Condon,
Chicago Tribune,
Arthur Daley,
New York Times,
Jim Murray,
Los Angeles Times,
October 11–12, 1971.

Clemente could not sleep
:
Ints. Vera Clemente, Steve Blass.

“look what we got”
:
Ints. Tony Bartirome, Steve Blass.

Cuellar hurried his throw
:
Int. Earl Weaver.

“Guess I missed a sign”
: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, New York Times, Baltimore Sun,
October 13, 1971.

It only lasted an inning
:
The best account of the all-black Pirate lineup is by Bruce Markesun, a researcher at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, on the
baseballguru.com
Web site.

Rice called it foul
:
Int. Don Leppert;
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, New York Times,
October 14, 1971.

The fans could not see it
:
Int. Nellie Briles;
Pittsburgh Press, Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Chronicle,
October 15, 1971.

“The rest of us were just players”
:
Int. Steve Blass.

The prince was a pip
: Newsday, New York Times, New York Daily News, Pittsburgh Press, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times,
October 15, 1971.

Clemente could not have performed better
:
Ints. Earl Weaver, Paul Blair, Roy McHugh, Tony Bartirome, José Pagán;
Baltimore Sun, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
October 16, 1971.

As the taxi hurtled north
:
Ken Nigro,
Baltimore Sun,
October 17, 1971.

Blass was even more effective
:
Ints. Steve Blass, Earl Weaver, Richie Hebner, Nellie Briles, Les Banos, José Pagán, Joe L. Brown, Tony Bartirome;
Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Chicago Tribune, New York Times,
October 17, 1971.

“En el día más grande”
:
Ramiro Martínez tape collection. (In two closets in his condominium in the San Juan suburbs, Martínez maintains the world’s largest archive of audio and videotapes of Clemente. Many of them were recorded by Martínez in his capacity as a radio
announcer. He was a Zelig-like character who seemed to always be at Clemente’s side whenever something important was happening.)

At the White House
: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Baltimore Sun;
Nixon tapes, National Archives at College Park. Nixon-Rogers exchange uncovered and transcribed by James C. Warren of the
Chicago Tribune,
a leading expert on the voluminous Nixon tapes.

Three days later, on the afternoon of October 20
:
Ramiro Martínez archive;
New York Times,
October 21, 1971; Roger Kahn; ints. Stuart Speiser, Vera Clemente.

12: TIP OF THE CAP

Momen was a fanatic about crabs
:
Int. Roberto Clemente Jr.