Copyright © 2017 John F. Oyler
May 11, 2017
The Roberto Clemente
Museum
The Bridgeville Area Historical Society program meeting for
April was a presentation on the Roberto Clemente Museum by Vince Mariotti.
Located in the rehabilitated Pittsburgh Fire Department Engine House 25, in
Lawrenceville, the museum houses “the world’s largest exhibited collection of
baseball artifacts, works of art, literature, photographs, memorabilia, and
related materials which focus on Roberto Clemente, his teammates, his personal
life, and his humanitarian causes.”
The engine house was originally acquired by Duane Rieder and
renovated for his use as a photographic studio. When the Pirates hosted the
1994 All-Star Game at Three Rivers Stadium, they decided to sponsor a special
exhibit honoring Clemente. Mr. Rieder visited the Clemente family in Puerto
Rico and was able to borrow an impressive collection of artifacts and
memorabilia for the exhibit.
In 2006 the Pirates hosted the All-Star Game in their newly
completed PNC Park home. As part of the festivities Commissioner Bud Selig
presented the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award to Clemente’s widow,
Vera, who had come to Pittsburgh for the ceremony, accompanied by her three
sons. Rieder’s reunion with the Clemente family led to the decision to
establish a museum in Pittsburgh in honor of Clemente’s baseball and
humanitarian careers.
The speaker began by recounting the strange story of how the
Pirates acquired the twenty year old Clemente in the 1954 rookie draft. He had
been heavily scouted by the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and Milwaukee
Braves as a youthful “phenom” in his native Puerto Rico. Brooklyn signed him as
a “bonus baby”, a player whose signing was for an amount greater than the
permitted $6,000 (Clemente’s bonus was $4,000), realizing this obligated them
to keeping him on the major league roster for two years or run the risk of
losing him in the rookie draft.
The ’54 Dodger roster was full of outstanding players, none
of whom they were willing to sacrifice for an unproven rookie, so they sent him
to Montreal in the hope that no one would recognize his potential. Pirate
pitching coach scouted the Montreal Royals that summer, in an effort to
evaluate another Dodger prospect, Joe Black. While there he observed Clemente’s
skills throwing and batting in practice and wondered why he wasn’t playing in
regular games.
Sukeforth advised Montreal manager Max Macon that he
suspected subterfuge and told him the Pirates would surely use their first pick
in the upcoming rookie draft to select Clemente. Once that news was out, the
Royals inserted him in their lineup and his immediate success ensured his
forthcoming transfer to the Pirates.
The Pirates did indeed draft him that Fall and had no
difficulty finding a room for him on their major league roster. He played well
enough in 1955 to earn a starting position in the lineup of a mediocre team. By
1960 he had begun to display his potential and the Pirate team had improved
enough to earn a spot in the World Series against the New York Yankees. The
story of their classic “underdog beats favorite” performance, capped by Bill
Mazeroski’s dramatic ninth inning home run is well known to all local sports
fans.
According to the speaker those early years in Pittsburgh
were difficult for Clemente. He did not interface well with the local media
personnel, partly because of his aloof personality and his broken English,
which they ridiculed. The Pirate roster was full of fan favorites –
All-American boys like Dick Groat, Vernon Law, Bob Friend, and Mazeroski; folk
hero types like Smoky Burgess and Bob Skinner; and outright oddballs like Dick
Stuart and Rocky Nelson.
Following the World Series win, Clemente was reported as
being resentful of the fan adulation received by Mazeroski and Groat. The next
year he won the first of four batting titles and began his remarkable streak of
twelve straight years winning a Gold Glove, in recognition of being the best
fielding right fielder in the league.
Mr. Mariotti related an example of Clemente’s difficulties
with the press. He supposedly asked veteran sports writer Joe Tronzo if he was
the best right fielder Tronzo had seen. Tronzo replied, “Of course not, you are
the third best.” When asked who the first two were, the writer replied, “Paul
Waner, sober; and Paul Waner, dead drunk”.
That story rang a bell with me. Long after Waner had retired
from the major leagues, he played sandlot ball with Dormont in the Greater
Pittsburgh League. I have his autograph which I acquired after watching him
play in an exhibition game in Bridgeville. And my recollection was that he was
indeed inebriated in that game. Casey Stengel is reported to have claimed that
Waner was the best base runner he had ever seen. “He can slide into second base
without breaking the pint whiskey bottle in his back pocket!”
Through the 1960s Clemente’s performance day in and day out
was outstanding, both at bat and in the field. He continued to have problems
with Pirate management regarding his salary. His total reimbursement for
eighteen years of stardom was less than three quarters of a million dollars. Of
course he was not alone in this situation; fellow Pirate Elroy Face had to work
as a carpenter in the off season to make ends meet.
The speaker exemplified Clemente’s pride in his talent by
recounting an incident from the filming of the movie “The Odd Couple”. A key
episode in the film required the Pirates to hit into a “5-4-3” triple play
against Oscar Madison’s favorite team, the New York Mets. Clemente was selected
to be the batter, but each time they filmed the play his pride did not permit
him to run slow enough to be thrown out at first. Eventually he was replaced as
the batter by Bill Mazeroski.
The climax of Clemente’s career was his remarkable
performance in the 1971 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles. Someone
commented that the films of that Series looked very much like a Roberto
Clemente highlight reel. The next year he thrilled his fans by getting his 3000th
hit, a distinction achieved by only eleven players before him. One of the
eleven was Paul Waner.
Late in December 1972 the capital of Nicaragua, Managua, was
devastated by a severe earthquake. Clemente immediately began organizing
emergency relief aid flights. When the first three flights were diverted to
allegedly corrupt governmental officials, he decided to accompany the fourth
one and ensure the supplies got to the needy people. He chartered a Douglas
DC-7, which had a questionable maintenance history and an equally questionable
flight crew. The plane was overloaded by 4200 pounds and barely was able to
take off. Ten minutes later it crashed violently into the ocean, killing
everyone aboard.
Clemente’s best friend, Orlando Cepeda; his Pirate team-mate
and protégé. Manny Sanguillen; and Caribbean League team-mate Tom Walker all
had offered to make the trip with him, but had other commitments that spared
them his fate. Walker, of course, is the father of ex-Pirate second baseman
Neil Walker.
The next Spring the Baseball Writers’ Association of America
held a special election to posthumously elect Clemente into the Baseball Hall
of Fame, waiving the mandatory five year waiting period due to the circumstances
of his death. The only other player to receive such a waiver was Lou Gehrig.
The May program meeting for the Historical Society will
feature Dr. Carelton Young, discussing the subject of his book “Voices from the
Attic – the Williamstown Boys in the Civil War”. The meeting will be held at
7:30 pm, Tuesday, May 30, 2017, in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville
Volunteer Fire Department, on Commercial Street.
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