Every biography of the legendary ballster Roberto Clemente echoes the theory that he didn't get his fair shake with the Montreal Royals when he played here in 
1954. The idea was either that the Dodger organization knew of his massive talents and didn't want another team to pluck him from their system in the post season draft.
The other theory has it that the Dodgers already hit their unofficial limit of five black guys on their big league team so there was no reason to cultivate another. So Roberto rode a lot of Montreal minor league pine, going in for defensive purposes and doing a lot of pinch running while playing on a decent team led by hurler Tommy Lasorda. On July 22 Clemente blasted his first dinger, a game winner and he was suddenly in the headlines. He went on a tear after that but still had trouble cracking the starting lineup which had some pretty hot hitters in the outfield (Thomson, Cassini and Cimoli, all 300 hitters). The Pittsburgh Pirates obtained him at the end of that season, starting a great 18 year career with that club before dying on a humanitarian effort to earthquake-shattered Nicaragua.
He was perhaps the best all around talent to ever play. He was great at every aspect of the game, and one of those "pure" players who just loved being alive and able to play baseball.Good man too.
ReplyDeleteRoberto was heading to Nicaragua, not Guatemala, when he died far too early.
ReplyDeleteOf course, noted Montreal comic Mitch Michaels once told the Hall of Fame's Jeff Idelson that he had seen Roberto play "2 years ago", which would have been about 25 years after Roberto had passed away...dream on, Mitch, dream on.
a wonderful part of our history of shame.
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