Roberto Clemente Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

The 100 grand right fielder revealed that Danny Murtaugh once fined him $650 when he did not run after hitting a ball to the shortstop. He never explained how Murtaugh reached the $650 figure. "I hit the ball and I slip at home plate and they fine me $650. First time up I hit a homer one-handed. I just limped around the bases."

Roberto Clemente
You know, Nellie, when I was young I would run on fly balls hit to the outfield. I'd go around second base and I suddenly realize the ball is going to be caught. Sometimes I would run across the infield and never re-touch second base. Sometimes the umpires wouldn't notice if the players wouldn't. I didn't know how to run the bases well the first couple of years.

Roberto Clemente
There was no use for me to say yes because I am not a politician. Say, for example, I was elected and a situation came up where I was told I had to compromise. I could never do that; I can't compromise.

Roberto Clemente
I carried this rubber ball with me all the time. I squeezed it to strengthen my fingers and wrists and my friend and I would walk to and from school throwing the rubber ball back and forth. Many times at night, I laid in the bed and threw the ball against the ceiling and caught it. Baseball was my whole life. I would forget to eat because of baseball and one time my mother wanted to punish me. She started to burn my bat, but I got it out of the fire and saved it. Many times today she tells me how wrong she was and how right I was to want to play baseball. I bought my parents their home in Puerto Rico and gave them possessions they never thought they'd ever see. All from baseball.

Roberto Clemente
You know, when the season is over a lot of guys go home and eat peanuts and drink beer and they show up in spring training with a big belly. I will go home and start working on my body right away. My right shoulder is not the way it is supposed to be. I'm not going to wait until spring training and hope it is all right. I will work on it when I get home.

Roberto Clemente
Quien Soy? (Who Am I?) I am a small point in the eye of the full moon.
I only need one ray of the sun to warm my face.
I need only one breeze from the Alisios to refresh my soul.
What else can I ask if I know that my sons love really love me?.

Roberto Clemente
I like to see Maury in Pittsburgh uniform much better than watching him steal bases when I stand helpless in right field.

Roberto Clemente
I believe I can hit with anybody in baseball. Maybe I can't hit with the power of a Mays or a Frank Robinson or a Hank Aaron, but I can hit. As long as I play in Forbes Field, I can't go for home runs. Line drives, yes, but not home runs.

Roberto Clemente
Good public relations. When I was a rookie in 1955, I was lonesome and had no place to go. So I didn't mind staying to sign autographs. I have found people treat you like you treat them.

Roberto Clemente
If I had not won the MVP, I would not have been mad, because Sandy Koufax was a great pitcher and he deserved it. Besides, I know I would have been close and not snubbed like I was in 1960. And I tell you one thing. I didn't win the MVP alone. I couldn't win it without having a good team, without men getting on base an without us winning. I was sad because we didn't win the pennant. But I thought the MVP was something the ball club could be proud of because it gave our whole team recognition.

Roberto Clemente
I listened to the San Juan games on the radio and my idol was Monte Irvin, because he not only was a good hitter but had a very good arm. Even my friends called me Monte Irvin as a nickname. I never thought I'd be good enough to play pro ball. I always felt you had to be like Superman to play professionally. But in 1952, at age 17, I signed a contract with Santurce. My bonus? It was $500 and one glove. They also paid me $30 a week. Two years later – when I was 19 – there were eight or nine big league teams after me and I signed with the Dodgers for a $10,000 bonus. This was a big day in my life.

Roberto Clemente
I was too aggressive. I should not have been so foolish. I am a craftsman in baseball. I look like rookie.

Roberto Clemente
"I hit it good and thought it was going over the wall when it left my bat," he observed. Clemente also said this is the fifth time he has hit a ball that was within inches of clearing the fence at the 436-foot sign—two against the Dodgers and two against the Braves.

Roberto Clemente
I know more about Virdon than any other player because we're so close in the outfield and I think it would be a big mistake to trade him. Virdon is an underrated outfielder. I know. He doesn't get the headlines because he makes everything look so easy. He would be a hard man to replace. Many times I look up on a tough chance and there's Virdon near me in case something goes wrong. He is always backing me up on the one side and Bob Skinner on the other. If you don't want to take my word for it how valuable Virdon is, ask some of our pitchers. Virdon has kept quite a few in the big leagues with his fielding. That's how good he is.

Roberto Clemente
I was not trying to be smart when I did that. I was trying to tell them that they could do whatever they want. The fans of Pittsburgh have cheered me a lot through the years. There's always a first time for booing. But I don't say to hell with the fans because of this. I am not swinging the bat the way I should. It is just one of those things. I am not the way I should be. I do not feel sure when I swing. I am trying to adjust so that I will swing well even though my shoulder still hurts. If a player doesn't try hard, he deserves to be booed. I try hard. Maybe I was booed today because I have not played that bad before.

Roberto Clemente
I'm a better fielder than anyone you can name. I have great respect for Mays, but I can go get the ball like Willie and I have a better arm.

Roberto Clemente
My greatest satisfaction comes from helping to erase the old opinion about Latin American and black ballplayers. People had the wrong opinion. They never questioned our ability but they considered us inferior in our station of life. Simply because many of us were poor, we were thought to be low class. Even our integrity was questioned. I don't blame the fans for that; I blame the writers. They made it look like we were something different entirely from the white players. We're not. We're the same.

Roberto Clemente
How you blame Bragan for what we do? He no hit for us, no run for us, no peetch for us, no feeld for us. Bes manager I efer play for.

Roberto Clemente
Although still hitting the ball hard, Clemente claims he won't be at his best until he plays in mid-summer weather. "I no play so gut yet," he tried to explain recently. "Me like hot weather, veree hot. I no run fast cold weather. No get warm in cold. No get warm, no play gut. You see." Clemente likes Forbes Field because of the spacious playing area in right field but has developed a strong dislike for Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds since he can't fathom the way the balls ricochet off the walls there.

Roberto Clemente
Why you think I play this game? I play to win. Competition is the thing. I want to play on a winning team. I don't want to play for sixth place. I like to play for all the marbles, where every game means something. I like to play for real, not for fun.

Roberto Clemente
I've had two lives: the first one when I was born in Puerto Rico in 1935 [sic] and the second when I came to Pittsburgh to play baseball in 1955. I have been very lucky and I feel gifted to be able to play well.

Roberto Clemente
Clemente had his left shoulder treated by his friend, Arturo Garcia, in San Juan. "There is some tissue in my shoulder that is flat and it should be round," Clemente said. "That man (Garcia) has helped me. He helped my right shoulder last year. I have great faith in that man."

Roberto Clemente
I have had two lives: when I was born in Puerto Rico in 1935 [sic] and when I came to play baseball in Pittsburgh in 1955. I have two loves: my family – my mother, my father and my wife and three sons – and my fans.

Roberto Clemente
In Canada they no have much segregation. But one day I am signing autographs and talking to white man and his wife outside park, and this other man say, "You not supposed to talk to white woman." I say, "No, I talk to the one I want. I talk to my friends. You believe in that stuff if you want. I don't do it."

Roberto Clemente
Last year when I hurt my shoulder, I couldn't hit high pitches, but they kept throwing me low and away, and I could hit that pitch without much pain. "Look, he gets three hits, but he says he's in pain," they say, but they don't know that I can't go for the high pitch, and I'm not about to tell them!

Roberto Clemente
It was a much bigger thrill to play on a winning team in 1960 than for me to win the batting title in 1961 when we finished sixth. When you're with a bad team, you don't have the incentive to keep going. Winning is such fun.

Roberto Clemente
I jus' try to sacrifice myself, so I get runner to third. If I do, I feel good. But I get heet and Willie scores, and I feel better than good. [...] What makes me feel most good is that the skipper let me play the whole game. I think maybe he take me out after a few innings for Aaron but no, he pay me big compliment. I stay in game and that gave me confidence. I think I don't let him down, no?

Roberto Clemente
"If they are hurt, they are hurt and should not be expected to play," said the Pirates' super star, who last week in Philadelphia said he would not play in the All-Star game because of a painful neck injury. Detroit's Al Kaline and Dick McAuliffe, and Boston's Rico Petrocelli requested to be left off the All-Star team because of injuries. [...] Clemente said the pain in his neck has eased following treatment at the Logan College Chripractic Center in St. Louis last weekend. "If I still felt like I did a week ago in St. Louis, I would not be here tonight."

Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente aches. That's a good sign. "It has to happen," says the MVP. "If it doesn't, that means you're not working hard enough. [...] I play when I ache. Sometimes I tell somebody I ache. I'm not complaining. I'm just telling 'em how I feel."

Roberto Clemente
I won't play ball in the winter. I gonna rest. If the pain is still there, I won't come back to spring training. I don't want to play the way I play now. I can't do nothing. That's like I steal money from the club.

Roberto Clemente