I don't like Clemente
 

I don't understand it. He is always one of the last cards I need in my sets and I hate paying big bucks for him. I don't have anything against him really. I simply never connected with him. I collected in the 70s and am 50yo now and never saw Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle play but I love both of them and their cards. Why not Clemente? I have tried to connect with Roberto lately and found out he played in the Brooklyn minors, so he could have been a Dodger, which is cool because I'm a Brooklyn collector. Anything you guys can do to help me appreciate him more would be great.

Scott

This is not the best quality video, but if you have 22 minutes this might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APaxP5e0Lqg

Thank you. That video is great and seems almost tailor made for people like me. It helped a lot and my respect for him is now off the charts. Until now, I never made the connection that he probably inspired the SNL "Base-a ball bean berry berry good to me" skits, which seems almost mean in retrospect and after watching that video.

Clemente is my all-time favorite player, so I'm biased. There are great highlight reels of him but if you can find a real-time telecast from when he played (like here, Game 7 of the 1971 World Series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zBhRvQIqW0 ) and just watch the way he carried himself doing routine things -- walking to the plate, craning his neck, adjusting his helmet -- he truly had a bearing like royalty. Watch the interview at the end of the game around the 2:07:00 mark where he is at the most triumphant moment of his life with a bunch of microphones in front of him and speaks in Spanish to his parents back before multiculturalism was fashionable. He had Hall of Fame stats but was also, truly, a presence who transcended baseball.

Watching it now. I'll let you know who wins. :)
Thanks
Scott

You're welcome, and I have to say thanks for starting the thread. It prompted me to watch that video again, as I hadn't seen it in many years. It just rekindled the respect I had for the man.

"It's not just a death, it's a hero's death. A lot of athletes do wonderful things, but they don't die doing them." -- Steve Blass, former teammate

"Everybody knew Clemente the ball player, but the way he died was for people to know the man. He had to die like that for all the world to know what kind of man he was." -- Osvaldo Gil, friend

Thanks for sharing that. I had no idea Roberto had to put up with what he did.

Clemente has been popular in the hobby forever and a day. He's part of the top four or five players value-wise in the postwar sets for sure.

and, little recognized, second most popular to collect in all of sports (only behind Mantle), when using the PSA registry as the data source

Man, as boring as it was (probably because I already knew the outcome?), watching that 1971 Game 7 was still a trip!! Thanks for posting the link.

A few things immediately stood out:
1. Everyone was so frickin' skinny (save the Boog).
2. The game flew by as the pitchers didn't waste even a second of time. They just got down to business inning after inning.
3. There were no mentions of pitch counts, MPH or anything along those lines.
4. The ball was kept in play, no matter how many times it touched the ground, was fouled off or was hit fair. These days, if a speck of dust gets on a ball, it is immediately thrown out of play.
5. Don't think I saw a single batting glove. And there were no protective pads and not a single piece of bling.
6. Everyone wore stirrup socks and their baseball cap beneath their batting helmet.
7. No ads all over the wall behind the batter.
8. The field was run down, with grooves notched into the outfield ground. Nothing even remotely close to the perfectly manicured, thick grassed stadiums of today.

I loved it, because that's the baseball I grew up watching!!!! (Although Brooksie's weird little helmet brim has always, and will always, disturb me.)

And, the only voices you heard were the caller, the color guy, and the very infrequent supplemental bits from the dugout guy with the giant-antennae headset and his notecards; nothing like the giant cast of network talking heads that would fill up the air on a modern national telecast of Game 7 status.

Some consolation was that by the end there was more respect. So for example in the '71 series GM 7 vid, the Baltimore fans, though down a run in the final inning, openly cheered Clemente when he came to the plate then, seemingly acknowledging he was hitting above .400 against them in the series and deserved the appreciation...

Here's an even longer tribute/documentary; interviews with cepeda, groat, stargell, alomar, d. martinez, his wife/kids, bunch of others...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cANDQ8_92Bw

Every time I watch the '71 Series I think the O's should have won. The Pirates beat the Orioles in '71 and the '79 Series, but I still pull for them to this day (in the NL of course). Hate the "Miricle Mets" though...

Darren that batting helmet was "COOL"!

This is a great thread. My first vintage card was given to me by my dad. It was a 1959 Topps. It's hard for me to remember a time when Roberto wasn't woven into the fabric of my love of baseball. He was a remarkable person. A US Marine. And a spectacular ball player.


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When I loaded that video I thought for sure that it had to be a digest or edited. How are they going to get that game done in 2 hours? If I could get in and out of a game in 2 hours on average I would watch so much more baseball! What happened?

BTW, I like Clemente now. :D

I had many of the same reactions! That's also the baseball I grew up watching, but until I watched in real time I didn't appreciate how much has changed -- especially the pace.

Agree. Surprising I did not know that. What a great human being for the things he represented.

Clemente
 

Pick up a copy of David Maraniss bio, "Clemente." You will get a better appreciation for the BS he had to put up with.

There's a moving being made currently call "The Great One". Supposed to be released in 2018.


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Clemente is most comparable to Vladimir Guerrero. Very similar lifetime stats and also Vlad had a great arm. My understanding is Clemente was a bad ball hitter as well.

I think that's a bit like comparing Renoir to Steve Ditko.

Kapow!


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Guerrero
AB- 8155, H- 2590, HR- 449, RBI- 1496, Avg- .318 Slg- .553, OPS- .931

Clemente
AB- 9454, H- 3000, HR- 240, RBI- 1305, Avg- .317 Slg- .475, OPS- .834

Such comparisons should be accompanied with the note that Vlad never had to try to get one out of Forbes Field.

I'm a big fan of both!


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I don't think you understand. Clemente cannot be reduced to numbers. Jackie Robinson is baseball's conscience and Roberto Clemente is baseball's patron saint. Nonetheless, how many batting titles did Guerrro win, how many Gold Gloves? I'm asking because I really don't know and I assume based on your research you must know. Don't get me wrong. I love Vlad he is deserving of the HOF. However comparing him to Clemente is simply unfair to Vlad and the great career he had. He is no Clemente.

He also ignored defense and Clemente's greatest asset, his arm. Clemente had 266 assists, Guerrero 126.

Guerrero had a monster arm. Not as many assists is because guys didn't run on him. He was a little sloppier in the field but not a slouch at all.

As far as the homers, Vlad had about twice as many. Montreal was not really a hitters paradise either.

No where did I say that Vlad was more integral to the game. I'm saying he was a very similar player. Both had similar skill sets. I mentioned Vlad because it puts into context a similar player. The poster wanted to know what to like about Clemente. Imagine Vlad. That pretty much is close.

Clemente was my all-time favorite, as I've mentioned before. I was a Vlad fan because he reminded me of Clemente a little -- mainly as a bad-ball hitter and strong-armed outfielder. I kind of agree with JTysver's point -- but I was surprised to see that baseball-reference.com does not consider them very similar.

According to baseball-reference.com, the players most statistically similar to Guerrero are: Miguel Cabrera, Jeff Bagwell, Larry Walker, Jim Rice, Willie Stargell, Billy Williams, Todd Helton, Duke Snider, Andres Galarraga and Carlos Delgado.

The players most similar to Clemente are: Zack Wheat, Vada Pinson, Goose Goslin, Al Oliver, Enos Slaughter, Tony Gwynn, Paul Waner, Johnny Damon, Steve Finley, Dave Parker.

No one ran on Clemente and he still had more assists than any modern outfielder. He was that good.

they may be similar offensively, but clemente really laps him in defense according to all these sites. clemente about 2x vlad in career WAR.

I am a contemporary of the OP. Clemente died the year before I really started paying attention to baseball, so I never got to see him play. I also don't like paying up for Clemente cards, but I understand why I do, same as Jackie Robinson.

There are a few guys where you simply cannot separate the career from the man and assess only the statistics. Very few people in any walk of life can be described as heroic; Clemente was one of them. I don't think it is too far of a stretch to say that if you could have a son and pick a ballplayer for him to emulate as a man you'd not do better than Roberto Clemente. That's why he is deified by fans and priced so highly by collectors.

He was just a great guy. I will always pay for Clemente because he's someone worth paying for. I haven't heard a single bad story about. He also bridged an important gap between American baseball and Latin players that hadn't been crossed before him. He is still a God in Puerto Rico.

''Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth.''

I can honestly say this thread has greatly increased my appreciation of Mr. Clemente as an image on cardboard, a player, and a human. While I won't do it, I want to edit the title of this post to (at least) "I don't dislike Clemente". :)


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As an 8-9 year old in 1970-71 I can honestly saw Clemente was my favorite player. There was something really awe inspiring in watching him play.

Clemente's mystique as a ballplayer (much like JFK's mystique as a president...) is somewhat related to the fact that he died an untimely death. Sorry, but it's true. If Clemente were still alive today, I believe that he would be celebrated much like an Aaron or a Mays, but I don't think he would be the #2 PSA registry collected player. Fantastic ballplayer and humanitarian. One of those that would make my top ten list of players I never saw play but wish I had the opportunity to.