Pittsburgh Pirates: Andrew McCutchen Next Up in Right Field For Pirates
Roberto Clemente
- With Pirates from 1955 to 1972
- .317/.359/.475, 2433 G, 10211 PA, 130 OPS+ (with Pirates)
As good as Paul Waner was, there is one right fielder who played for the Pirates who was better—Roberto Clemente. Clemente and Waner are seventh and eighth for right fielders in FanGraphs WAR. Clemente wasn’t quite the hitter that Waner was, but he made up for it with his excellence in the field.
Certain names come up when longtime baseball fans talk about the greatest outfield throwing arms in baseball. Current players with strong arms include Yoenis Cespedes and Aaron Hicks. When Ichiro Suzuki came over from Japan in 2001, he made waves with laser beam throws from right field. Future Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero had a powerful arm that wasn’t always the most accurate. Dual-sport athlete Bo Jackson once threw out Harold Reynolds at the plate with a throw that traveled from deep left field to the catcher on the fly, and Reynolds was running on the pitch. Jackson, Vlad, Ichiro, and Cespedes appear in this video collection of great throws in MLB history:
In the 1980s, Jesse Barfield hit home runs and made strong throws. One great outfield arm of the 1970s belonged to Pittsburgh right fielder Dave Parker. His predecessor on the Pirates was Roberto Clemente, who may have had the best arm of them all. He showed off his arm in the 1971 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles.
Clemente was recognized for his fielding prowess with 12 consecutive Gold Glove Awards from 1961 to 1972. Of course, he could also hit. He led the NL in batting average four times and hits twice. His .317 career average is sixth in Pittsburgh Pirates history for players with 5,000 or more plate appearances and the players above him all played in eras more conducive to hitting then Clemente.
As good as Clemente was on the field, he was an even better person off it. He played in the major leagues in a time when the game was still getting used to dark-skinned Latin American players. Clemente was proud and could come across as angry and had a contentious relationship with the press early in his career.
One Pittsburgh reporter, Phil Musick, said of Clemente, “He was anything but perfect. He was vain, occasionally arrogant, often intolerant, unforgiving, and there were moments when I thought for sure he’d cornered the market on self-pity. Mostly, he acted as if the world had just declared all-out war on Roberto Clemente, when in fact it lavished him with an affection few men ever know.”
Musick also said, “I know that through all of his battles . . . there was about him an undeniable charisma. Perhaps that was his true essence—he won so much of your attention and affection that you demanded of him what no man can give, perfection.” Clemente’s brilliance on the field and strong personality in the clubhouse made him the team leader in the 1960s and he held that role through the end of his career, even as young Willie Stargell moved into the spotlight in the early 1970s.
Clemente’s final season was 1972. He picked up his 3,000th hit on September 30. It would be the last regular season hit of his career. A few months later Clemente died in a plane accident as he was trying to get supplies to victims of a massive earthquake in Managua, Nicaragua.
An award that had originally been named the Commissioner’s Award was renamed the Roberto Clemente Award in 1973 in honor of the off-the-field humanitarian acts of Clemente. The award is given annually to the MLB player who “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement, and the individual’s contribution to the team.” Two Pittsburgh Pirates players have won the award—Willie Stargell in 1974 and Andrew McCutchen in 2015.