Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss Page A

“twenty-four reasons why Ralph Kiner was useless to the Pittsburgh Pirates.” Within a year, Kiner was a Cub. And with his sharp-eyed talent men, scout Haak and coach Sukeforth, Rickey pluckedyoung players from other clubs, none more important, in the long run, than the twenty-year-old outfielder, Roberto Clemente.
    In the mythology that later enveloped the Clemente story, there is a commonly recounted scene of Rickey blessing him at the dawn of his career. It supposedly took place in the winter league in Puerto Rico in 1953. According to the story, first told by San Juan sportswriters and repeated through the years, Rickey caught sight of Clemente at a Santurce game, was stunned by his skills, called him over to talk, asked him a few questions, and ended the conversation by telling the young man to find a girl and settle down to the business of baseball because he was destined to be a superstar. But Rickey was an inveterate memo-keeper; his dictated observations and handwritten notes were typed out by his personal secretary, Ken Blackburn, after virtually every game that he attended. And the documents point to another less-glowing account.
    With aide-de-camp Blackburn at his side, Rickey flew south in January 1955 for a scouting swing through Cuba and Puerto Rico (which in Blackburn’s transcriptions was often spelled the way Rickey said it, Puerto Rica ). In Cuba, on January 18 and 19, Rickey watched two games between Havana and Cienfuegos. His notes show that he was impressed with young players in the St. Louis Cardinals chain, especially Don Blasingame (“ . . . a pest at the plate. He should become a good base on balls man, and his power is ample. He is no puny in any respect.”) and Ken Boyer. (“I saw the best ballplayer on first impression that I have seen in many a day. Boyer by name . . . Never loafs. Has big hands and knows what to do with them . . . He is a line drive hitter deluxe. The newspapermen down here are raving about the outfielder Bill Virdon, saying, in effect, unanimously, that Virdon is the greatest player ever to be in Cuba etc. etc. I will take Boyer.”) With those three players coming up, Rickey concluded, all the Cardinals needed was a top-flight pitcher to contend against the Dodgers, Giants, and Braves.
    The next week he was in San Juan, taking in a game at Sixto Escobar between Santurce and Ponce.He kept his own scorecard and dictated his game notes to Blackburn, though he complained that he was “disturbed by dignitaries so much during the game” that his notes were not as sharp as normal. “The Ponce team is managed by Joe Schultz Jr. and Santurce by Herman Franks—both really two kids whocame up with me,” Rickey began his Memorandum of Game. Schultz and Franks were both old catchers who had played for the Cardinals. “I have had interviews with both boys, and Schultz is to have breakfast with me in the morning.”
    Then, one by one, Rickey analyzed all the players he had seen on both teams. His comments on the Cangrejeros were often blistering. Luis Olmo, he observed, “pinch hit for Lopez and looked lazy, overweight, indifferent, helpless.” (It is well to remember that Rickey and Olmo had a falling out back in the mid-forties, when Olmo, insulted by Rickey’s salary offer after his best season with the Dodgers, bolted to an upstart Mexican League.) Willie Mays did not play that day, resting for the winter league playoffs, which were to begin in a few days. Rickey’s most in-depth assessment was done on the young man who moved over from left to center, Roberto Clemente. He must have begged dignitaries away whenever Clemente was in action.
    Two months earlier, the Pirates had made Clemente the first overall selection in the Rule 5 draft. He was Pittsburgh property, and bound by rule to stay with the big club in 1955. From the content of Rickey’s notes,it appears that this was the first time he had seen Clemente play. The language does not correspond to the legend