Old Aches & Pains

Anybody who has ever belted a hard-thrown baseball on a cold day -- ouch! -- has some idea why pitchers love the early spring, and how come there were all those one-hitters a little while ago. Ah, but the weather is warmer now, and so are the batters.

Last week 30 homers were hit around the majors in a single day. The New York Yankees' Mickey Mantle collected the 500th of his career, thereby becoming the sixth player in history to achieve the mark.* And Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates celebrated the approach of summer by driving in seven runs in one game against the Cincinnati Reds, with a double and three home runs. The luster of that feat was only somewhat dimmed by the fact that the Reds themselves pounded out 13 hits, including four doubles and a homer, and won the game 8-7.

Such disappointments are common in the life of Roberto Clemente, 32. In 1965 he won the National League batting championship with a .329 average, but he was not even elected to the league's All-Star team. In 1966 he hit -.317, clouted 29 homers, drove in 119 runs, and beat out Los Angeles Dodgers' Pitcher Sandy Koufax for the Most Valuable Player award -- but his team blew the pennant to the Dodgers in the last week of the season. All told, Clemente has three batting titles to his credit--but nobody has ever asked him to do a shaving-cream commercial. Last week was merely typical. There was Roberto leading the league in batting (at .395) in RBls (with 26) and basehits (with 45). Where were the Pirates? In third place, five games behind the Reds.

Trucks in the Street. Maybe that explains why Clemente is an insomniac who says: "Anything makes noise while I'm in bed, I hear it--a truck outside the hotel, a footstep in the hall." And that he is widely regarded as an unreconstructed hypochondriac, whose headaches, colds, cramps and nervous stomach come from worrying--about his headaches, colds, cramps and stomach. Even so, Roberto, says Pittsburgh Manager Harry Walker, "is just the best player in baseball, that's all."

Signed originally by the Dodgers in Puerto Rico in 1954, Clemente was farmed out to Montreal in the International League, where the Pirates picked him up for $4,000 in the annual minor-league draft. It was quite an investment. He possesses probably the strongest throwing arm of any outfielder in the business: from 420 ft. away, he has fired a perfect strike to the plate to catch a runner trying to score from third. Though he is only 5 ft. 11 in. and 185 Ibs., he can hit any pitch--good or bad, and with power, as Cincinnati Pitcher Milt Pappas found out on that extraordinary day last week.

When Pappas tried to waste an outside fastball, Clemente reached out and poked the ball 400 ft. over the right centerfield fence. Next time Roberto came up, Pappas threw him another fastball, but this time high and inside. Clemente leaned back and swatted it 400 ft. into the rightfield stands.

* Babe Ruth (714), Willie Mays (547), Jimmy Foxx (534), Ted Williams (521), Mel Ott (511).

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