Quite the one-two punch
Still two months shy of making his major league debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente teams up 71 years ago tonight with a young New York Giant named Willie Mays for a pair of home runs to lead the Santurce Crabbers of Puerto Rico over Magallanes of Venezuela 4-2 during the 1955 Caribbean World Series in Caracas.
The game lasts 10-plus innings before Mays – with Clemente already on base after a single – launches a 385-foot, walk-off home run over the wall in left-center to end the two hour and 25-minute marathon at 12:03 a.m.
Roberto Clemente (21) and his teammates await a leaping Willie Mays after his game-winning homer 71 years ago today
Clemente and Mays bat second and third in Puerto Rico’s lineup 71 years ago tonight, following leadoff hitter Don Zimmer.
Yes, that Don Zimmer, who really is quite the solid ballplayer long before becoming an oft-criticized major league manager and, ultimately, a beloved bench coach and cultural icon with the New York Yankees.
The Crabbers’ lineup for this game also includes two future National League All-Stars in first baseman George Crowe and starting pitcher Sam Jones.
Santurce eventually wins the four-team, round-robin tournament that pays $650 to each of the winning players representing Puerto Rico.
The tournament MVP, though, is neither Clemente nor Mays, but Zimmer as the then-Brooklyn Dodgers infielder goes 10-for-26 for a .385 batting average with two doubles, three homers and four runs batted in.
Santurce’s Willie Mays, left, and Roberto Clemente
Not bad for six games.
Over the same span, Clemente and Mays combine to hit .353 with three homers and 12 RBIs. Also, not too bad.
At the time, Clemente is 20, Mays 23 and Zimmer 24.
Also on the Santurce team is Orlando Cepeda, the future Hall of Famer who happens to be the Crabbers’ 17-year-old batboy.
“When Santurce arrived in Caracas, they asked me what I was doing there,” Puerto Rico manager Herman Franks later tells author Thomas Van Hyning.
“They said, we (Santurce) didn’t have a chance to win as Almendares from Cuba would take it all. I told them the only reason I brought this (Santurce) team there was for them to see Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente.”
The rest of the baseball world would see Mays and Clemente for most of the next 20 years as the future Hall of Fame outfielders compete against each other in the National League through the end of Clemente's career in 1972.
The two meet a final time after Clemente records his 3,000th and final career hit in a game against the New York Mets.
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