Outfielder Quotes

I was a pitcher, shortstop and outfielder, and the Yankees tried to sign me out of high school as a first-round draft pick in 1981. I turned them down to go to college. (Bo Jackson)

I always could hit, but fielding I had to work at. I took as much pride in fielding as hitting. I became a complete ballplayer. I knew when to take the extra base. I knew about the outfielder hitting the cutoff man. I knew when and how to bunt. I knew when to hit-and-run.

George Kell

I never thought about being a writer as I grew up. A writer wasn't something I wanted to be. An outfielder was something to be. Most of what I know about style I learned from Roberto Clemente.

John Sayles

I know more about Virdon than any other player because we're so close in the outfield and I think it would be a big mistake to trade him. Virdon is an underrated outfielder. I know. He doesn't get the headlines because he makes everything look so easy. He would be a hard man to replace. Many times I look up on a tough chance and there's Virdon near me in case something goes wrong. He is always backing me up on the one side and Bob Skinner on the other. If you don't want to take my word for it how valuable Virdon is, ask some of our pitchers. Virdon has kept quite a few in the big leagues with his fielding. That's how good he is.

Roberto Clemente

The phrase 'off with the crack of the bat', while romantic, is really meaningless, since the outfielder should be in motion long before he hears the sound of the ball meeting the bat.

Joe DiMaggio

Bavasi thought he would be a star. Whatever O'Malley thought of Clemente's talent, however, did not matter as much as the matter of his color. He made it clear to Bavasi that bringing Clemente to Brooklyn would be a problem – less for the fans, he explained, than for the players, who might think that too many black men were taking jobs. Bavasi suggested they put the question to one of the players – Jackie Robinson. Bavasi explained the situation to Robinson, who asked who the team would trade or sell to make room to bring Clemente up to the Dodgers. Bavasi thought George Shuba, a white player, would be the one to go. Shuba was an outfielder, a good, though not in Bavasi's estimation, great player. He was, however, a popular one. Dropping him to bring up Clemente, who might not even be ready to start, Robinson suggested, would not be wise – to bring up Clemente now, he advised Bavasi, would set back by five years the effort to truly integrate the game.

Roberto Clemente

"O'Malley said flatly that winter he didn't want any more colored players on the team. It was complicated, but it was a combination of what he thought the fans would accept, what he thought the team could handle and the fact that he got heat from some of his partners who worried that the more integrated the Dodgers became, the more pressure they felt to hire blacks in their own businesses." Bavasi said that Jackie Robinson himself expressed misgivings about Clemente. [...] In the case of Clemente, Bavasi said that Robinson was concerned that if the Dodgers activated him, he would take the roster position of George "Shotgun" Shuba – a journeyman outfielder and pinch-hitter who was popular, white, and once Robinson's 1946 teammate on the Montreal Royals.

Roberto Clemente

I think the way Clemente played – running out every hit and running recklessly into the wall – he realized he needed some time off and he took it. So many times I saw him catch balls that went into the gap and he'd personally keep the other guy from getting that extra base. For a pitcher, that was something that was really appreciated. An average outfielder many times will give up the extra base. Often that's the difference between winning and losing. At Forbes Field, we had one of the toughest right fields to play in baseball. Clemente could play the ball off that cement wall. Clemente would cut off the ball before it could get to the wall; he'd keep it from being a triple – he'd hold it to a single.”.

Roberto Clemente

He is a thinking outfielder. Some guys go to a particular spot for a particular hitter and stay there. Clemente doesn't. He adjusts to the situation each time a guy comes to the plate and then readjusts with the count. You'd be surprised how many outfielders don't.

Roberto Clemente

He played his best baseball when we played the Giants. He tried to outdo Willie Mays, and he did many times. He worked at being a great outfielder, just like Virdon worked at it to become the great center fielder he became.

Roberto Clemente

Dick Stuart, who hit an estimated 500-foot homer over the left field scoreboard in Pittsburgh, has a rival in Roberto Clemente. The Puerto Rican outfielder of the Pirates made the Cubs sit up and take notice when he drilled a homer off southpaw Bill Henry in Chicago in the May 17 nightcap that left Wrigley Field via the left-center corner of the bleachers. Wrigley Field observers rated it at probably 500 feet. Rogers Hornsby, the Cubs batting coach, said it was the longest he ever witnessed and [manager] Bob Scheffing agreed it was No. 1 in his book. (Roberto Clemente)

The key play was one that might have been forgotten in the frenetic scrambling of runs. With men on second and third in the sixth and the score 5-5, Willie Mays smashed a searing low line drive into right field that seemed destined to leave the park. But the amazing Roberto Clemente leaped, glove above the railing, crashed into the wire fence and came down with the ball, as 6,028 fans first groaned in anger, then stood to applaud as fine and brave a catch as an outfielder can make.

Roberto Clemente