A model of this story was initially revealed on Feb. 19, 2022.
Think about Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente in the identical outfield for the Giants.
Now think about you’re the 1954 Dodgers imagining Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente in the identical outfield for the Giants.
The Dodgers-Giants rivalry is legendary for its lengthy and wealthy lore, however a little-known chapter in that story offers us one of many extra intriguing “what if” situations in baseball historical past.
Clemente is thought to be one of many best proper fielders of all time, a Corridor of Famer who had precisely 3,000 hits and racked up 12 Gold Glove Awards earlier than his tragic demise in an airplane accident on Dec. 31, 1972. His Main League accomplishments got here in a Pirates uniform, however it wasn’t with that group that his skilled baseball journey started.
In early 1954, after seeing Clemente play within the Puerto Rican Winter League, a number of Main League groups had been displaying curiosity, together with the Braves, Purple Sox, Cardinals and Giants.
With the rival Giants clearly pursuing Clemente, the Dodgers outbid them with a suggestion of $10,000 as a signing bonus and a $5,000 first-year wage. The Braves reportedly supplied way more, however Clemente wished to play in New York as a result of he had household and mates there. So he signed with Brooklyn on Feb. 19, 1954.
The Dodgers — the group of Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese and Don Newcombe, which might win the World Sequence the very subsequent yr — had Roberto Clemente.
However they wouldn’t have him for lengthy.
Again then, there was a rule governing signing bonuses of $6,000 or higher (about $63,000 right this moment) — if a membership signed a participant for a bonus at or above that threshold, he needed to spend two calendar years on the group’s Main League roster from the date of signing, in any other case he could be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft.
Clemente wasn’t protected against the Rule 5 Draft as a result of he was promptly assigned to Triple-A Montreal. The 19-year-old solely performed in 87 video games for the Royals of the Worldwide League in 1954, hitting .257/.286/.372 with two dwelling runs in 155 plate appearances.
In keeping with a 1962 article in The Sporting Information, Clemente felt he was being “hidden” from the broader baseball world out of concern that if he performed effectively, he could be taken by one other membership within the Rule 5 Draft.
“Clemente, alternatively, felt — and nonetheless does — that the Royals saved him out of the common lineup so huge league groups would suppose him a weak prospect and ignore him within the postseason draft for which he’d be out there as a bonus participant if he weren’t elevated to the Brooklyn roster,” wrote the creator of the article, Howard Cohn.
Dodgers basic supervisor Buzzie Bavasi mentioned signing Clemente within the first place was a matter of preserving him away from the Giants, although he reportedly gave a number of causes for Clemente’s task to Triple-A over time.
The person who was within the GM’s chair for the Pirates on the time of the 1954 Rule 5 Draft (Pittsburgh had the primary decide after ending an MLB-worst 53-101) was none aside from Department Rickey.
Rickey had been the Dodgers’ GM from 1942-50, famously signing Jackie Robinson in 1945 earlier than Robinson broke baseball’s colour barrier two years later. Rickey and Dodgers proprietor Walter O’Malley had a falling out, which led to Rickey’s departure from Brooklyn. Now, although Rickey initially wasn’t all that impressed with Clemente, he swiped him from his former membership.
In his 1955 scouting report, Rickey wrote that whereas he had been informed Clemente had nice velocity, Clemente’s “working kind is dangerous, positively dangerous, and primarily based upon what I noticed tonight, he has solely a bit above-average Main League working velocity.”
Nonetheless, there have been some simple strengths in Clemente’s recreation that Rickey famous as effectively.
“He has an exquisite throwing arm,” Rickey wrote. “He throws the ball down and it actually goes locations … his kind on the plate is ideal … I’d not class him, nonetheless, as even a potential dwelling run hitter.”
Total, Rickey’s evaluation of Clemente was that whereas he may finally turn out to be a productive Main League participant, that will be years away.
“I don’t consider he can probably do a Main League membership any good in 1955,” Rickey wrote in his report. “So, we’re caught with him — caught certainly, till such time as he can actually assist a Main League membership.”
No matter Rickey considered Clemente’s skills the primary time he noticed him, one thing he informed the Pittsburgh Press about two weeks after drafting Clemente proved prescient:
“We could have a sleeper in Roberto Clemente, whom we drafted from Montreal.”
Clemente didn’t hit his stride till 1960, when he earned the primary of 12 All-Star choices over the remaining 13 seasons of his profession. He gained 12 straight Gold Glove Awards from 1961-72, and was a .317/.359/.475 hitter with 240 dwelling runs in an 18-year profession with Pittsburgh. He helped the Pirates win the World Sequence in 1960 and ’71, taking dwelling World Sequence MVP honors after the Bucs defeated the Orioles within the ’71 Fall Basic.
All of that may be traced again to Nov. 22, 1954, when Rickey and the Pirates drafted Clemente away from the Dodgers for $4,000 (the quantity required to be paid to the group from which a “bonus” participant was drafted).
Historical past could have turned out fairly in a different way if the Dodgers had positioned Clemente on their huge league roster in 1954. It would even have turned out in a different way if Brooklyn hadn’t allowed Clemente to play winter ball in his native Puerto Rico that offseason, the place he was sensational after the underwhelming efficiency for Montreal.
Nonetheless one other dimension of how issues might need been totally different lies with the Giants — if that they had upped their supply, Clemente’s identify could have been on a roster with Mays’.
Mays and Clemente in the identical outfield is enjoyable to consider. Nevertheless it isn’t a purely theoretical train as a result of it truly occurred, simply not with the Giants. When Rickey was taking notes for his scouting report, Clemente was enjoying left discipline for the Cangrejeros de Santurce within the Puerto Rican Winter League, and the person in heart was Mays.
Collectively, they mixed for seven hits, together with a pair of triples from Clemente, in an 11-3 victory over Panama for the Caribbean Sequence championship on Feb. 14, 1955.
Clemente made his MLB debut two months later in opposition to the group that misplaced him the yr earlier than. His first huge league hit, an infield single, got here in his first plate look in opposition to the Dodgers at Forbes Subject on April 17, 1955. It was the primary of 395 hits Clemente would acquire in opposition to the Dodgers in his profession. His .345 batting common in opposition to them is the very best he posted in opposition to any membership in his profession.
Maybe a baseball govt who watched the Dodgers lose Clemente put it finest on the day of the 1954 Rule 5 Draft:
“I feel the Brooklyn membership outsmarted itself within the child,” White Sox GM Frank Lane informed the Related Press. “It by no means ought to have let him play winter ball. That’s the place he attracted all the eye.”
