After the Illowa APBA League weekend, I went to commish Mike Bunch’s house and we were browsing through his extensive APBA baseball set collection. I ran across this sweet 1970 Roberto Clemente card from the division-winning Pittsburgh Pirates.
As usual, Clemente had a good mix of extra base hits with 22 doubles, 10 triples and 14 doubles. Clemente had a .407 OBP showing that with age, comes patience. The three years that Roberto had a .400-plus OBP were after he turned 32 years old.
At 455 plate appearances, Clemente didn’t quite qualify for the batting title. If he had, his .352 mark would have come in second. Only Rico Carty’s .366 had a batting average above .325 that year. Clemente was an All-Star and won the Gold Glove. Despite not being a qualifier, he was among the vote-getters for the NL MVP.
| Split | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 Totals | 108 | 455 | 412 | 65 | 145 | 22 | 10 | 14 | 60 | 3 | 38 | 66 | .352 | .407 | .556 |
Clemente has some really tasty numbers on his card! Any Fast OF-3 with power numbers 1-3-4-6 is handy in the lineup. Look at his hit numbers though! He has a 15-7!
If that wasn’t enough, Clemente’s bat control warrants three 31s. His third 31 is at 21. It’s your call if you want to hit and run with this card. Slightly related, he has no 24s with a 41-28.
Check it out! The 1970 set was the one when the 12 was on 23 before it was cool.
Roberto Clemente’s nickname is listed as “Bob”. Rightly so, as that is what the media apparently called him to his dismay. This snippet is from Don Drooker of SABR:
As a youngster collecting baseball cards, I remember that Clemente’s early cards in the 50’s always listed him as “Roberto”. Later, after he became a star, the Topps Company issued many cards that “Americanized” his name to “Bob”. Even writers and broadcasters seemed to think that this reference (and even “Bobby”) was appropriate despite the fact that it was always was a point of contention with Clemente. Imagine what would happen today if someone referred to Pedro Martinez as “Pete”.
Read Roberto, not Bob if you like.
Thanks for letting me browse through your APBA cards, Mike!!
that is quite a card but i like the ’61 card that came in the ofas set even better. very similar hit #s but swap out the 3 for a 5 for a 1-4-5-6 look. it does have 2 x 24s compared to the 28 but that extra 25-7 is a killer.