History of the World Series – 1971
History of the World Series – 1971
More than talk, though, Clemente went out and fiercely displayed his vast array of skills. Maybe someday his critics would wake up to the fact that he could run, hit, field and throw as well as anyone and better than most. By the end of the 1971 World Series, Roberto Clemente would attain some measure of the respect he had been seeking.
Clemente and the Pirates had earned their way into the ’71 Series by winning the NL East crown by seven games and then beating the San Francisco Giants, three games to one, in the Championship Series. Amazingly, the Baltimore Orioles had pulled off their third successive Championship Series sweep — this time the up-and-coming Oakland A’s were the victims — after topping the 100-victory mark for the third straight year.
The’71 Orioles had become the second club in modern major-league history (the 1920 Chicago White Sox were the other) to boast four 20-game winners, with Dave McNally, Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson reaching the coveted figure. And Baltimore Manager Earl Weaver would start those four pitchers against Dock Ellis, Bob Johnson, Steve Bless and Luke Walker in the first four games of the Series. Ellis had been the Pirates’ big winner with 19 victories and Blass won 15 times. Walker had won only 10 games, while Johnson compiled a losing record (9-10). Advantage, Baltimore, clearly.
At least that’s the way it looked on paper. But after four games, the 1971 Series was deadlocked. In the Series opener at Baltimore, McNally was roughed up for three second-inning runs, but the lefthander settled down and didn’t allow a hit after the third inning. Baltimore, getting a three-run homer from Merv Rettenmund and solo blasts from Frank Robinson and Don Buford, posted a 5-3 victory. Clemente collected two of the three hits off McNally.
Palmer followed with an 11-3 triumph in Game 2, a contest in which Baltimore prospered from a popgun attack. The Orioles banged out 14 hits, all singles, with Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson each notching three hits and Brooks reaching base five consecutive times (he walked twice). Richie Hebner accounted for all of the Pirates’ scoring when he clubbed a two-on homer in the eighth. Besides Hebner’s blast, the only other extra-base hit of the day was a double by Clemente, who, for the second straight game, was the only Pittsburgh player with two hits.
The Series then shifted to Pittsburgh, and the Pirates shifted into high gear. Blass tossed a three-hitter in Game 3 and Bob Robertson whacked a three-run homer as Danny Murtaugh’s team beat Cuellar and company, 5-1. In Game 4, the first night game in Series history, Baltimore drove Walker from the mound in a three-run first, but a pair of 21-year-olds rallied the Pirates. Bruce Kison relieved Walker two outs into the first inning and threw 6 1/3 innings of one-hit, scoreless ball, and Milt May stroked a tie-breaking pinch single in the seventh as Pittsburgh tied the Series with a 4-3 triumph. Clemente went 3 for 4.
Nelson Briles, who made only 14 starts for the Pirates in ’71 and recorded just four complete games, went out and fired a two-hitter in Game 5 as Baltimore fell, 4-0. Briles helped his own cause with a run-scoring single.
Having rebounded in this Series by sweeping the Orioles in Pittsburgh, the Pirates would need to win once in Baltimore to be fall-classic champions. Clemente helped steer the Bucs in that direction with a bases-empty home run in Game 6, but that contest evolved into a 2-2 standoff after nine innings. Then, in the 10th, Baltimore’s Frank Robinson — playing the game in the all-out manner that was his specialty — walked, dared to take third on Rettenmund’s dribbler up the middle, and scored the game-winning run on Brooks Robinson’s shallow fly to center field.
Game 7 pitted Blass against Cuellar, and the climactic contest was 0-0 with two out in the Pittsburgh fourth. Clemente then drilled a Cuellar pitch over the wall in left-center. In the eighth, the Pirates made it 2-0 as Willie Stargell singled and Jose Pagan doubled him home. The Orioles then put runners on second and third with one out in the last half of the inning, but managed only an RBI grounder by Buford. Blass went on to record a 1-2-3 ninth, and the Pittsburgh Pirates were 2-1 winners and World Series champions.
Blass had pitched two complete games, allowing only one run in each, and deserved of all the accolades tossed his way. Kison and Briles had made major mound contributions, catcher Manny Sanguillen had hit .379 and first baseman Robertson had belted two homers and knocked in five runs.
The spotlight, though, shone brightly on Roberto Clemente, No shadows here. He basked in the glow of a .414 batting performance (12 hits in 29 at-bats) while playing on his second Series title team. As in the 1960 classic, Clemente had hit safely in each game. That’s right, with the conclusion of the 1971 World Series, Roberto Walker Clemente had appeared in 14 Series games and hit safely in every single one of them.
There wasn’t much more Clemente could do on the diamond; he had shown ’em, once and for all. Nor was there much time left for Clemente to accomplish more (although he did collect big-league career hit No. 3,000 late in the 1972 season). Fourteen and a half months after the 1971 World Series, he died in a plane crash off the coast of his native Puerto Rico as he attempted to take food, clothing and medical supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.