Roberto Clemente takes his first stab at 436 – Floyd Patterson style. His batting practice blast, one hop off the bricks of Forbes Field’s rarely-surmounted right centerfield barrier, comes one day after Roberto attended the Patterson-Ingemar Johansson heavyweight title rematch which ended in a 5th-round KO of the previously victorious Swede. Clemente “calls” his shot, claiming he’ll emulate Patterson’s bout-ending blow. As recounted by Larry Klein in Sport Magazine: “Clemente picked up a bat and walked toward the batting cage for his practice swings [and] said, ‘Watch me. I hit one like Floyd Patterson.’ He sat himself deep in the batter’s box, uncoiled and lined the first pitch to deep center field. The ball hit the 436-foot mark on one bounce.”

On June 21, 1960 Roberto Clemente takes his first stab at 436 – Floyd Patterson style. His batting practice blast, one hop off the bricks of Forbes Field’s rarely-surmounted right centerfield barrier, comes one day after Roberto attended the Patterson-Ingemar Johansson heavyweight title rematch which ended in a 5th-round KO of the previously victorious Swede. Clemente “calls” his shot, claiming he’ll emulate Patterson’s bout-ending blow. As recounted by Larry Klein in Sport Magazine: “Clemente picked up a bat and walked toward the batting cage for his practice swings [and] said, ‘Watch me. I hit one like Floyd Patterson.’ He sat himself deep in the batter’s box, uncoiled and lined the first pitch to deep center field. The ball hit the 436-foot mark on one bounce.”