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4/20/1955: Felipe Montemayor of the Pirates hit a three-run home run (which would have been his first major league homer) off Giants pitcher Ruben Gomez in the bottom of the third inning. The game was rained out in the top of the fourth inning with Pittsburgh leading 3-0.

ByTom

4/20/1955: Felipe Montemayor of the Pirates hit a three-run home run (which would have been his first major league homer) off Giants pitcher Ruben Gomez in the bottom of the third inning. The game was rained out in the top of the fourth inning with Pittsburgh leading 3-0.

Roberto Clemente’s first major league home run – a 440- to 450-foot inside-the-parker off Giants southpaw Don Liddle – arrives three games into his big league career and it’s just his luck that it occurs in the one stadium that, due to its freakish configuration, could possibly have contained this blast, namely the Polo Grounds, that semi-rectangular oddity wherein 279- and 257-foot foul lines coexist with 455- and 449-foot power alleys. This first New York visit also has a deeper significance for Clemente since, in his third major league game, he’s playing on the same field with both his new mentor and role model, Willie Mays (alongside whom he was playing just two months earlier in Santurce), and his boyhood hero, Monte Irvin, whose winter ball career Clemente monitored religiously in the late 1940s and who, in the interim, has himself become both a teammate and something of a mentor to Mays.

Roberto Clemente’s first major league home run – a 440- to 450-foot inside-the-parker off Giants southpaw Don Liddle – arrives three games into his big league career and it’s just his luck that it occurs in the one stadium that, due to its freakish configuration, could possibly have contained this blast, namely the Polo Grounds, that semi-rectangular oddity wherein 279- and 257-foot foul lines coexist with 455- and 449-foot power alleys. This first New York visit also has a deeper significance for Clemente since, in his third major league game, he’s playing on the same field with both his new mentor and role model, Willie Mays (alongside whom he was playing just two months earlier in Santurce), and his boyhood hero, Monte Irvin, whose winter ball career Clemente monitored religiously in the late 1940s and who, in the interim, has himself become both a teammate and something of a mentor to Mays.

ByBaseball

Roberto Clemente’s first major league home run – a 440- to 450-foot inside-the-parker off Giants southpaw Don Liddle – arrives three games into his big league career and it’s just his luck that it occurs in the one stadium that, due to its freakish configuration, could possibly have contained this blast, namely the Polo Grounds, that semi-rectangular oddity wherein 279- and 257-foot foul lines coexist with 455- and 449-foot power alleys. This first New York visit also has a deeper significance for Clemente since, in his third major league game, he’s playing on the same field with both his new mentor and role model, Willie Mays (alongside whom he was playing just two months earlier in Santurce), and his boyhood hero, Monte Irvin, whose winter ball career Clemente monitored religiously in the late 1940s and who, in the interim, has himself become both a teammate and something of a mentor to Mays.

Roberto Clemente Debut

Roberto Clemente makes his major league debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates

ByThis Day in Baseball

On April 17, 1955, At Forbes Field, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 20-year-old rookie Roberto Clemente makes his major league debut, playing both ends of a doubleheader, ironically but perhaps fittingly, against the Brooklyn Dodgers, the team that first signed him but left him unprotected in the 1954 Rule V draft. In his first at-bat, the future Hall of Famer rifles one back through the originator, Johnny Podres, and…

Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers hits three home runs in Briggs Stadium, including a pair in the 6th inning, to drive in six runs. The Tigers rout the A’s, 16 – 0, behind Steve Gromek’s strong pitching.

ByBaseball

Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers hits three home runs in Briggs Stadium, including a pair in the 6th inning, to drive in six runs. The Tigers rout the A’s, 16 – 0, behind Steve Gromek’s strong pitching.

Southpaw Harry Truman throws out the first ball for the Athletics after their move from Philadelphia to Kansas City

Southpaw Harry Truman throws out the first ball for the Athletics after their move from Philadelphia to Kansas City

ByTom

Southpaw Harry Truman throws out the first ball for the Athletics after their move from Philadelphia to Kansas City April 12,1955. Managers are Lou Boudreau and Bucky Harris for the Tigers and Connie Mack sitting a couple of rows back.

Pinch-hitting for Warren Spahn, Chuck Tanner, who becomes better known for his managerial skills, hits a home run for the Braves on the first pitch of his first major league at-bat. The 26 year-old outfielder’s eighth-inning round-tripper off Gerry Staley ties the score in Milwaukee’s eventual 4-2 victory over Cincinnati at County Stadium.

ByTom

Pinch-hitting for Warren Spahn, Chuck Tanner, who becomes better known for his managerial skills, hits a home run for the Braves on the first pitch of his first major league at-bat. The 26 year-old outfielder’s eighth-inning round-tripper off Gerry Staley ties the score in Milwaukee’s eventual 4-2 victory over Cincinnati at County Stadium.

160-something pound rookie Roberto Clemente flashes some of his under-publicized power in the form of a triple, “425 feet to the fence in center,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jack Hernon. In the process, Clemente hits a laser to the deepest part of the ballpark in the Pirates’ spring training home, Terry Park, in Fort Myers, FL, in the 3rd inning of an exhibition game against the Chicago White Sox. However, as Pittsburgh Press writer Les Biederman recounts, (Clemente) “then was an easy out at the plate when he tried to stretch the drive into an inside-the-park homer.”

160-something pound rookie Roberto Clemente flashes some of his under-publicized power in the form of a triple, “425 feet to the fence in center,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jack Hernon. In the process, Clemente hits a laser to the deepest part of the ballpark in the Pirates’ spring training home, Terry Park, in Fort Myers, FL, in the 3rd inning of an exhibition game against the Chicago White Sox. However, as Pittsburgh Press writer Les Biederman recounts, (Clemente) “then was an easy out at the plate when he tried to stretch the drive into an inside-the-park homer.”

ByTom

1955 – 160-something pound rookie Roberto Clemente flashes some of his under-publicized power in the form of a triple, “425 feet to the fence in center,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jack Hernon. In the process, Clemente hits a laser to the deepest part of the ballpark in the Pirates’ spring training home, Terry Park, in Fort Myers, FL, in the 3rd inning of an exhibition game against the Chicago White Sox. However, as Pittsburgh Press writer Les Biederman recounts, (Clemente) “then was an easy out at the plate when he tried to stretch the drive into an inside-the-park homer.”