Thursday Trivia: The Great One’s last game
Roberto Clemente’s 3,000th career hit on Sept. 30, 1972
In one of the last shining moments of his Hall of Fame career, Roberto Clemente – the Great One of the Pittsburgh Pirates – doubles off the New York Mets’ Jon Matlack for his 3,000th and final regular-season hit.
That hit comes in the bottom of the fourth inning in the Pirates’ 5-0 victory over the Mets before a Saturday afternoon crowd of 13,117 on Sept. 30, 1972 at Three Rivers Stadium.
An inning later, future Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski pinch hits for Clemente, who never again bats in a regular-season game for the Pirates.
Which brings us to today’s installment of Thursday Trivia, and this question has nothing to do with Clemente’s milestone 3,000th hit.
Roberto Clemente during the 1972 NL playoffs
Instead, the question is what happens in the final plate appearance of Clemente’s magnificent 18-year major league career, a moment that comes against the Cincinnati Reds in the 1972 National League Championship Series?
We can wait for your answer.
And wait.
And then wait just a little longer until you come up with Clemente – of all things for such a free swinger – drawing an intentional walk from Reds relief pitcher Tom Hall in the top of eighth inning of the NLCS’s deciding fifth game in the best-of-5 series on Oct. 11, 1972.
Clemente never again comes to the plate in the game – or, for that matter, gets a chance to play in another World Series – as the Reds rally for two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win 4-3 before a Wednesday crowd of 41,877 at Riverfront Stadium.
Cincinnati’s Tom Hall
The intentional walk is only the second Clemente receives in 113 postseason plate appearances between the World Series in 1960 and Pittsburgh’s crushing Game 5 loss in the ’72 playoffs.
A couple of innings after that intentional walk, Clemente – from his customary spot in right field – watches the end of the game as pinch-runner George Foster easily scores from third base on a two-out wild pitch by Pirates’ reliever Bob Moose.
Earlier in the game, Clemente picks up the final hit of his career with a first-inning single to center field off Reds starter Don Gullett.
He later flies out to center off Gullett in the third inning before striking out looking against reliever Pedro Borbon to end the fifth.
Clemente’s final extra-base hit comes the day before as he homers off Ross Grimsley to lead off the seventh inning of Cincinnati’s 7-1 victory at Riverfront in Game 4 of the series.
The homer is the third that Clemente hits in his last two postseason series with the first two coming in Pittsburgh’s 1971 World Series victory over Baltimore.
Alas, the 38-year-old Clemente dies 82 days later in a New Year’s Eve plane accident while trying to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.