DID YOU KNOW?

BY STEVE ZIANTS

T
he Clemente Wall: 13 feet high?
It could have been had a
rookie outfielder named Earl
Smith hit the first month of the 1955 sea-
son as hed hit in spring training. That
year opened with Smith wearing No.
21 and fellow rookie Roberto Clemente
wearing 13.
How the numerology of Pirates histo-
ry might have been different had Smith
displayed any of the form that helped
him hit 32 homers and drive in 195 runs
the season before for Phoenix in the
Arizona-Texas League.
But Smith went 1 for 16 with no runs
batted in in his first five games. The
Pirates started 2-11. On May 3, general
manager Branch Rickey sent Smith to
the minor leagues from where he never
returned. Soon thereafter, Clemente
switched to 21, the number he bore all
the way to Cooperstown and a spot in
the eternal fabric of the franchise.
On such insignificant transactions
does history often turn.
After 129 seasons, 10,000 games, five
ballparks and more than a half-dozen
generations of Pirates fans, back stories
such as Smith/Clemente hide every-
where in plain sight. We walk past them
and in some cases over them every day.
We see them without seeing them. Sea-
sons pass and we forget we even knew
them. But they endure, just below the
surface and just beyond the itch of cu-
riosity.
Today, we scratch.

Josh Harrison at the Clemente Wall.

PHOTO: PETER DIANA PITTSBURGH PIRATES 2016 79