Roberto Clemente 1967 NL Batting-Title Silver Bat

A silver bat for the best hitter in the league

The award behind this trophy began with the company that made Louisville Slugger bats. In 1934 it started the John A. 'Bud' Hillerich Award, named for the founder of the bat company, and gave it to minor league batting champions. The prize was a sheepskin certificate and a silver Louisville Slugger bat.

In 1949 the award moved up to the majors, going to the batting champion of each league. The first two winners were Jackie Robinson of Brooklyn, who hit .342, and George Kell of Detroit, who hit .343. Starting in 1969 the bat came mounted on a wooden plaque, so a 1967 bat belongs to the era of the freestanding silver bat. The bat maker kept presenting the award until 2015, when the Louisville Slugger brand passed to Wilson Sporting Goods.

Clemente's 1967 bat is solid sterling silver and weighs 55.6 troy ounces, about 3.8 pounds. That is more than twice the weight of the standard wooden Louisville Slugger it copies, which weighs about 1.6 pounds.

The season: .357

Clemente was 32 when the 1967 season opened, the reigning National League MVP after a 1966 season with 29 home runs and 119 RBI. In 1967 he did something different: he hit for average like never before. In 147 games he batted .357 with 209 hits, 26 doubles, 10 triples, 23 home runs, 110 RBI and 103 runs scored, with a .400 on-base percentage and a .554 slugging percentage.

The .357 average was the best of his career and led the National League. It was his fourth batting title, and his third in four seasons after 1964 (.339) and 1965 (.329); he had won his first in 1961 at .351. In the American League, Carl Yastrzemski won the 1967 silver bat at .326 on his way to the Triple Crown.

The Pirates themselves went nowhere. They finished 81-81, 20 and a half games behind the pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals, and manager Harry Walker was fired on July 18 and replaced by Danny Murtaugh. The team still led the league with a .277 batting average, with Matty Alou hitting .338 alongside Clemente.

An auction specialist who sold the bat called 1967, statistically, Clemente's finest year as a hitter, which is why this one of his four silver bats is the most valued.

The man behind the trophy

Clemente was born August 18, 1934, in Carolina, Puerto Rico, and spent his entire 18-season major league career with the Pirates. He finished with exactly 3,000 hits, a .317 career average, 240 home runs, 12 Gold Gloves, 15 All-Star selections and the 1971 World Series MVP award.

His 3,000th hit, a fourth-inning double off Jon Matlack of the New York Mets on September 30, 1972, was his last regular-season hit. Three months later, on December 31, 1972, he boarded a Douglas DC-7 cargo plane loaded with relief supplies for victims of the December 23 earthquake in Managua, Nicaragua. The plane crashed into the ocean off Isla Verde, Puerto Rico. His body was never recovered.

The Hall of Fame waived its five-year waiting period, and on March 20, 1973, he was elected in a special election with 393 of 424 votes, the first Latino and Caribbean player enshrined. Major League Baseball renamed its award for a player's contributions on and off the field the Roberto Clemente Award.

Clemente married Vera Cristina Zabala, and they had three sons: Roberto Jr., Luis Roberto and Roberto Enrique.

From the family home to Miami

For decades after Clemente's death, his trophies, uniforms and rings stayed with his family inside their house in Puerto Rico. In May 2017 the family announced that hundreds of items from the collection would be sold during All-Star week in Miami that July. Vera Clemente said in a statement that the family was 'very pleased to share some of our treasured memorabilia with the great fans of the game,' and the auctioneer said the sale would have a charitable component.

Roberto Clemente Jr. framed it as something his father would have approved of. 'These are items he himself would have given away,' he said. 'Anything material for him was material.' The family kept the most personal pieces, including a Father's Day card on which Clemente had written a poem.

About 300 Clemente items went under the hammer on Tuesday, July 11, 2017, at the All-Star FanFest live auction in Miami Beach, and together brought more than $3 million. The 1967 silver bat was the top lot. It hammered at $420,000 and sold for $493,500 with the buyer's premium, breaking the record of $313,500 that Mickey Mantle's 1956 American League silver bat had held. (One report gives the Mantle bat's earlier price as $270,000 in 2003.) The buyer was not named.

The same sale placed his 1964 silver bat at $305,500, his 1960 World Series home uniform at $411,250, his 1971 World Series ring at $381,875, his 1960 World Series ring at $352,500 and eight of his 12 Gold Gloves at $640,375 combined.

One of four, and the one that matters most

Clemente won four silver bats, for 1961, 1964, 1965 and 1967. By 2017 the family still kept one and another was already in private hands; the 1964 and 1967 bats were the two sold in Miami. The 1964 bat came back to market at auction in August 2023.

Each bat is tied to a specific season and league by its award inscription, and the 1967 bat's provenance is as clean as memorabilia gets: it passed straight from the player's family to the 2017 auction, with no dealers or collectors in between.

The family sale also gave the market a rare look at value per achievement. The 1964 batting title (.339) brought $305,500. The 1967 title (.357), his best average, brought $188,000 more.

Legacy

Clemente's playing salary never topped $150,000, and his career earnings over 18 seasons were well under $1 million. A single silver trophy from one of those seasons sold for nearly half a million dollars, a measure of how his standing has grown since his death.

The Pirates retired his No. 21 on April 6, 1973. He received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1973 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003, and Major League Baseball has marked Roberto Clemente Day every September since 2002.

As Roberto Jr. said after the sale, the auction was a way to give back to the fans who had supported the family for more than 40 years.

The numbers

1967 season

147 G, 585 AB, 103 R, 209 H, 26 2B, 10 3B, 23 HR, 110 RBI

1967 rate stats

.357 BA (led NL), .400 OBP, .554 SLG, .954 OPS

1967 runner-up league

AL silver bat: Carl Yastrzemski, .326

Batting titles

1961 (.351), 1964 (.339), 1965 (.329), 1967 (.357)

1967 Pirates

81-81, 20.5 games behind St. Louis; team BA .277 led NL

Career

3,000 H, 240 HR, 1,305 RBI, .317 BA; 12 Gold Gloves, 15 All-Star selections

Timeline

1. 1934

   The bat maker starts the John A. 'Bud' Hillerich Award, a silver bat for minor league batting champions.

2. Aug 18, 1934

   Roberto Clemente is born in Carolina, Puerto Rico.

3. 1949

   The silver bat award expands to major league batting champions; Jackie Robinson and George Kell are the first winners.

4. 1961

   Clemente wins his first National League batting title, at .351.

5. 1964

   Second batting title, at .339.

6. 1965

   Third batting title, at .329.

7. 1966

   Clemente is named National League MVP.

8. 1967

   Clemente hits .357 with 209 hits, the best average of his career, and wins this silver bat for his fourth batting title.

9. Sep 30, 1972

   Clemente doubles off Jon Matlack for his 3,000th hit.

10. Dec 31, 1972

    Clemente dies when a relief plane bound for Nicaragua crashes off Puerto Rico.

11. Mar 20, 1973

    Clemente is elected to the Hall of Fame in a special election.

12. Apr 6, 1973

    The Pirates retire his No. 21.

13. May 2017

    The Clemente family announces it will sell hundreds of items from its collection during All-Star week in Miami.

14. Jul 11, 2017

    The 1967 silver bat sells for $493,500 in Miami Beach, a record for a batting-title silver bat.

15. Aug 2023

    Clemente's 1964 silver bat, also sold in 2017, returns to market at auction.

The world in 1967

• Jan 15, 1967

  The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in Super Bowl I in Los Angeles.

• Jan 27, 1967

  Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee die in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire.

• Jun 12, 1967

  The Supreme Court strikes down state bans on interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia.

• Jun 16, 1967

  The Monterey Pop Festival opens in California.

• Jul 23, 1967

  The Detroit riot begins; 43 people die.

• Aug 30, 1967

  Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Supreme Court justice.

• Oct 12, 1967

  The St. Louis Cardinals beat Carl Yastrzemski's Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the World Series.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Roberto Clemente 1967 NL Batting-Title Silver Bat is number 89 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (89 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The silver bat weighs about 3.8 pounds, more than twice as much as the wooden bat it imitates.
• Clemente's best batting average came the year after his MVP season, not during it.
• His 3,000th hit was his last regular-season hit; he died three months later.
• The family auction also sold the Dodge Charger Clemente received as 1971 World Series MVP.
• Clemente's 1967 bat outsold his 1964 bat by $188,000 in the same auction.
• Starting in 1969, the silver bat came mounted on a wooden plaque; Clemente's 1967 bat predates that change.