Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.

The death of Roberto Clemente on December 31, 1972, caused shock waves across the globe. He was just a few months removed from being the 11th player, and the first Latin American, to record 3,000 hits in the major leagues. The 38-year-old right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates was on a humanitarian mission taking aid to the people of Nicaragua, who had recently been devastated by an earthquake.

Clemente’s sudden death felt incomprehensible. It was a jolt.

As a public figure, Clemente was larger than life. He was both man and myth and respected as each. The immediate aftermath of Clemente’s death saw an outpouring of responses. Words of condolence, political statements, and civilian acts of remembrance were ubiquitous and continued long after the memorial services that were held in Clemente’s hometown of Carolina, Puerto Rico, and in Pittsburgh.1

RESPONSE FROM POLITICAL LEADERS

The death of Clemente was both widely and quickly reported. Responses from politicians followed in kind.

Outgoing Puerto Rican Governor Luis A. Ferré issued a proclamation for three days of official national mourning for “the death of the great Puerto Rican, Roberto Clemente.”2 It was one of Ferré’s last official acts as governor.

The newly elected governor, Rafael Hernández Colón, who was sworn in on January 2, 1973, canceled all inauguration-related social activities but the state banquet.3 His inauguration, which would have typically enjoyed widespread celebration, was muted.

At the beginning of Hernández Colón’s inauguration ceremony, Puerto Rico’s secretary of state, Fernando Chardón, said: “We have with us today the spirit of a man, Roberto Clemente, who helped teach independentistas, statehooders and commonwealthers how to play good baseball and become better citizens.”4 He concluded by calling for a moment of silence from the crowd.

Hernández Colón, at the end of his address, acknowledged:

“In my greeting there is also my sympathy with Puerto Rico’s bereavement today on the death of our Roberto Clemente.… Our youth have lost an idol and an example. Our people have lost one of their glories. All our hearts are saddened by his tragic parting in a mission of aid to the victims of Nicaragua.”5

New York City Mayor John Lindsay gifted the newly inaugurated Governor Hernández Colón a plaque that read:

“There are many things that bind the eight million people of New York and the people of Puerto Rico together. None of them are more outstanding today than the grief felt over the loss of Roberto Clemente, an outstanding baseball player and humanitarian.”6

Pittsburgh Mayor Peter F. Flaherty on January 2 proclaimed Roberto Clemente Week. During this time of remembrance, a portrait of Clemente hung in the lobby of the City-County Building in downtown Pittsburgh.7

The White House issued the following statement by President Richard M. Nixon on January 2:

“Every sports fan admired and respected Roberto Clemente as one of the greatest baseball players of our time. In the tragedy of his untimely death, we are reminded that he deserved even greater respect and admiration for his splendid qualities as a generous and kind human being.

He sacrificed his life on a mission of mercy. The best memorial we can build to his memory is to contribute generously for the relief of those he was trying to help – the earthquake victims in Nicaragua.”8

In a White House ceremony in May, Clemente’s widow, Vera, accepted the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Nixon on behalf of her late husband. The medal recognizes “citizens of the United States of America who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens” (per Executive Order 11494; November 13, 1969).

Anastasio Somoza, the Nicaraguan dictator, whose acts of corruption against his own citizens had prompted Clemente’s own desire to travel to Nicaragua himself to ensure the delivery of resources to those who needed them the most, sent a cable expressing his condolences to the Clemente family. Somoza stated, “He died a hero, leaving his family in order to aid humanity.”9

RESPONSE FROM MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

After his death, Pirates players Manny Sanguillén, Bob Johnson, and Rennie Stennett, along with Governor Ferré traveled to Clemente’s hometown and offered their support to his family: Vera and the couple’s three young sons, Roberto Jr., Luis Roberto, and Roberto Enrique.10

One of Clemente’s closest teammates on the Pirates was Manny Sanguillén. Clemente had taken the young Sanguillén under his wing during his rookie season in 1967. Sanguillén was from Panama. He and Clemente had shared similar experiences, a kinship, both being from Latin America. The death of Clemente was especially hard for him.

Instead of attending Clemente’s funeral, he joined a search party that went looking for victims of the crash. Despite rough waters and no diving experience, Sanguillén felt compelled to look for Clemente. He went back to the beach several times in the weeks after the crash. As he noted later, “God sent [Clemente] so people would realize that Latinos were talented.”11

Of his efforts, Sanguillén lamented: “I [kept going back] to see if the ocean had brought him back.”12

Teammate Steve Blass noted Sanguillén’s efforts:

“It was so genuine, his reaction. We’re at the memorial, and he’s down at the beach, still not being able to tear himself away from the proximity, as close as he could get to where the tragedy happened.”13

At Clemente’s funeral in Puerto Rico, Blass concluded his eulogy by noting:

Let this be a silent token

Of lasting friendship’s gleam,

And all that we’ve left unspoken

– Your friends on the Pirate team.14

Blass added, “Roberto Clemente touched us all and we’re all better players and people for having known him. I think we all learned from him.”15

From his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, pitcher Tom Seaver commented that Clemente was “emotional, sincere, a compassionate type of person,” adding, “I could not believe what I heard on the radio, that he was gone. It was just chills, period. It’s a horrible loss, not only to his family and teammates but to all of us, especially the young players. I mean, you look up to Henry Aaron and Sandy Koufax and Roberto Clemente.”16

Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn commented: “Words seem futile in the face of this tragedy, nor can they possibly do justice to this unique man. Somehow, Roberto transcended superstardom. His marvelous playing skills rank him among the truly elite. And what a wonderfully good man he was. Always concerned about others. He had about him a touch of royalty.”17

Kuhn, like many others, saw Clemente as a gentleman, dignified in his actions and one who cared about others.

Pirates chairman of the board John Galbreath echoed a similar sentiment, commenting: “He was one of the greatest persons I knew. If you have to die, how better could your death be exemplified than by being on a mission of mercy? It was so typical of the man. Every time I was down there, someone was always saying how he contributed to the youth and needy of his island; how he was going to make that his life’s work. He did these things without fanfare or anything – just what he thought was right to help somebody else.”18

Clemente’s longtime manager with the Pirates, Danny Murtaugh, commented, “It was so typical that he’d meet his death in such a fashion – helping people less fortunate.… I thought Roberto was the greatest player I’ve ever seen.”19

With tears in his eyes, Willie Stargell said, “Pittsburgh lost a heck of a man.… Clemente’s work with the relief effort was typical. Roberto was always trying to help someone.”20

Around baseball, people similarly commented on Clemente’s athletic greatness. Oakland A’s manager Dick Williams said, “Clemente was the greatest player I have ever watched.” Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Jim Brewer said, “Clemente was a fantastic outfielder, the best hitter in the National League and someone who constantly gave everybody fits.”21

On January 2 Jack Lang, the secretary of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, noted that there was precedent for Clemente’s immediate enshrinement in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A waiver on the waiting period of enshrinement had been issued in 1939 for the ailing Lou Gehrig.22

Joe Heiling, the president of the BBWAA, commented: “We consider Clemente like Stan Musial and Sandy Koufax. He would have been elected and inducted in his first year as an eligible. So why wait.” Immediate plans were to set a meeting with Commissioner Kuhn and Paul Kerr, the president of the Baseball Hall of Fame, to decide how to move forward.23

Within a few months of his death, on March 20, 1973, Clemente was elected to the Hall of Fame, following a special election in which the five-year waiting period was waived. Other inductees that year were Monte Irvin, George Kelly, Mickey Welch, Billy Evans, and Warren Spahn.

Later in 1973, the Commissioner’s Award, presented annually by Major League Baseball to honor a major-league player for his sportsmanship, community involvement, and contributions in the community and on the field, was renamed the Roberto Clemente Award. Since 2002 the major leagues also celebrate Roberto Clemente Day in September.

RESPONSE FROM CITIZENS

In Puerto Rico immediately after the crash, many people went to a beach area close to the airport from which Clemente’s plane had taken off. His friend and former major-league pitcher José Santiago noted: “[I]t was packed with people. It was devastating news for everybody. People were going, ‘Are you sure he boarded the plane? Maybe he didn’t.’ Or claiming, ‘Oh, he’s got to be alive.’ Some would say, ‘He’s clinging to a rock in one of those little islands out there.’”24

The thought of their national hero dead was devastating for Puerto Ricans. Radio stations all over the island canceled regular programming, instead opting for somber music in remembrance of Clemente.25

Hector Lopez, a childhood friend of Clemente’s, later remembered: “The country was completely paralyzed by the news.… The holiday season ended. People took down their Christmas trees and went into a national mourning.”26

Soon after news of Clemente’s death came, some Pittsburgh area residents began circulating a petition to rename Three Rivers Stadium, the Pirates’ home ballpark, Roberto Clemente Memorial Stadium.27 The local Mellon Foundation donated $100,000 to earthquake victims in Nicaragua in Clemente’s name.

Ironically, Clemente in death was extolled to a far greater extent than when he was alive. Clemente biographer David Maraniss wrote: “After Clemente died, he was martyred in Pittsburgh and everyone said they loved him, but that was not the case when he was alive. He had to overcome a lot in terms of race and language in Pittsburgh, and did not really win the city over completely until he died.”28

Wells Twombly, a sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, wrote, “No athlete of Clemente’s quality has been taken for granted quite so shamelessly.… Roberto just couldn’t make the game of baseball look hard enough.”29

Twombly added, “Trouble was that Roberto Clemente could never communicate his true self. It was his opinion that newspapermen had a stringent pecking order. They regarded baseball players in the following way: On top were the American whites, followed rapidly by the American blacks. Next were the Latin whites. Way down at the bottom were the Latin blacks. They were nobody’s children.”30

Similarly, the Black Panthers, noting how Clemente was seemingly misunderstood by many, ran an obituary in their newspaper thanking him supporting their breakfast programs and health clinics operated in Philadelphia. The obituary concluded: “It is ironic that the profession in which he achieved ‘legendry’ knew him the least. Roberto Clemente did not, as the Commissioner of Baseball maintained, ‘Have about him a touch of royalty.’ Roberto Clemente was simply a man, a man who strove to achieve his dream of peace and justice for oppressed people throughout the world.”31

Clemente’s death also brought about quick memorialization in song. Paul New Stewart wrote “The Ballad of Roberto Clemente” and Ramito, a Puerto Rican country singer, released the album Ramito Canta a Clemente – la Tragedia de Nicaragua [Ramito Sings to Clemente – The Tragedy of Nicaragua].32

While responses to Clemente’s death were both varied and ubiquitous, a through line of all the responses was the respect people felt for Clemente, whether they knew him well or not. His athletic prowess, his willingness to fight for justice, and his ability to help others showed that he meant different things to different people. It was, however, Clemente’s premature death that cemented his legacy as an icon.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, information was gathered from B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com and B​aseba​ll-Al​amana​c.​com.

Notes

1 Rob Biertempfel, “What If … Roberto Clemente Had Played 3 More Seasons With the Pirates?,” The Athletic, August 18, 2021. h​ttps:​//the​athle​tic.c​om/27​65112​/2021​/08/1​8/wha​t-if-​rober​to-cl​ement​e-had​-play​ed-th​ree-m​ore-s​eason​s-wit​h-the​-pira​tes/.

2 Sam Goldaper, “Puerto Rico Goes into Mourning,” New York Times, January 2, 1973. h​ttps:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/19​73/01​/02/a​rchiv​es/pu​erto-​rico-​goes-​into-​mourn​ing-t​he-re​actio​ns-gr​eates​t-pla​yer.​html.

3 “Death of Clemente Casts a Pall Over Inauguration of Puerto Rico’s 4th Elected Governor,” New York Times, January 3, 1973. h​ttps:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/19​73/01​/03/a​rchiv​es/de​ath-o​f-cle​mente​-cast​s-a-p​all-o​ver-i​naugu​ratio​n-of-​puert​o-r​icos.​html.

4 “Death of Clemente Casts a Pall Over Inauguration of Puerto Rico’s 4th Elected Governor.”

5 “Death of Clemente Casts a Pall Over Inauguration of Puerto Rico’s 4th Elected Governor.”

6 “Death of Clemente Casts a Pall Over Inauguration of Puerto Rico’s 4th Elected Governor.”

7 “Fame Niche Sought for Clemente,” New York Times, January 3, 1973. h​ttps:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/19​73/01​/03/a​rchiv​es/fa​me-ni​che-s​ought​-for-​cleme​nte-c​lemen​tes-n​iche-​in-ha​ll-of​-fame​-in.​html.

8 Richard Nixon, “Statement About the Death of Roberto Clemente,” online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, the American Presidency Project. h​ttps:​//www​.pres​idenc​y.ucs​b.edu​/docu​ments​/stat​ement​-abou​t-the​-deat​h-rob​erto-​cleme​nte.

9 Goldaper, “Puerto Rico Goes into Mourning.”

10 Goldaper.

11 Nathalie Alonso, “He Braved Ocean, Sharks to Search for Clemente,” MLB​.com, April 16, 2020. h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-mann​y-san​guill​en-fr​iend​ship.

12 Alonso.

13 Alonso.

14 Bob Hurte, “Steve Blass,” Society for American Baseball Research BioProject. h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/biop​roj/p​erson​/stev​e-​blass/.

15 Goldaper, “Puerto Rico Goes into Mourning.”

16 Joseph Durso, “A Man of Two Worlds,” New York Times, January 2, 1973. h​ttps:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/19​73/01​/02/a​rchiv​es/a-​man-o​f-two​-worl​ds-cl​ement​e-as-​deepl​y-ple​dged-​to-ci​vic-c​oncer​ns-in​.html.

17 Goldaper, “Puerto Rico Goes into Mourning.”

18 Goldaper.

19 Goldaper.

20 Goldaper.

21 Goldaper.

22 “Fame Niche Sought for Clemente.”

23 “Fame Niche Sought for Clemente,”

24 Jorge L. Ortiz, “Clemente’s Impact Wanes in Puerto Rico 40 Years After His Death,” USA Today, December 27, 2012. h​ttps:​//www​.usat​oday.​com/s​tory/​sport​s/mlb​/2012​/12/2​7/rob​erto-​cleme​nte-4​0th-a​nnive​rsary​-deat​h-pla​ne-cr​ash-p​uerto​-rico​-pira​tes-h​umani​taria​n/179​4453/.

25 Goldaper, “Puerto Rico Goes into Mourning.”

26 Ortiz.

27 “Fame Niche Sought for Clemente.”

28 Harold Friend, “MLB History: Jon Matlack Didn’t Know He’d Given Up Roberto Clemente’s 3,000th Hit,” Bleacher Report, July 8, 2011. h​ttps:​//ble​acher​repor​t.com​/arti​cles/​76141​4-ama​zing-​jon-m​atlac​k-did​nt-kn​ow-he​-had-​given​-up-r​obert​o-cle​mente​s-300​0-​hit.

29 Wells Twombly, “Super Hero,” San Francisco Examiner, January 2, 1973.

30 Twombly.

31 Zinn Education Project, “This Day in History: Dec. 31, 1972: Roberto Clemente Dies.” h​ttps:​//www​.zinn​edpro​ject.​org/n​ews/t​dih/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-dies/.

32 Judy Cantor-Navas, “Remember Baseball Great Roberto Clemente With These Musical Tributes,” Billboard, December 28, 2017. h​ttps:​//www​.bill​board​.com/​music​/lati​n/rob​erto-​cleme​nte-d​eath-​anniv​ersar​y-mus​ical-​tribu​tes-8​0854​90/.

(Courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

Long after most of the city has descended into slumber, Roberto Clemente rises again.

For Latin American baseball players, a road trip into Pittsburgh often means a midnight pilgrimage to the Roberto Clemente Museum, located, incongruously enough, in a restored nineteenth-century firehouse, a little off the beaten path but not far from downtown.

The tours usually begin after a game and last until 2:00 or 3:00 A.M. Young players making their first visits grow wide-eyed as they grip Clemente’s bat or trace the outline of the number 21 on his jersey; the old heads stand in the background, smiling knowingly and nodding. All of them coming closer – photograph by photograph, anecdote by anecdote, moment by moment – to a man Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez calls “the baseball god of Latin players.”1

Some Latino players whose careers overlapped with Clemente’s played well into the 1980s and carried his memory forward. Later generations had watched him on TV or heard stories from their parents. Players coming up today may know nothing about Clemente beyond, at most, what they have read on his Wikipedia page. Nonetheless, all of these men have held Clemente in reverence and his legacy has assumed many forms.

CLEMENTE THE BALLPLAYER

Ironically, Clemente’s baseball exploits are only a small part of the inheritance he has passed down. Those who saw him play, though, will never forget.

His teammate Manny Sanguillen raved, “I’ve never seen a better ballplayer than Roberto Clemente, not only in right field. He was the most complete ballplayer ever.”2

“When I first played against Clemente I was a fan. I wanted to watch him. That arm!” gushed Cincinnati’s Tony Pérez, who learned about that arm firsthand very early in his career.3 He was on first base when a teammate blooped a single to shallow right field. Clemente was playing deep. Pérez was sure he could take the extra base.

“I didn’t even look at the third-base coach,” he said. “I just ran because I was going to make it easy.” But when Pérez arrived, the ball was waiting for him. “Our third-base coach, a Cuban guy named Reggie Otero, said to me in Spanish, ‘Chiquito, go to the dugout. Do you know who that was? That’s Roberto Clemente.’”4

Seattle Mariners great Edgar Martinez, who was born in New York and grew up in Puerto Rico, says Clemente was part of a formative childhood memory. “I was about 9 years old, and my aunt was watching what probably were highlights of Roberto Clemente (in the 1971) World Series, and he homered and she was just screaming,” Martinez recalled. “I remember after that I got really interested in the game. Right away I went outside and started hitting rocks with a broomstick, and I kind of fell in love with the game.”5

Modern players speak relatively little of Clemente’s on-field prowess. It is understandable – there isn’t much for them to go on beyond tables of statistics and some grainy video clips. But some of them may have picked up a gauzy glimpse of Clemente from their elders, like a legend passed down from one generation to another.

Toronto pitcher José Berrios heard the tales from his father. “He said, ‘We’re not going to see another arm like his in right field.’”6

Julio Ricardo Varela, founder of the digital media site Latino Rebels, sees a little of Clemente in Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres. “He’s also bringing the Dominican, Caribbean, Latino, Latin-American energy of the baseball that I grew up with, of the baseball I remember. It was OK to wear it on your sleeve.”7 The son of a major leaguer, Tatis has demonstrated an appreciation for baseball history. On Roberto Clemente Day in 2021, he sported a pair of baseball shoes with an image of a sliding Clemente on one side and a Puerto Rican flag on the other. Across the toes were Clemente’s career statistics and a quote attributed to him: “I was born to play baseball.”8

“The way [Clemente] played the game was kind of how my dad wanted to play the game,” said Francisco Lindor. “By … playing the game like that, even though he didn’t play the game professionally, my dad taught me the game that way. Being aggressive, having fun.”9

CLEMENTE THE HUMANITARIAN

Even Lindor admits Clemente the player is secondary to Clemente the man. “[H]e was not great just on the field, but he was outstanding off the field. That’s why we’re wearing number 21 [on Roberto Clemente Day]. It’s not because he got 3,000 hits and won a World Series and got 12 Gold Gloves. It’s not because of that. It’s because how good he was off the field.”10

Clemente’s work on behalf of those in need has come to define him, largely because of the tragic nobility of his death in a plane crash delivering relief supplies to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua.

The Roberto Clemente Award is presented annually to a player who “best represents the game of baseball through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy, and positive contributions, both on and off the field.” Yadier Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals was named the winner in 2018 for his work with Fundación 4, which helps Puerto Rican children struggling to overcome abuse, poverty, or medical issues. He called the award “a dream come true.”11

“[Clemente] did a lot of things off the field to help people, and he had a lot less than we do these days,” Molina said. “If he did it, why shouldn’t we help others?”12

“Once [I started] playing baseball, everybody was like, ‘Oh, you have a good arm like Roberto,’ ‘You hit like Roberto,’ stuff like that,” recalled 2021 Clemente Award winner Nelson Cruz. “Then, I started to find out what kind of person he was and what he did for his community and what he did for all Latin Americans, and definitely, it’s a guy that you want to follow, an example that you want to go after.”13

Cruz’s impact is felt everywhere in his hometown of Las Matas de Santa Cruz in the Dominican Republic. Among other initiatives, he has funded the purchase of emergency vehicles, financed the construction of a police station, and donated money to help families in need of food, medicine, and financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through his Boomstick23 Foundation, Cruz also is helping to build a new technical center that will provide better job opportunities for young people.

Boston manager Alex Cora said of Clemente, “If there’s a Hall of Fame above the Hall of Fame, off the field, he’s in that Hall of Fame.”14 Cora has done his best to emulate that example. Before signing his contract with the Red Sox in October 2017, he made the organization pledge to send relief to Puerto Rico, which had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy a month earlier. Subsequently, Cora, along with members of the front office and a handful of Red Sox players, accompanied a plane that delivered 10 tons of supplies to his hometown of Caguas – much as Clemente was trying to do on his fateful flight on New Year’s Eve 1972.

Clemente’s close friend Luis Mayoral believes Clemente would have dedicated his post-baseball life to philanthropic work. “I see him as more of a sociologist, not necessarily a politician. He was trying to help people better themselves.”15

CLEMENTE THE ACTIVIST

Clemente wasn’t just a caring man who helped people. He was also a proud, fierce man who wasn’t afraid to make good, necessary trouble.

“Latin American Negro ballplayers are treated today much like all Negroes were treated in baseball in the early days of the broken color barrier,” Clemente told Sport magazine in 1962. “They are subjected to prejudices and stamped with generalizations. Because they speak Spanish among themselves, they are set off as a minority within a minority, and they bear the brunt of the sport’s remaining racial prejudices. ‘They’re all lazy, look for the easy way, the short cut’ is one charge. ‘They have no guts’ is another. There are more.”16

Clemente was a fearless counterpuncher. Speaking for his Latino major-league brethren, Pérez called him, “our leader.”17 Manny Mota, Clemente’s teammate from 1963 to 1968, agreed. “He didn’t permit injustices in regard to race. He was very vocal, and that was difficult. He was very misunderstood. But he would not accept injustices with Latins nor with players of color. He was always there to defend them.”18

In a 1983 article, Rod Carew, who grew up in Panama, complained that a decade after Clemente’s death, baseball still wasn’t doing enough to help Latino players adjust to life in the States. Aurelio Rodriguez of the Chicago White Sox believed the void left by Clemente was yet to be filled. “We need somebody to speak for us but not just to talk. The thing about Clemente is that he had something to say.”19

Bias in American culture is endemic and complex. Today’s bigotry may not always be as overt or malicious as that which confronted Clemente; in many cases, the bias may not even be conscious. But it is still there.

Even well into the twenty-first century, broadcasters and scouts frequently use coded, stereotyped language to describe the abilities of Latino players.20 When a Black or Latino player celebrates a home run or a strikeout with too much exuberance, he still may hear a lecture about “playing the game the right way,” which is to say, the White way.

In 2016, a Houston Chronicle columnist quoted the Astros’ Carlos Gómez, a nonnative English speaker, without cleaning up his grammar, a courtesy typically extended to all players.21 It was the same kind of thing that infuriated Clemente 50 years earlier, when writers would directly quote his “broken English,” thus reducing this highly intelligent and thoughtful man to sounding, in print, like a buffoon.

“I know how he felt,” said Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo in 2021. “I came to the States with no English at all. So, I know what the English barrier does, not knowing what people are telling you and stuff. I’ve gone through all that.”22

Clemente didn’t restrict himself to issues solely germane to Latin American players. As an admirer of Martin Luther King Jr., Clemente was sensitive to all the bitter flavors of injustice. “Our conversations always stemmed around people from all walks of life being able to get along well, or no excuse why that shouldn’t be,” said Pirates teammate Al Oliver. “He had a problem with people who treated you differently because of where you were from, your nationality, your color, also poor people, how they were treated.”23

After King’s assassination in April 1968, Clemente led a group of Pirates who refused to take the field on Opening Day, which fell the day before King was to be buried. “[W]hen Martin Luther King died, they come and ask the Negro players if we should play,” he said. “I say, ‘If you have to ask Negro players, then we do not have a great country.’”24 The Pirates’ protest led Commissioner William Eckert to postpone all games until April 10.

A year later, at a meeting of the executive committee of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Curt Flood announced his plans to sue Major-League Baseball to end the reserve clause. Other players greeted the news with skepticism, even ridicule – until Clemente piped up. He spoke with passion of how the reserve clause limited his earning potential and chained him to a city where, although he was beloved, he frequently encountered ignorance and prejudice. As author Brad Snyder put it, “The tenor of the meeting soon shifted from whether the players would back Flood, to how.”25

Today’s generation of Latinos in baseball doesn’t talk much about Clemente’s role as an activist. His humanitarian activities overshadow his harder-edged and more challenging political side. Nonetheless, that part of Clemente likely will never be extinguished completely.

A video clip of Clemente thanking his parents in Spanish following the Pirates’ World Series victory in 1971 resonates with Alex Cora. Cora hadn’t even been born yet, but Clemente’s message was timeless. “On national television, he asked for a moment to speak Spanish. No one does that,” Cora said in 2021. “He taught us resolve and conviction. In many ways, he showed the world that we have to fight for what we believe in and we have to stand up for our rights, and he did it the right way.”26

“I think Roberto would be disappointed with what’s going on in today’s society,” mused Starling Marte, who got to know some of Clemente’s former teammates and his sons while with the Pirates from 2012 to 2019. “He was the kind of guy that was fighting against all the hatred and injustice that’s happening today. Today, current players are still fighting, though. We’re using his spirit. Even though he’s not here today, it’s important to continue to fight for equality and justice, the way he would have.”27

Pittsburgh sportscaster Sam Nover had a different perspective than Luis Mayoral about where Clemente’s road would have taken him after baseball. “He would have run for political office. He would have been the Puerto Rican equivalent to someone like Kennedy.”28

CLEMENTE THE DEITY

The metaphors that players use to describe Clemente suggest he has almost transformed from a flesh-and-blood person who actually walked this earth to a sacred, almost otherworldly symbol.

Pedro Martinez: “Clemente is beyond everything we can think of.… Kind of like an angel that God had here for the perfect time.”29

Benjie Molina (Yadier’s brother): “In many houses when I was growing up, including ours, the portraits of two famous men hung in honored spots among the family photos: Jesus and Roberto Clemente.”30

Carlos Beltrán: “Even though he passed away a long time ago, he is still alive.”31

Orlando Merced: “I feel as if I knew him. He has that look that speaks to you. He’s like Elvis. He’s still alive.”32

For Puerto Rican players in particular, Clemente’s uniform number 21 has taken on sacramental qualities. For most, that number has been strictly off-limits. A 2019 New York Times article noted that since Clemente’s death, 235 Puerto Rican-born players had appeared in the major leagues, but only 16 had worn the number 21 – and none of them in the previous five seasons.

“No Puerto Ricans will use that number because of Roberto Clemente,” insisted Carlos Correa.33

When Beltrán joined the Cardinals in 2012, his preferred number, 15, was taken. He told the equipment manager, “‘Man, I don’t want 21.’ I feel like – I cannot touch that number. It’s like, no, no, not 21. That’s something I want to leave.”34

Eddie Rosario remembers being a kid in Guayama, Puerto Rico, and backpedaling even then when a youth coach offered him that number. “I’m not Roberto Clemente. I can’t wear that,” he thought.35

“You can use it to honor him or you can see it as something you don’t want to touch, because the way he carried the No. 21 is hard for another player to do in the same way,” according to Beltrán. “It’s not impossible, but it’ll be really hard. You’ll always have that shadow of Clemente, and many players avoid using that.”36

One player willing to shoulder that burden was Carlos Delgado, who wore 21 in 1996 with Toronto and again from 2006 to 2009 with the New York Mets. “I thought he was so important that this was a way to recognize him. I understand the other side of the coin, not using the number to honor him, but as long as you honor his memory and his career, I think it’s O.K.”37

Delgado has done just that, as a humanitarian and activist. In 2004 he protested the United States’ military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan by refusing to stand for the playing of “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch. “As an athlete, you have a platform with a lot of followers. You can push positive things, you can push movements and support movements.”38

Beginning in 2020, Major League Baseball has invited all players, coaches, and managers of Puerto Rican descent to wear 21 to commemorate Roberto Clemente Day, which is celebrated around the league each September 15.

“It’s a blessing to be able to wear his number on a day like that,” according to Lindor. “It’s super special. It shows our roots.”39

“Obviously, this jersey is going to be in a special place in my house,” said Javier Baez after he wore 21 in 2020.40

The Mets’ Edwin Diaz is one of many who has called for 21 to be retired across the league. “It would be a tremendous honor if they did retire the number 21,” he told reporters. “Obviously, in the history of the game, there have been a lot of number 21s, but I think he trumps them all. You look at his numbers on the field and they are there, but also what he was able to do off the field and all the people he was able to help, not only in Puerto Rico but in every other country he used to help out in.”41

For the true believers, seeing and interacting with the personal effects housed in the Clemente Museum is almost like receiving the Eucharist. Through those artifacts, they absorb a small part of Clemente’s legendary spirit.

Albert Pujols was the first active major leaguer to visit the museum, in April 2007, less than a year after it opened. Word spread within baseball’s Latin American community, and now museum founder and curator Duane Rieder finds himself giving private tours all summer. “It all depends on the major-league schedule, but if they are in for four days, I’m getting them. For some of these guys, it’s a ritual.”42

Dave Martinez, who was raised in New York by Puerto Rican parents, led a busload of his Washington Nationals players to the museum in 2021. “I got great feedback from our young guys, especially our Latin guys, that went. They loved it,” Martinez said. “It was awesome to just kind of communicate with them [about] what they enjoyed, what it meant for them to see something like that, and they all started talking about it.”43

Few players who visit the museum arrive completely ignorant about Clemente. “To give you an example of what kind of an impact he had on Puerto Rico and the game of baseball, even in the schools they teach about Roberto Clemente,” according to Victor Caratini of the San Diego Padres. “We had sections [of the curriculum] entirely dedicated to him and what he did not only [in] baseball, but [on] the humanitarian side of things.”44

But there is so much more to learn, as Martín Maldonado discovered when he visited as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. “That’s when I got shocked,” Maldonado remembered. “I never knew he served in the military. They told him about a movie and he was going to be the guy that had to [hit into a triple play]. He told the guy he wasn’t going to do the movie because he doesn’t [hit into triple plays.] That was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever heard.”45

“When you grow up, you think a lot about Clemente,” said the Nationals’ Luis García. “Everybody says that name in the Dominican. You go to Google and you put in Roberto Clemente and you see the photo, you see the biography – you only see that. But when you go to the museum, it’s very different. You feel that.”46

Rieder recalled when Yadier Molina brought Puerto Rican hip-hop legend Daddy Yankee to get schooled. It was Molina’s third or fourth trip, so he knew what to expect. Daddy Yankee is known for his humanitarian work and, as it happens, was once a promising baseball player, but his knowledge of Clemente didn’t run deep until that visit.

“I remember looking at Yadi’s face and he was giggling, and then I looked at Daddy’s face and his mouth is open,” Rieder remembered. “He goes, ‘Wow. I didn’t know any of this stuff. Keep going.’ Yadi was in the background saying, ‘Let him have it. Tell him all the stories.’ Two hours later, we’re still there and I am still telling him the story.

“He goes, ‘I gotta apologize. I didn’t know any of this.’ And Yadi is there snickering in the background. It was one of those beautiful moments.”47

After players visit a couple of times, they acquire their own favorite stories. “The third time he was there, Pujols was translating [what I was saying] into Spanish to some of the guys,” Rieder said. “[That] was really cool, just to see him getting so excited about being there and seeing new things and learning more. Because the story is still evolving. We’re still finding out new stuff constantly.”48

Rieder does something unusual when he shows the players around – he lets them touch things.

“I got to touch the Rawlings spikes [Clemente] wore when he used to run down fly balls in right field,” wrote Carlos Beltrán. “I got to hold the bats he used to get some of his 3,000 hits. I got to run my fingers across the stitching of the number 21 on the back of a jersey he actually wore in a game. I never felt closer to my hero than I did that night.”49

“I want to give them the mojo,” laughed Rieder. It is almost as big a thrill for him as it is for the players. “I let them swing a bat that he actually touched and they get goose bumps. Carlos Beltrán wanted to put Clemente’s cleats on his wife because she was Puerto Rican. He put the cleats on her and the oversized jersey and she was getting teary-eyed. Those moments go a long way.”50

On a 2018 visit, a group of Chicago Cubs was admiring a suit that Clemente wore to the 1971 All-Star Game. With its wide lapels and head-turning black, white, and silver pattern, the suit was a relic from the era of mod fashion, yet somehow still contemporary and cool. Rieder noticed that Javier Baez was roughly the same size as Clemente and offered to let him wear the suit jacket.

“I put the jacket on him and he was just freaking out,” Rieder recalled. “He was sending video to his family in Puerto Rico and he did an Instagram post that went all over.”51 ESPN’s Eduardo Pérez arranged to have Baez wear the jacket at the Home Run Derby. He rocked it so well that Topps used an image of Baez in the jacket on his 2019 baseball card.

“We’re getting this whole generation of young players hooked on Clemente,” said Rieder. “It’s so awesome. They don’t know much when they come, but they do when they leave.”52

“I think it’s important for them to learn the history,” explained Dave Martinez. “[T]he battles that he had to fight, I think it’s important for them to understand that, and what it meant for him to play the game, and what it means to each individual now to represent and play the game.”53

Ozzie Guillen, then the manager of the White Sox, once ignited a small brush fire when he suggested that Clemente was only the third-best baseball player from Puerto Rico, behind Roberto Alomar and Ivan Rodriguez.54 Talk like that is almost heretical; however, Guillen, who named a son after Clemente and boasts a vast collection of Clemente memorabilia, understands that the emotional connection Latin American players have with Clemente has relatively little to do with his statistics.

Yes, Clemente’s baseball skills merit respect and his humanitarian efforts command admiration. And, of course, he died in service of his personal mission. But he also is venerated, in no small part, because of his refusal to kneel to a culture that even today can be cold, condescending, and cruel.

“He lived racism. He was a man who was happy to be not only Puerto Rican, but Latin American,” said Guillen. “He let people know that. And that is something that is very important for all of us.”55

Notes

1 Patrick Reddington, “Washington Nationals News & Notes: Davey Martinez on Roberto Clemente Day; Resting Young Players, and Watching Young Players,” SB Nation: Federal Baseball, September 16, 2021, ht​tps:/​/www.​feder​albas​eball​.com/​2021/​9/16/​22675​978/w​ashin​gton-​natio​nals-​news-​davey​-mart​inez-​rober​to-cl​ement​e-day​-rest​ing-y​oung-​playe​rs-lu​is-ga​rcia.

2 Charlie Vascellaro, “My Clemente: Manny Sanguillen,” La Vida Baseball, June 19, 2017, h​ttps:​//www​.lavi​dabas​eball​.com/​manny​-sang​uille​n-rob​erto-​cleme​nte/.

3 Danny Torres, interview with Tony Pérez, Talkin’ 21 Podcast, podcast audio, October 2020, h​ttps:​//ope​n.spo​tify.​com/e​pisod​e/1uP​gRBs5​rrcj6​o7x24​UJQQ?​si=TO​ejy34​cTyql​agYwO​YXC​jw.

4 Torres interview.

5 “Edgar Martinez Tours Hall of Fame, Reflects on His Baseball Journey and Childhood Idol,” Seattle Times, July 11, 2019, h​ttps:​//www​.seat​tleti​mes.c​om/sp​orts/​marin​ers/e​dgar-​marti​nez-t​ours-​hall-​of-fa​me-re​flect​s-on-​his-b​aseba​ll-jo​urney​-and-​child​hood-​idol/.

6 Julia Kreuz, “What Roberto Clemente Day Means for Blue Jays with Puerto Rican Roots,” Yahoo! Sports, September 16, 2021, h​ttps:​//new​s.yah​oo.co​m/mlb​-what​-robe​rto-c​lemen​te-da​y-mea​ns-fo​r-blu​e-jay​s-fro​m-pue​rto-r​ico-1​80047​013.h​tml?f​r=syc​srp_c​atc​hall.

7 Julia O’Connell, “The Huddle: Baseball’s Unwritten Rules & Roberto Clemente,” Global Sport Matters, August 22, 2020, h​ttps:​//glo​balsp​ortma​tters​.com/​liste​n/202​0/08/​22/th​e-hud​dle-b​aseba​lls-u​nwrit​ten-r​ules-​rober​to-cl​eme​nte/.

8 R.J. Anderson, “MLB Celebrates Roberto Clemente Day as Players Wear No. 21, Call for Number to Be Retired,” C​BSSpo​rts.​com, September 9, 2020. h​ttps:​//www​.cbss​ports​.com/​mlb/n​ews/m​lb-ce​lebra​tes-r​obert​o-cle​mente​-day-​as-pl​ayers​-wear​-no-2​1-cal​l-for​-numb​er-to​-be-r​et​ired/.

9 Mandy Bell, “Lindor on Clemente’s No. 21: ‘Super Special,” M​LB.​com, September 7, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/f​ranci​sco-l​indor​-21-r​obert​o-cle​mente​-day.

10 Bell.

11 “Cardinals Catcher Wins Roberto Clemente Award,” E​SPN.​com, October 24, 2018, h​ttps:​//www​.espn​.com/​mlb/s​tory/​_/id/​25072​934/c​ardin​als-y​adier​-moli​na-wi​ns-ro​berto​-clem​ente-​award.

12 Jorge Ortiz, “Clemente’s Impact Wanes in Puerto Rico 40 Years After His Death,” USA Today, December 27, 2012, h​ttps:​//www​.usat​oday.​com/s​tory/​sport​s/mlb​/2012​/12/2​7/rob​erto-​cleme​nte-4​0th-a​nnive​rsary​-deat​h-pla​ne-cr​ash-p​uerto​-rico​-pira​tes-h​umani​taria​n/179​4453/.

13 Do-Hyoung Park and Anthony Castrovince, “Nelson Cruz Wins Roberto Clemente Award,” ML​B.​com, October 27, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/n​elson​-cruz​-wins​-2021​-robe​rto-c​lemen​te-​awa​rd.

14 Chris Cotillo, “Why Are Boston Red Sox Players, Coaches Wearing No. 21? Kiké Hernández, Alex Cora, and Others Honoring Clemente,” M​assli​ve.​com, September 15, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mass​live.​com/r​edsox​/2021​/09/w​hy-ar​e-bos​ton-r​ed-so​x-pla​yers-​coach​es-we​aring​-no-2​1-kik​e-her​nande​z-ale​x-cor​a-and​-othe​rs-ho​norin​g-rob​erto-​cleme​nte.​html.

15 Gene Collier, “Pride and Petulance,” The Sporting News, December 28, 1992: 34-36.

16 Howard Cohn, “Roberto Clemente’s Problem,” Sport, May 1962: 54-56.

17 Danny Torres, interview with Tony Pérez.

18 George Diaz, “Clemente 30 Years After His Tragic Death, the Influence of baseball’s First Hispanic Superstar Is Stronger Than Ever,” Orlando Sentinel, March 31, 2002, h​ttps:​//www​.orla​ndose​ntine​l.com​/news​/os-x​pm-20​02-03​-31-0​20330​0030-​story​.ht​ml.

19 Robert Heuer, “Clemente’s Legacy for Latin Ballplayers,” New York Times, January 2, 1983: Sec 5, 2.

20 Adam Felder and Seth Amitin, “How MLB Announcers Favor American Players Over Foreign Ones,” The Atlantic, August 27, 2012, h​ttps:​//www​.thea​tlant​ic.co​m/ent​ertai​nment​/arch​ive/2​012/0​8/how​-mlb-​annou​ncers​-favo​r-ame​rican​-play​ers-o​ver-f​oreig​n-one​s/26​1265/; Alex Speier, “How Racial Bias Can Seep Into Scouting Reports,” Boston Globe, June 10, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.bost​onglo​be.co​m/202​0/06/​10/sp​orts/​how-r​acial​-bias​-can-​seep-​into-​baseb​all-s​couti​ng-re​por​ts/.

21 Craig Calcaterra, “Houston Chronicle Editor Apologizes for Column about Carlos Gomez,” N​BCSpo​rts.​com, May 16, 2016, h​ttps:​//mlb​.nbcs​ports​.com/​2016/​05/16​/hous​ton-c​hroni​cle-e​ditor​-apol​ogies​-for-​colum​n-abo​ut-ca​rlos-​gom​ez/.

22 Kreuz, “What Roberto Clemente Day Means for Blue Jays with Puerto Rican Roots.”

23 David Maraniss, “No Gentle Saint,” T​heUnd​efeat​ed.​com, May 31, 2016, h​ttps:​//the​undef​eated​.com/​featu​res/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-was-​a-fie​rce-c​ritic​-of-b​oth-b​aseba​ll-an​d-ame​rican​-soci​ety/.

24 Phil Musick, “Intense Pride Still Rages in Roberto Clemente,” Pittsburgh Press, July 28, 1969: 24.

25 Brad Snyder, A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood’s Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2006), 79.

26 Nathalie Alonso, “Clemente Continued What Robinson Started,” MLB.​com, December 15, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-day-​celeb​rated​-for-​2021.

27 Jerry Crasnick, “Roberto Remembered,” M​LBPla​yers.​com, accessed January 13, 2022, h​ttps:​//www​.mlbp​layer​s.com​/robe​rto-r​ememb​ered.

28 Danny Torres, “Rare Interview Sets Tone for Roberto Clemente’s Legacy,” Metsmerized Online, September 9, 2020, h​ttps:​//met​smeri​zedon​line.​com/2​020/0​9/rar​e-int​ervie​w-set​s-ton​e-for​-robe​rto-c​lemen​tes-l​egacy​-2.​html/.

29 “What Roberto Clemente Means to Pedro Martinez,” La Vida Baseball, September 17, 2019, h​ttps:​//www​.lavi​dabas​eball​.com/​pedro​-mart​inez-​my-cl​eme​nte/.

30 Bengie Molina with Joan Ryan, Molina: The Story of the Father Who Raised an Unlikely Baseball Dynasty (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), 26.

31 Derrick Gould, “Beltran Strives to Follow in Clemente’s Footsteps,” S​tltod​ay.​com, September 2, 2013, h​ttps:​//www​.stlt​oday.​com/s​ports​/base​ball/​profe​ssion​al/be​ltran​-stri​ves-t​o-fol​low-i​n-cle​mente​s-foo​tstep​s/art​icle_​ab563​518-2​176-5​8b2-b​de0-2​89384​b39cc​c.​html.

32 Steve Wulf, “December 31: ¡Arriba Roberto!” Sports Illustrated, accessed November 28, 2021, ht​tps:/​/vaul​t.si.​com/v​ault/​1992/​12/28​/dece​mber-​31-ar​riba-​rober​to-on​-new-​years​-eve-​in-19​72-ro​berto​-clem​ente-​under​took-​a-mis​sion-​of-me​rcy-h​is-de​ath-t​hat-n​ight-​immor​taliz​ed-hi​m-as-​a-man​-grea​ter-t​han-h​is-g​ame.

33 James Wagner, “For Many Latino players, Roberto Clemente’s Number Is Off Limits, Too,” New York Times, April 17, 2019: Sec B, 9.

34 Gould.

35 Wagner.

36 Wagner.

37 Wagner.

38 Jorge Castillo, “Remembering Roberto Clemente as a Black Man Who Fought Against Racial Injustice,” Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.lati​mes.c​om/sp​orts/​dodge​rs/st​ory/2​020-0​9-08/​rober​to-cl​ement​e-fou​ght-r​acial​-inju​stice.

39 Castillo.

40 Anderson.

41 Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo), “It Would Be a Tremendous Honor if [MLB] Did Retire the Number 21,” September 9, 2020, h​ttps:​//twi​tter.​com/A​nthon​yDiCo​mo/st​atus/​13037​99232​86913​0247.

42 Duane Rieder, telephone interview with author, January 13, 2022.

43 Reddington, “Davey Martinez on Roberto Clemente Day.”

44 Barry Bloom, “Puerto Rican Players Pushing MLB to Retire Clemente’s Number,” Global Sport Matters, July 8, 2019, h​ttps:​//glo​balsp​ortma​tters​.com/​cultu​re/20​19/07​/08/p​uerto​-rica​n-pla​yers-​pushi​ng-ml​b-to-​retir​e-cle​mente​s-num​ber/.

45 Chandler Rome, “What Roberto Clemente Means to Astros Catcher Martin Maldonado,” Houston Chronicle, September 9, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.hous​tonch​ronic​le.co​m/tex​as-sp​orts-​natio​n/ast​ros/a​rticl​e/Rob​erto-​Cleme​nte-m​eans-​Astro​s-Mar​tin-M​aldon​ado-1​55554​51.​php.

46 Jessica Camerato, “Nats Take ‘Amazing’ Trip to Clemente Museum,” MLB.​com, September 15, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/n​ation​als-v​isit-​rober​to-cl​ement​e-mus​eum-i​n-pit​tsbu​rgh.

47 Rieder interview.

48 Rieder interview.

49 Carlos Beltrán, “How We Play Baseball in Puerto Rico,” The Players’ Tribune, June 1, 2016, h​ttps:​//www​.thep​layer​strib​une.c​om/ar​ticle​s/201​6-5-3​1-car​los-b​eltra​n-yan​kees-​puert​o-ric​o-rob​erto-​cleme​nte.

50 Rieder interview.

51 Rieder interview.

52 Rieder interview.

53 Reddington, “Davey Martinez on Roberto Clemente Day.”

54 “ChiSox’s Guillen Creates Controversy with Clemente Talk,” ESPN.​com, April 8, 2008, h​ttps:​//www​.espn​.com/​mlb/n​ews/s​tory?​id=33​367​75.

55 Diaz, “Clemente 30 Years After His Tragic Death.”

A stained-glass window depicting Roberto Clemente in front of clouds in the shape of angel wings sits on display at the Roberto Clemente Museum in Pittsburgh. (Photo: Jacob Pomrenke)

“Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth.” – Roberto Clemente Walker

(National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

“Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on earth.” – Roberto Clemente1

Even at the field, Roberto Clemente took time for the fans. (Les Banos photograph courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

The Great One.

When looking at players’ performances both on and off the field over the past several decades, few have surpassed the work of The Great One, Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente.

The first Latino player inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Clemente gained plenty of recognition for his stellar play over the course of his career, a stretch that began with his debut in major-league baseball in 1955 at the age of 20 and ended with his achievement of becoming the 11th major-league player to collect 3,000 hits. (As of 2022, Clemente and Honus Wagner were the only Pirates to reach that milestone.)

Clemente entered the 1972 season with 2,882 hits and needed just 118 to reach the vaunted mark. By all accounts, health permitting, Clemente should have had very little trouble eclipsing the 3,000-hit threshold in 1972. In his first 17 seasons (1955-1971), he averaged nearly 170 hits per season. And he never batted below .250 for a season in his career, only twice finishing below .280 and finishing sub-.300 in just five seasons.

Clemente had one other challenge. Because of a players’ strike, the 1972 season started late, and the team played 155 games instead of the usual 162. But the Pittsburgh newspapers took it as a given that he’d reach the mark. In April the Courier wrote, “Clemente shows no signs of slowing down or losing his batting eye. In fact, his combined batting average over the past three seasons is a robust .346.… He remains one of the most complete players who has ever played the game. Before the 1972 season comes to a close he will be the all-time Pirate leader in several offensive categories and will also reach the coveted 3,000 mark in career hits.”1

In public utterances, Clemente himself played down the importance of getting 3,000 hits in 1972, but in private he let friends and teammates know he truly wanted it. He reportedly told Manny Sanguillen, “I have to get that hit this year. I might die.”2

Clemente did not get off to a great start in 1972, managing just 12 hits in April to post a .255 batting average after the first month of play. He was averaging a hit per game, though. His month of May was decidedly better, as he nearly tripled his hit total in just double the at-bats. Clemente raised his per-month batting average by 110 points from April to May, batting .365 thanks to 35 hits in 96 at-bats. One of the major keys driving that surge: limiting the frequency of strikeouts. Clemente struck out six times in 47 at-bats in April 1972 and six times in May 1972, but in 96 at-bats, making May his only month with less than one strikeout per 10 at-bats.

Clemente’s slugging percentage nearly doubled from April (.298) to May (.583), the latter his best slugging percentage in any month of the 1972 season. Additional evidence of Clemente’s turnaround is clear in the trajectory of his batting average over the course of the season, as the .338 mark that he reached in the final week of May was the highest it climbed at any point in the season.

With 47 hits through May, Clemente was 71 shy of 3,000 with four months to go. He ultimately missed 53 games, however, and 46 of the 53 games that he missed came in June, July, and August – due in large part to an intestinal virus and strained tendons in both heels – compared to just one missed game in April and two in May.

In the 39 games in which Clemente did see the field during those three months, however, he totaled 41 hits for a .283 batting average. His slugging percentage reached a season-high .517 on July 5, at which point his OPS (on-base plus slugging) had climbed to .880, just a shade below its season-best .892 after Clemente’s only four-hit game of the season on May 26.

Clemente added 22 hits in June. His total was 2,951 – 49 to go. In July, he played in only nine games, adding 10 more hits. In August, Clemente appeared in 12 games and hit safely nine times. He entered the final full month of the 1972 regular season with 88 base hits, leaving him 30 shy of 3,000.

Clemente started the month hitless but then added seven hits in the next six games. He stood 23 hits shy of 3,000 with 25 games remaining. He was hitless in the September 8 doubleheader, registering no plate appearances in the first game while in the second he walked twice – once intentionally – and had a sacrifice fly. In the game on the 9th, he entered only as a ninth-inning defensive replacement and did not bat once.

He singled on the 10th and subsequently got 12 hits in his next five games, including three-hit road games on September 12, 13, and 17. Now 3,000 seemed attainable, but he still needed 10 more hits with 15 games remaining.

Playing the Mets at Shea Stadium, he was, however, 0-for-4 on the 18th, 1-for-4 on the 19th, and 0-for-4 on the 20th.

There were just 12 games remaining on the 1972 regular-season schedule, and Clemente needed nine hits to reach 3,000. In the final game of the series against the Mets, on the 21st, Clemente singled twice – and the Pirates clinched the NL East, relieving any pressure on that account.

The Expos came to Pittsburgh for two games. Clemente came to the plate nine times (two walks, leaving seven official at-bats) but added only one hit. There were eight games remaining and his total was 2,994.

The Pirates traveled to Philadelphia for three games at Veterans Stadium. Clemente singled twice in the first game and twice more in the second game. On September 28 he singled again, in the top of the fourth, for base hit number 2,999. He never batted again in the game. When his turn in the order came up, manager Bill Virdon had Bob Robertson (another right-handed hitter, batting .193) pinch-hit for Clemente, despite the Pirates being down by just one run, 2-1. Robertson struck out. The move afforded Clemente the opportunity to get his 3,000th hit in front of the Pirates faithful.

The Pittsburgh Press reported, “It was Clemente’s desire that Pittsburgh fans should be there when he sends forth his 3,000th hit.”3

Roberto Clemente hits #3,000 on September 30, 1972. (Les Banos photograph courtesy of The Clemente Museum.)

Roberto Clemente Walker was one of six baseball immortals inducted into Cooperstown’s Hall of Fame on August 6, 1973. Along with Clemente, pitching greats Mickey Welch and Warren Spahn, both 300-game winners, longtime AL umpire Billy Evans, New York Giants first baseman George “Highpockets “Kelly, and New York Giants and Newark Eagles star outfielder Monford “Monte” Irvin” were all celebrated that day.

“The Great One” had 167 at-bats vs. Spahn, as their careers overlapped 11 seasons, from 1955 (Clemente’s rookie season) through 1965. Clemente hit.407/.420/.605 for a 1.025 OPS (on-base plus slugging) against Spahn, with four home runs and only five walks and seven strikeouts – quite a success story.1 In addition, both Spahn and Clemente wore uniform number 21.

In contrast, Monte Irvin and Roberto Clemente played against each other only in 1955 and 1956. The connection between Irvin and Clemente, though, went back 10 years further than the confrontations with Spahn – to 1945, when Roberto was an 11-year-old baseball fanatic and Monte was playing winter-league baseball for the San Juan Senadores. Both “Momen” and Monte were outstanding players who significantly impacted others – and Monte had an important formative influence on Roberto. In addition, there were several interesting parallels in the lives and careers of Monte Irvin and Roberto Clemente – two pioneers of major-league baseball’s integration era.

MOMEN’S CHILDHOOD BASEBALL IDOL

As a child, Roberto Clemente was nicknamed Momen. When interviewed in the early 1970s, Roberto’s older brother, Matino, initially said that “[W]e called him Momen from the time he was little. When he had grown up and become a star, no one could remember what the name meant.”2 Thirty years later, according to author David Maraniss, Matino maintained that “Momen” was short for momentito, in English “wait a minute,” because Roberto would constantly say “momentito” whenever he was interrupted or was asked to do something.3 Either way, “to his family and Puerto Rican friends, at school and on the ball fields, Momen was his nickname from then on.”4

Roberto’s father, Melchor, was a foreman for a sugar-processing company, which meant that the family was not as poor as many other families in Roberto’s hometown of Carolina. But money was still not plentiful. Late in his tragically short life, Roberto described buying a secondhand bicycle for $27 with his own money – money made by waking up at 6 A.M. to deliver milk, earning a penny a day, for three years. As Roberto described it, he “grew up with people who really had to struggle to live”– and his father had said, “I want you to learn how to work and I want you to be a serious person.”5

By age 11, Roberto Clemente traveled from Carolina, where he lived, to San Juan to see his favorite baseball team, the San Juan Senadores, play at Estadio Sixto Escobar. He may well have used his recently purchased bicycle, but he sometimes traveled by bus, with his dad giving him 25 cents –10 cents for the bus and 15 cents for admission to the ballpark.6 Roberto was still looking for ways to avoid spending his dad’s hard-earned money, so some days, rather than paying admission, he apparently watched the Senadores from a tree overlooking right field.7

Wherever he was perched, Roberto’s eyes were riveted to one particular ballplayer – versatile outfield star Monte Irvin of the Negro National League’s Newark Eagles – and in the 1945-46 Puerto Rican Winter League season, primarily the second baseman for the Senadores.8 Irvin started his Negro League career by playing third base and then became the center fielder for the Eagles,9 but when he returned in 1945 to Puerto Rico, where he had previously played during the winters of 1940-41 and 1941-42, he discovered a set outfield of Felle Delgado, Luis Olmo, and Freddie Thon (Dickie Thon’s grandfather). According to Irvin, “(W)e needed a second baseman, and Olmo told me, ‘(Y)ou’re fast, can hit, and have a great arm, so why not?”10

Whether at second base or in the outfield, where Irvin did play a limited amount in 1945-46,11 he displayed that great arm – and Roberto was watching. In his autobiography, Irvin recalled, “[W]hen I went to Puerto Rico and played winter ball, the crowd would just oooh and aah when I warmed up” (italics in original). Not only was Roberto watching, but when he was unable to be in attendance, Momen listened at night to radio broadcasts of the San Juan games while he threw a rubber ball against the wall. “Irvin was my first idol because he was not only a good hitter, but he had such a good arm,” Clemente said.12

Monte Irvin was indeed a good, and perhaps a great, hitter. According to statistics reported by b​aseba​ll-re​feren​ce.​com, Irvin led the Negro National League in batting with a .395 average in 1942 and a .369 mark in 1946.13 He said that he came back from World War II service overseas “with three years of athletic rust and a bad case of war nerves, and I needed to work back into my pre-war playing condition. … So, I said, ‘I’ll start to climb back slowly.… And, in order to regain my old form, I went down to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and played ball that winter.”14

All he did was hit .368 for San Juan, barely losing the batting title to Ponce’s Fernando Diaz Pedroso.15 Yet Irvin won the Puerto Rico Winter League MVP award, and in the league championship series against Mayaguez, he smashed three home runs in a doubleheader sweep by the Senadores as they took the series, four games to two.16 It is unknown whether Roberto attended these games, but it seems likely that in 1962, such performances led Clemente to praise Irvin to the New Pittsburgh Courier’s Bill Nunn Jr., saying, “I think he had the best eye, best stance, and sharpest cut of any of the big leaguers who play winter ball in Puerto Rico. He also (fielded) real good and (threw) like a bullet.”17

Throwing like a bullet is a description that clearly applied not only to Monte Irvin. After all, Roberto Clemente had 10 outfield assists in his first 55 major-league games for the 1955 Pittsburgh Pirates, and The Sporting News contributor and Pittsburgh Press sportswriter Les Biederman commented that “the Pittsburgh fans have fallen in love with his spectacular fielding and his deadly right arm.”18

While Clemente led the National League in outfield assists five times during his 18-year major-league career,19 Irvin ranked in the top five in assists by a left fielder four times, the only four times he played more than half the league’s games in the outfield.20 And while Michael Humphreys’ book Wizardry rates Roberto Clemente as the best defensive right fielder of all time by a substantial margin, it rates Monte Irvin as the 10th best defensive left fielder of all time despite his short, eight-season career in the formerly White major leagues and states that “Irvin may have been the best fielding left fielder before the Modern Era (1969-1992).”21

One element of youth competition that the two ballplayers had in common was that they each participated in track and field. In Irvin’s case, he “threw the javelin, the shotput, and the discus” and set the state record for throwing the javelin with a heave of 192 feet 8 inches.22

In Clemente’s case, he threw the javelin 195 feet, but also jumped 6 feet in the high jump and 45 feet in the triple jump.23 According to Clemente biographer Bruce Markusen, “Clemente’s expertise in the javelin aided him in playing baseball. He may not have known it at the time, but the footwork, release and general dynamics employed in throwing the javelin coincided with the skills needed to throw the baseball properly.24

According to David Maraniss, “[T]he javelin became an iconic symbol in the mythology of Clemente. It represented his heroic nature, since the javelin is associated with Olympian feats.”25

It has been said by many that Monte Irvin was Roberto Clemente’s boyhood hero. In the words of Clemente:

I used to watch Monte Irvin play. When I was a kid, I idolize him. I would never have enough nerve. I did not want to look at him straight in the face. That why when he pass I turn around and look at him.26

Monte Irvin elaborated further:

I first met Roberto Clemente in the early 1940s in Puerto Rico. I used to play down there. This is when I was in the old Negro Leagues. He was just a youngster. And one day I let him carry my bag in order to get into the stadium. So we became friendly. Used to give him a ball.… I don’t know … might have given him a glove that I had but I never did see him play.27

It is not entirely clear how the relationship developed. In an interview Irvin gave to SABR member Stew Thornley in 2005, he made it clear that Clemente was one of many kids who wanted to get into the ballpark, but that he did not get to know a young Roberto at the time: “They wanted to get into the game, and I let them take my bag in, so they wouldn’t have to pay. You know, kids hanging out outside the game, and we’d give them our bags so they could take them in and get in free.”28

In contrast, Maraniss indicated that Irvin and Clemente developed a friendship when Clemente was a teen: “Just by being there, hanging around, as shy as he was, Clemente eventually struck up a friendship with Irvin. And Irvin made sure that his young fan got in to watch the game, even without a ticket.”29 And in his autobiography, Irvin stated, “[W]hen Clemente was a youngster … he was a protégé of mine.”30

There is no doubt, however, that upon becoming a major-league player, Clemente told Irvin about the impact Irvin made upon him as a teenager. The young professional let Irvin know that he admired his throwing arm and had modeled his throwing motion after it: “He told me he admired, not only the way I hit the ball, but also the way I threw the ball. He wanted to throw the way that I did and later, when he had one of the best throwing arms in baseball, I considered it a compliment.”31 Irvin clearly was proud of the “mentoring relationship” that he had with young Clemente, as he told Maraniss: “(Y)eah, I taught Roberto how to throw.… [O]f course, he quickly surpassed me.”32

THE DODGERS AND THE GIANTS — AND THE PIRATES AND THE CUBS

Both Clemente and Irvin had some history with each of the two New York National League teams. Irvin signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ St. Paul farm team after the 1948 season, when the Negro National League folded. Newark Eagles owner Effa Manley objected to the signing because Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey refused to compensate her for Irvin’s contract, so Rickey released Irvin.33 Subsequently, Irvin was signed in 1949 by Horace Stoneham, the New York Giants owner, who paid $5,000 to the Eagles owners, past and present, for Irvin’s contract.34

Clemente was also first signed by the Dodgers, who first spied Roberto at a tryout at Sixto Escobar Stadium on November 6, 1952. Dodgers scout Al Campanis characterized Clemente as follows: “Has All the Tools and Likes to Play. A Real Good Looking Prospect!”35 It was the Giants, though, that first made an offer to Clemente after Pedrin Zorilla, the Santurce Cangrejeros owner,36 for whom Roberto played in the Puerto Rico Winter League, touted Clemente to Stoneham. The Giants, however, refused to spend $4,000 on Clemente, so Zorilla, who had an informal relationship with the Dodgers, turned to Campanis.37 The Dodgers’ top farm team, the Montreal Royals, offered Clemente a $5,000 contract with a $10,000 signing bonus, and he signed on February 19, 1954.38

Roberto Clemente played sporadically for the Royals, in 1954, batting only 148 times with a .257/.286/.357 slash line for a .657 OPS – hardly the performance of a future superstar.39 It has been endlessly debated whether the Dodgers were nonetheless trying to hide Clemente by playing him infrequently. It is undisputed that Clyde Sukeforth, a former Dodgers scout and the first major-league manager (for one game) of Jackie Robinson, wanted Clemente for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Said Sukeforth: “I saw Clemente throwing from the outfield and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.”40

The Dodgers knew when they signed Clemente that they could potentially lose him to the minor-league draft after the 1954 season, because they paid him a bonus of more than $4,000, and a rule passed by the major-league owners in December of 1952 stated that any player who was given a bonus of that size by a minor-league club had to go through an unrestricted draft before he could be assigned to the parent major-league club.41 The Dodgers, according to E.J. “Buzzie” Bavasi, signed Clemente just to make sure that the Giants did not get him: “[W]e didn’t want the Giants to have Clemente and a fellow like Willie Mays in the same outfield.”42 In 1956, former Giants (and before that, Dodgers) manager Leo Durocher told Les Biederman that “[W]e knew the boy [Clemente] in high school.… [W]hen the Dodgers heard we were after him, they got into the act.”43

Perhaps the Dodgers also were aware that Clemente could complete an outstanding outfield featuring him in right field, Willie Mays in center, and Monte Irvin in left – three future Hall of Famers, all with outstanding throwing arms, not to mention other baseball talents. Though Irvin’s career was about to take a downturn when Clemente signed in early 1954, he was coming off a stellar season, batting .329 with 21 home runs and 97 runs batted in only 444 at-bats.44

At the end of the 1954 season, the Pirates, who had finished last again in the National League, picked first in the minor-league draft and chose Clemente. In 1955, when Clemente was a rookie, Irvin was sent to the minor-league Minneapolis Millers in late June.45 Irvin starred for the Millers, hitting .352 with 14 home runs and 52 RBIs and figured prominently in their Junior World Series victory. As a result, like Clemente a season earlier, Irvin was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the season-end minor-league draft.

MAJOR-LEAGUE OPPONENTS

Momen and Monte were opponents for two seasons – the first two of Clemente’s stellar career and the last two of Irvin’s truncated career in the National League. Neither was at his best. Clemente started out in 1955 at .255/.284/.382 for a 77 OPS+, albeit with some outstanding defense, as earlier noted. Irvin batted only 150 times for the Giants before being demoted to Minneapolis of the American Association, with a .253/337/.333 performance for a 79 OPS+ – a similar underwhelming offensive performance.46

In 1956 both rebounded. Clemente hit over .300 for the first of 13 times in his legendary career, ending up with a .311/.330/.431 slash line for a 106 OPS+, while Irvin, playing part-time for the Cubs (and mentoring Ernie Banks) ended up at .271/.346/.460 with a 116 OPS+, a decent career-ending result. More interesting, though, is that five of Clemente’s 12 home runs combined in his first two seasons, were against Irvin’s team, with Irvin missing the second half of the 1955 season’s games against Clemente due to his demotion.47

Clemente’s first major-league home run came on April 18, 1955, at the Polo Grounds in front of only 2,915 fans.48 In this his third major-league contest, he hit an inside-the-park home run in the fifth inning off Don Liddle of the Giants, famed for giving up the 430-plus-foot shot by Cleveland’s Vic Wertz that preceded “The Catch” by Willie Mays in Game One of the 1954 World Series. Clemente went 2-for-4 and drove in Pittsburgh’s second run with a sacrifice fly. Irvin played as well, going 1-for-4 with a double, a sacrifice fly, and two RBIs as Pittsburgh lost its sixth straight game to start the season, 12-3. In their first contest playing against each other, both got off to flying starts!49

Clemente hit a 430-foot triple against the Giants on May 6, scoring the tying run in a three-run rally against Johnny Antonelli as the Pirates won their sixth game in a row, 3-2, with Irvin contributing two singles and a run scored to the losing cause.50 Clemente’s third career home run also came against the Giants, a leadoff hit in a 3-2 loss at Forbes Field on May 21, with Irvin only playing as a late-inning defensive replacement.51

In 1956 Roberto Clemente had by far his best statistics against Irvin’s Chicago Cubs, with a .394/.400/.636 slash line,52 and had two especially notable games against the Cubs. On June 6 at Wrigley Field, Clemente went 4-for-4 with a home run and three runs batted in in an 8-2 victory over the Cubs. Although Irvin typically played in left field that year, he shared the position with Jim King, and in this game King was playing in left field when Clemente launched his fifth-inning drive over the left-field fence. Irvin did provide a pinch-hit single to the losing cause.53

In the other game, on July 25 at Forbes Field, Clemente performed a feat that had never been done before in major-league baseball – and has never been done since.54 In the bottom of the ninth inning, with nobody out, the bases loaded, and the Pirates losing 8-5, Clemente faced relief pitcher Jim Brosnan, who had just been brought into the game. On the first pitch, a slider high and inside,

Clemente drove it against the light standard in left field. Jim King had backed up to make the catch but it was over his head. The ball bounced off the slanted side of the fencing and rolled along the cinder path to center field. Here came Hank Foiles, Bill Virdon, and then Dick Cole, heading home and making it easily. Then came Clemente into third. Bobby Bragan had his hands up – stretched to hold up his outfielder. The relay was coming in from Solly Drake. But around third came Clemente and down the home path. He made it just in front of the relay from Ernie Banks. He slid, missed the plate, then reached back to rest his hand on the rubber with the ninth run in a 9-8 victory as the crowd of 12,431 went goofy with excitement.55

In 2015 poet Martin Espada wrote about Clemente’s home run and the reaction to it by manager Bragan and the various media commentators, including the pitcher who gave up the only inside-the-park, walk-off grand slam (ITPWOGS) in major-league history, Jim Brosnan. While discussing how Clemente disobeyed his manager and arguably made “a fundamental error – trying to score a run on a potentially close play with no one out,” Espada argued that Brosnan’s critique was not only an example of stereotyping – but it was also fundamentally wrong.

For Brosnan, writing a scouting report on the Pirates for Life in advance of the 1960 World Series, the Clemente home run, which in his words “excited the fans, startled the manager, shocked me, and disgusted my club,” was an example of Clemente’s “Latin-American variety of showboating.”56 Instead, Espada argued that “to accomplish his unprecedented feat, Clemente had to make a number of split-second calculations involving the dimensions of the ballpark, the path traveled by the baseball after it struck the light standard, the position of the outfielders, the accuracy of the relay throws, his own speed around the bases, and his manager’s gestures to halt, which he ignored because he knew that his instantaneous calculations were correct.”57

Were Clemente still alive, he would undoubtedly say that his play in the 1971 World Series was his greatest thrill in baseball, not his unique ITPWOGS. But to the end of his long life, Monte Irvin would say that his greatest thrill in baseball was his straight steal of home in the first inning of the first game of the 1951 World Series against the New York Yankees.58 Unlike Clemente’s daring dash to home plate, Irvin’s steal was given the green light by manager Durocher, coaching at third, and it occurred with two outs in the first inning, when Irvin noticed that Yankees pitcher Allie Reynolds was “taking a long time to deliver the ball. He was ducking his head and going into that long pumping motion before he let go of the ball.”59 Reynolds was clearly surprised, and threw high to catcher Yogi Berra, enabling Irvin to successfully complete the first straight steal of home in a World Series game in 30 years.60

In his autobiography, Irvin speculated that his steal “might have embarrassed the Yankees a little.”61 Clearly, based on his reaction, Jim Brosnan was more than a little embarrassed by Clemente’s successful tour of the bases on July 25, 1956, which was his second career inside-the-park home run, both against Irvin’s teams.

Irvin’s play, the sixth time he stole home in 1951, was different from Clemente’s play in that it was both practiced and deliberate (and had been approved by his manager), but it was similar in that it was an arguably low-percentage, high-excitement, thrilling maneuver that worked. Could it be that Roberto listened to Irvin’s steal of home when he was 16 years old, and later incorporated his own daring, groundbreaking play as a way to show his mentor what he had gleaned?

MOMEN AND MONTE — AS MENTORS … AND MEN

Roberto Clemente and Monte Irvin were men of different backgrounds and different temperaments. Irvin was more of a “go along to get along” individual. Although he did express himself openly about racism, he was a relatively quiet and cooperative teammate, and later assistant to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, breaking ground as the first Black baseball executive in the formerly White major leagues. As a groundbreaking Black and Latin superstar, Clemente faced racism and language/cultural adaptation difficulties, and he spoke of them openly and loudly. Both were parts of significant moments in baseball’s integration. Irvin was the first Black New York Giant in 1949 with Hank Thompson, and in the first all-Black outfield with Thompson and Willie Mays in the 1951 World Series. Clemente played in the first all-Latino outfield, with Puerto Rican Carlos Bernier and Cuban Ramon Mejias, during spring training of 1955,62 and was part of the first all-Black starting nine for the Pirates in 1971.

Each man became celebrated for his humanity. This author, who has been researching Irvin’s life and career for many years, has come across no one with anything bad to say about Irvin as a human being. In contrast, Clemente was often criticized – but by the end of his short and eventful life, he had become celebrated as a great humanitarian.

Despite different methods, both Momen and Monte were mentors. One of Irvin’s first subjects was in fact Roberto himself. Whether or not Irvin truly was aware of young Roberto, he had a great impact on Roberto’s baseball development. Later, Black pitcher Brooks Lawrence, as quoted by Jim Brosnan – yes, the very same man who critiqued Roberto’s “showboat” style of play – said that “Monte was the Black player all the other Black players looked up to. Jackie Robinson was aloof to them, while Irvin was willing to help. So while they idolized Jackie, they loved Monte. Lawrence explained, ‘I want my idols to talk to me.’”63

Roberto Clemente’s life was replete with instances where he helped others – teammates and even sometimes opponents – to perform better, or just to be ready to compete. For example, in 1966 Matty Alou joined the Pirates and proceeded to win his first (and only) batting title. Clemente, speaking to Alou in Spanish, had exhorted him to hit to left and stationed himself at third base during batting practice to get Alou to hit to him. Pirates manager Harry Walker, in describing Clemente’s principal role in Alou’s transformation and success, said, “Clemente has his critics, but no man ever gave more of himself or worked more unselfishly for the good of the team than Roberto.”64 Longtime teammate Al Oliver not only called Clemente “my biggest booster,”65 but also expressed that “he was the biggest inspiration of my career, and he was an inspiration to all the rest of the members of the team.”66 Even longtime opponent Bobby Bonds was helped by Clemente in 1972 when he noticed that Bonds was slowing down when fielding routine plays: “Clemente felt motivated to talk to Bonds in 1972. Clemente stressed to the young Bonds the importance of playing hard at all times.”67

CONCLUSION-EPITAPHS

In Roberto Clemente’s Hall of Fame player file, there is a typewritten document entitled “Epitaph.” A handwritten notation says “Interview July 1971.” Of course, Clemente did not know he would be dead in less than two years – although he had premonitions of an early death. In the document, Clemente stressed the importance of always playing hard, just as he underscored with Bobby Bonds. He also said, “I believe the kids must have idols. A country without idols is nothing.… I do it for baseball [give out 2,000 autograph cards to kids] because baseball has given me a good life.… I get mad, but I do not hate. I raise my voice when I speak. That is the way I am. But I do not hate.”68

In the immediate aftermath of the plane crash that took Clemente’s life, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, among many others, spoke eloquently of Clemente’s legacy: “Somehow Roberto transcended superstardom.… (H)is marvelous playing skills rank him among the truly elite.… And what a wonderfully good man he was. Always concerned about others. He had about him the touch of royalty” (emphasis added).69 And at the Hall of Fame induction for both men on August 6, 1973, Kuhn spoke similarly about Irvin: “[N]ever … has baseball produced a kinder, more decent, more beloved man, nor one who has meant more to me personally, than Monte Irvin.70

And what did Monte Irvin have to say about Clemente, near and at the end of Clemente’s life? In his autobiography, he wrote, “[W]e used to communicate with each other often and he and I became real close until the day he died.”71 And when he heard Clemente express how much he idolized Irvin as a youngster, he said, “If I had anything to do with Roberto becoming a baseball player, or becoming involved with baseball … I think that my life in baseball is complete.”72

According to Roberto Clemente’s oldest son, Roberto Jr., Irvin certainly had quite a bit to do with his father’s success: “(T)he man was a gem … and he did not know – Monte really did not know – how much he had to do with Dad and how much of an impact he had on Dad.”73 In living, and expressing, their concern for and continual efforts to help others, both Momen and Monte, each a baseball pioneer, lived lives that fulfilled Jackie Robinson’s epitaph: “A Life Is Not Important Except in The Impact It Has on Other Lives.”

Notes

1 h​ttp:/​/www.​retro​sheet​.org ​pitch​er-​bat​ter matchups, accessed March 28, 2022. Clemente far exceeded his .317 lifetime batting average against Spahn – noteworthy in that Spahn was far from an ordinary pitcher. His home run, walk, and strikeout totals against Spahn were more closely in line with his lifetime percentages.

2 Phil Musick, Who Was Roberto? A Biography of Roberto Clemente (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1974), 59.

3 David Maraniss, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (New York: Simon & Schuster, Advanced Reader’s Edition 2006), 21.

4 Maraniss, 21.

5 Sam Nover, “A Conversation with Roberto Clemente,” WIIC TV, October 8, 1972, w​ww.yo​utube​.com/​watch​?v=Pe​-KQ15​vWOA.

6 See Jake Crouse, “The HOFer Who Inspired a Young Clemente,” w​ww.ml​b.​com, February 24, 2022. h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-insp​ired-​by-ne​gro-l​eague​r-mon​te-​irvin, accessed March 29, 2022. (Clemente using a bicycle to “trek to San Juan to watch Puerto Rico’s Winter League”); Maraniss, 25 (“Clemente sometimes had a quarter from his father. He used a dime for the bus and fifteen cents for a ticket” to get to San Juan.)

7 Maraniss, 25.

8 Thomas E. Van Hyning, Puerto Rico’s Winter League: A History of Major League Baseball’s Launching Pad (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1995), 89.

9 Monte Irvin, Nice Guys Finish First: The Autobiography of Monte Irvin (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1996), 42-43.

10 Van Hyning, 89-90.

11 Van Hyning, 89. (“Irvin also filled in at the other infield positions and saw limited duty in the outfield.”)

12 Musick, 59.

13 B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com, Monte Irvin page, accessed March 29, 2022.

14 Irvin, 117.

15 Irvin batted .3677 to Pedroso’s .3684, but batted 155 times to Pedroso’s 95. Van Hyning, 89.

16 Van Hyning, 89.

17 Bill Nunn, Jr., “CHANGE OF PACE: Scribes Now Rate Clemente as ‘Best,’” New Pittsburgh Courier, February 24, 1962: 28.

18 Les Biederman, “Clemente, Early Buc Ace, Says He’s Better in Summer,” The Sporting News, June 29, 1955: 26. The number of 55 games comes from R​etros​heet.​org.

19 Nathalie Alonso, “Revisiting Roberto Clemente’s Best Moments,” w​ww.​ml​b.com December 31, 2021, h​ttps:​//www​.mlb.​com/n​ews/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-grea​test-​momen​ts, accessed March 29, 2022. Clemente led right fielders in assists six times. B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com Appearances on Leaderboards, Awards, and Honors.

20 B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com, Appearances on Leaderboards, Awards, and Honors.

21 Michael Humphreys, Wizardry: Baseball’s All-Time Greatest Fielders Revealed (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 42 (Clemente) and 207 (Irvin).

22 Irvin, 26-27.

23 Ira Miller, Roberto Clemente (New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1973), 13.

24 Bruce Markusen, Roberto Clemente: The Great One (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing Inc., 1998), 8.

25 Maraniss, 25.

26 Roberto Clemente: A Touch of Royalty, w​ww.yo​utube​.com/​watch​?v=oK​IRDgm​wg8w, accessed March 30, 2022.

27 Roberto Clemente: A Video Tribute, w​ww.yo​utube​.com/​watch​?v=Pn​yDAZZ​I7Ipk, accessed March 30, 2022.

28 Email from Stew Thornley to author, February 10, 2022.

29 Maraniss, 25.

30 Irvin, 221.

31 Irvin, 221. The author has spent considerable time trying to parse the tenses and intentions of various statements of Irvin’s and of authors either quoting or characterizing Roberto Clemente’s early involvement with Monte Irvin to determine definitively if he knew who Roberto Clemente was in 1945 – concluding that it is likely that Irvin did not remember Clemente clearly after their early encounters.

32 Maraniss, 25.

33 See e.g. Irvin, 119-120. The full story is much more complicated but not relevant to this article.

34 Irvin, 123.

35 Maraniss, 26-27.

36 Clemente had been signed by Santurce in 1952.

37 “Giants Had First Chance at Clemente, Nixed Price,” The Sporting News, November 26, 1966: 26. According to Markusen, Giants scouts noted that Clemente was an undisciplined hitter and Stoneham became concerned that Clemente would strike out too frequently. Markusen, 15.

38 Maraniss, 37.

39 B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com, Roberto Clemente page, accessed March 30, 2022.

40 “Sukey First to Glimpse Clemente,” The Sporting News, June 29, 1955: 26. It is worth mentioning that Sukeforth likely scouted Monte Irvin for the Dodgers in 1945 and perhaps earlier as a potential pioneering Black player for the Dodgers.

41 Brent Kelley, Baseball’s Biggest Blunder: The Bonus Rule of 1953-1957 (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc. 1997), 20.

42 The Sporting News, May 25, 1955: 11.

43 Les Biederman, “Hats Off ! Roberto Clemente,” The Sporting News, June 20, 1956: 19.

44 Perhaps Bavasi in 1955 forgot that when the Royals signed Clemente, Mays had just missed most of the past two years in the military, and had yet to truly prove himself a superstar, although Irvin was about to turn 35 at the time of Clemente’s signing and Mays certainly showed enormous potential in 1951.

45 Whitney Martin, “The Sports Trail,” Bedford (Pennsylvania) Gazette, June 29, 1955: 4.

46 B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com, Roberto Clemente and Monte Irvin pages.

47 Clemente Home Run Log, Compiled by Joseph A. Mercurio, Roberto Clemente player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Clemente hit three of his five home runs against the Giants in 1955, but the third was hit after Irvin had been sent to Minneapolis.

48 Baseball R​efere​nce.c​om Game Logs for Roberto Clemente 1955, accessed March 30, 2022. It is noteworthy that the Giants drew very few fans in an early-season game in the year following their four-game World Series sweep of the Cleveland Indians, an indication that trouble was ahead for the Giants (and their fans) as a New York entity.

49 “Willie Hits Two Triples and Single,” Washington Post, April 19, 1955: 27.

50 “Pirates 3 In 7th Upset Giants 3-2,” New York Times, May 7, 1955: 11.

51 B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com Game Logs for Roberto Clemente 1955.

52 B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com Game Logs for Roberto Clemente 1956.

53 B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com Game Logs for Roberto Clemente 1955.

54 It is certainly possible that Clemente’s feat was performed in the Negro Leagues, whose league play between 1920 and 1948 has been recognized as major league.

55 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 26, 1956, cited in Martin Espada’s “The Greatest Home Run of All Time,” The Massachusetts Review, Volume 56, Number 2, Summer 2015: 249-255. Note that Monte Irvin was not playing left field in that game.

56 Espada. Quotes from Brosnan cited by Espada appeared in Life magazine, October 5, 1960.

57 Espada.

58 Irvin, 164.

59 Irvin, 164. See h​ttps:​//sab​r.org​/game​sproj​/game​/octo​ber-4​-1951​-mont​e-irv​in-st​eals-​home-​as-gi​ants-​take-​game-​1-ove​r-yan​kees/.

60 Andrew Heckroth, “October 4, 1951: Monte Irvin Steals Home as Giants Take Game 1 over Yankees,” Games Project, w​ww.sa​br.​org accessed March 31, 2022.

61 Irvin, 163.

62 The Sporting News, March 23, 1955: 34. Note that the article incorrectly called it an all-Puerto Rican outfield.

63 Danny Peary, ed., We Played the Game: 65 Players Remember Baseball’s Greatest Era 1947-1964 (New York: Hyperion, 1994), 319.

64 Arthur Daley, “A Matter of Value,” New York Times, December 16, 1966. Clipping in Clemente Hall of Fame player file.

65 “Memory of ‘Great One’ Inspires Bucs Still,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 7, 1973.

66 “What Clemente Meant to the Pirates,” from unidentified newspaper 1973. Clipping in Clemente Hall of Fame player file.

67 Bruce Markusen. “#Card Corner: 1981 Fleer Bobby Bonds,” w​ww.ba​sebal​lhall​.org, accessed March 27, 2021.

68 Document entitled “Epitaph” in Clemente Hall of Fame player file.

69 Associated Press, “Baseball Respected Clemente as Greatest, ‘Super Star,’” Beaver Falls (Pennsylvania) News Tribune, January 2, 1973.

70 New York Times, August 7, 1973.

71 Irvin, 221.

72 Roberto Clemente: A Touch of Royalty.

73 Crouse, “The HOFer Who Inspired a Young Clemente.”

A large mural of Roberto Clemente adorns Parque Luis Alfonso Velasquez Flores in Managua, Nicaragua. (Courtesy of Steven A. Melnick, Ph.D.)

New Year’s Day, 1973: As the world awoke to the awful news and details emerged about the accident that claimed Roberto Clemente’s life, fans could only ask why. Why Clemente? Why was such a kind human taken at such a young age? Why had the plane malfunctioned? But one “why” stood above the others – why had Clemente chosen to personally deliver the supplies?

Math tells us the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But given the brazen corruption of the Nicaraguan government, Clemente felt the 1,413-mile line between the collected supplies in San Juan and the needy Managua victims went through him.

Clemente first visited the country in 1964 as a member of the San Juan Senators, champions of the Puerto Rican Winter League that now bears his name, to play in the Inter-American Series. The competition pitted squads from several nations and had replaced the Caribbean Series, last played in 1960.1

The Senators boasted a formidable lineup, anchored by big leaguers Clemente, Orlando Cepeda, Luis Arroyo, José Pagán, and Juan Pizarro, but fell to the local Cinco Estrellas (Five Stars) team.2 By then, Clemente was an established All-Star, known not just for his prowess on the field but also for his humanitarian nature. He established a close bond with the Nicaraguan people, under the yoke of the Somoza family dictatorship that had ruled since 1936.

The Somozas were unabashed in their corruption. The United States, mindful of the threat of communism (both real and imagined) in Latin America, threw its support behind two generations of strongmen, giving the financial and military backing that was interpreted as a blank check to oppress Nicaraguans.

Against this backdrop, Clemente returned in November 1972 to manage the Puerto Rican team in the amateur World Series (later renamed the Baseball World Cup).3 Cuba ransacked the field en route to a 14-1 record, while the United States and Nicaragua both finished 13-2.4

Only a few weeks later, a devastating earthquake destroyed most of the capital. Cruelly, it occurred on December 23, as the country prepared for Christmas. It shook the capital around 12:30 A.M., thereby catching most of its inhabitants asleep. Its 6.3 magnitude was followed by large two aftershocks within an hour, adding panic and confusion to the sea of people crowding its damaged, darkened streets. The calamity was the first humanitarian mission handled by the fledging organization Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), now a leader in medical relief.5

Amid the destruction, foreign aid rushed in, only to be met with inadequate distribution schemes and a government all too eager to withhold goods for its own benefit. Major Raúl Pellegrina, who delivered one of the first loads of aid collected by Clemente, was ordered by the armed forces to hand over the cargo. He refused, stating he “had told the soldiers that if they didn’t let him through, he would reload his aircraft and fly back to San Juan and tell the great Roberto Clemente what was happening.”6

Clemente’s role has been well chronicled. He personally organized relief efforts, and after hearing about the dictatorship’s craven behavior firsthand, chose to board the ill-fated flight. Despite the plea of his wife, Vera, not to get onto the plane, Clemente remained steadfast in what he saw as a moral mission: “When your time comes, it comes; if you are going to die, you will die. And babies are dying. They need these supplies.”7 His death added to the disaster’s toll, estimated to be between 4,000 and 11,000 people with almost two-thirds of a million displaced.8

In the 1970s, domestic and international criticism of the regime mounted, and Anastasio Somoza Debayle turned even more restrictive.9 The Frente de Liberación Nacional Sandinista (National Sandinista Liberation Front) toppled the government in 1979 but, seduced by power, ruled in a similar autocratic fashion.10 Tensions remained as US-based contra-revolutionaries fought a guerrilla war that engulfed the entire nation. Peace came in 1990 with free elections, won by a coalition of anti-Sandinista parties. Democracy and peaceful transitions were sustained into the twenty-first century, though Daniel Ortega’s return to power in 2006 has brought repression and contested elections. Political opponents have been frequently jailed since 2015.

While baseball was already the country’s favorite sport, no Nicaraguan had reached the major leagues before Dennis Martínez (“El Presidente”) in 1976. Since then, 14 others have joined the big show, influenced by Clemente’s passion.11 Martínez, who played in the Puerto Rican Winter League, was direct in his praise: “I had two idols – one as a pitcher, Juan Marichal, and the other, Clemente, as a human being. I took him as an example. He got me to think more about helping your neighbor, helping children, which was his goal and now mine too.”12 In 2019, a Clemente statue was erected in the main lobby of the Dennis Martínez National Stadium in Managua, forever linking both luminaries.13

Beyond Puerto Rico and Pittsburgh, no other place honors Clemente’s memory as much as Nicaragua. His eldest son, Roberto Jr., joined the Board of Directors of the International Baseball Academy of Central America (IBACA).14 The Masaya stadium is named after Clemente, as are schools all over the nation. In a touching moment of humanitarian partnership, the Rotary Club of Pittsburgh provided financial assistance for the creation of the Roberto Clemente Health Clinic in Nicaragua, which serves tens of thousands of needy patients.15

Clemente is seen as a unifying figure by both pro- and antigovernment groups. On December 31, 2013, then-Vice President Rosario Murillo Zambrana and the Nicaraguan parliament honored Clemente with the “Hero in Solidarity” award, the nation’s highest civilian honor.16 A large mural of “The Great One” was unveiled six years later at the Luis Alfonso Velásquez Flores Park in Managua, with 400 Little Leaguers in attendance.17 Sports journalist Carlos Reyes addressed the crowd, noting, “[D]espite not being born in Nicaragua, Roberto Clemente was the most important baseball player of Nicaragua, because giving one’s life for others … has enormous meaning.”18

A year later, at the height of the global coronavirus pandemic, four juvenile teams played a one-day tournament in the Roberto Clemente Youth Stadium, with organizers proclaiming, “Roberto Clemente is a symbol of respect, a symbol of greatness and above all of solidarity. We, the youth, the Nicaraguan youth, the sports promoters, the athletes, remember his example and continue the example of solidarity.”19

Sadly, politics has tainted the memory. As the Ortega regime repressed its opponents – more than 300 were killed in 2018 alone – the government seized Clemente’s memory for a series of exhibition games pitting the Puerto Rican and Nicaraguan national teams. Middle son Luis Clemente spoke with great sadness: “I just feel a little concerned that we were not approached by those who know us from Nicaragua that could have let us know ahead of time what was the ulterior motive behind all of this. We were left in the dark totally.”20 Even Martínez, the greatest living baseball icon of the country, agreed, stating his opposition to a “stadium made for baseball” being used as barracks for the military.21

Marlon Torres, chair of the Nicaraguan Sports Institute, had previously stated: “As a sportsman and as a person, Clemente is worthy of imitation; we should remember and maintain his memory all year long, not just on this date.”22 Almost three decades earlier, the government had taken such a step, issuing a set of postage stamps celebrating baseball players, including Clemente.23

Nicaragua’s affection for Clemente is unique. It was not ordained like Puerto Rico’s, where he was born and belonged, nor was it based on the luck of the Rule 5 draft, which allowed Pittsburgh to pluck him from the Brooklyn Dodgers’ system. Instead, it was earned through acts shaped by his ethical conviction.

Vera Clemente stated that her husband’s bond with Nicaragua was rooted in the similarities between the two nations: “We came to Nicaragua and found the people as we had been in Puerto Rico 30 years ago. Roberto saw himself in the boys in the streets – without shoes, living in a one-room house – much like it had been when his father worked for the sugar mill in Carolina. He changed a twenty-dollar bill into coins each morning and called boys over as we walked to ask them about their families. What work did their father do? What had they eaten for dinner last night? And then he dug into his pockets for them.”24 It’s fitting both winter leagues have retired number 21 from being worn on the field, but to forever remain in people’s hearts.25

Notes

1 The first version of the Caribbean Series (1949-1960) featured a four-nation round-robin tournament pitting Cuba, Panama, Mexico, and Puerto Rico against one another. After Fidel Castro’s ban on professional baseball, the competition was not held until 1970, with Venezuela and the Dominican Republic replacing the departed Cuba and Panama. In the past decade, Cuba and Panama have returned, and Colombia has been added.

2 Néstor Duprey Salgado, “Clemente en la víspera de la gloria.” Self-published book, 2017, 381.

3 “XX Campeonato Mundial de Béisbol Amateur: Managua, Nicaragua (1972),” Deportes, Cine, y Otros, h​ttps:​//dep​ortes​ciney​otros​.com/​2017/​01/01​/xx-c​ampeo​nato-​mundi​al-de​-beis​bol-a​mateu​r-man​agua-​nicar​agua-​1972/.

4 “XX Campeonato Mundial de Béisbol Amateur: Managua, Nicaragua (1972).”

5 “Doctors Without Borders: History,” Doctors Without Borders, h​ttps:​//www​.doct​orswi​thout​borde​rs.or​g/who​-we-a​re/hi​story​/foun​ding.

6 David Maraniss, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 302.

7 “Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente,” Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, h​ttp:/​/www.​rober​tocle​mente​.si.e​du/en​glish​/virt​ual_s​tory_​nicar​agua_​09.​htm.

8 “On This Day: 23 December,” BBC News, h​ttp:/​/news​.bbc.​co.uk​/onth​isday​/low/​dates​/stor​ies/d​ecemb​er/23​/news​id_25​40000​/2540​045.​stm.

9 Anastasio Somoza García, the patriarch, ruled until 1956. His eldest son, Luis, took over until 1963, and Anastasio (Junior) governed until 1979. Puppet presidents briefly ruled during the time, but the Somozas were the unquestionable leaders.

10 The movement was named after Augusto Sandino, who organized an ultimately unsuccessful revolution against American economic dominance in the 1920s. For more information, see h​ttp:/​/www.​sandi​noreb​ellio​n.​com/.

11 As of the conclusion of the 2021 season.

12 Antolín Maldonado Ríos, “Dennis Martínez Fue Influenciado por Clemente,” El Nuevo Día, January 4, 2013.

13 “Rinden Homenaje a Roberto Clemente en Nicaragua,” El Nuevo Día, March 16, 2019, h​ttps:​//www​.elnu​evodi​a.com​/depo​rtes/​beisb​ol/no​tas/r​inden​-home​naje-​a-rob​erto-​cleme​nte-e​n-nic​aragu​a/.

14 “Rinden Homenaje a Roberto Clemente en Nicaragua.”

15 “Clinic Timeline,” The Roberto Clemente Health Clinic, h​ttps:​//nic​aclin​ic.or​g/cli​nicti​melin​e/.

16 “Nicaragua Recuerda al Héroe de la Solidaridad, Roberto Clemente,” Viva Nicaragua/Canal 13, December 31, 2019, h​ttps:​//www​.viva​nicar​agua.​com.n​i/201​9/12/​31/so​ciale​s/nic​aragu​a-her​oe-so​lidar​idad-​rober​to-cl​eme​nte/.

17 Iris Varela, “Nicaragua Recuerda a Roberto Clemente como ‘Héroe del Amor y la Solidaridad,’” Diario Barricada, December 31, 2019, h​ttps:​//dia​rioba​rrica​da.co​m/nic​aragu​a-rec​uerda​-a-ro​berto​-clem​ente-​como-​heroe​-del-​amor-​y-la-​solid​arida​d/.

18 “Nicaragua Recuerda a Roberto Clemente como Héroe de la Solidaridad,” Archivo Informativo TN8, December 31, 2019, h​ttps:​//www​.yout​ube.c​om/wa​tch?v​=KPBJ​6Px2l​aU.

19 “Recuerdan a Roberto Clemente a 48 Años de su Mayor Hazaña de Solidaridad,” Viva Nicaragua/Canal 13, December 31, 2020, h​ttps:​//www​.viva​nicar​agua.​com.n​i/202​0/12/​31/so​ciale​s/rob​erto-​cleme​nte-h​azana​-soli​darid​ad/.

20 Stephen J. Nesbitt, “Peace or Propaganda? In Nicaragua, a Tug of War over Roberto Clemente’s Legacy,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 6, 2019, h​ttps:​//www​.post​-gaze​tte.c​om/sp​orts/​pirat​es/20​19/03​/06/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-puer​to-ri​co-ni​carag​ua-ba​sebal​l-ser​ies-d​ennis​-mart​inez-​stadi​um/st​ories​/2019​03060​029.

21 Nesbitt.

22 “Nicaragua en Deuda con Roberto Clemente,” Impacto Latino, December 30, 2012, h​ttps:​//imp​actol​atino​.com/​nicar​agua-​en-de​uda-c​on-ro​berto​-clem​ente/.

23 “Stamp Catalog: Roberto Clemente (Puerto Rico),” Colnect, h​ttps:​//col​nect.​com/e​n/sta​mps/s​tamp/​35627​7-Rob​erto_​Cleme​nte_P​uerto​_Rico​-Base​ball_​Playe​rs-Ni​carag​ua.

24 Rob Ruck, “Mission of Love: Displays of Respect for Her husband Ease Pain of Vera Clemente’s Nicaragua Visit,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1989, h​ttps:​//www​.lati​mes.c​om/ar​chive​s/la-​xpm-1​989-0​6-15-​sp-25​22-st​ory.​html.

25 Renso Gómez, “Nicaragua Pone el Ejemplo y Retira Número de Roberto Clemente,” El Fildeo, November 2, 2020, h​ttps:​//elf​ildeo​.com/​mlb/n​icara​gua-m​lb-ro​berto​-clem​ente-​numer​o-not​icias​/1429​65/20​20/v

“In all due respect to Henry Aaron, Stan Musial and Willie Mays, the best hitter I ever played against was Roberto Clemente.”— Pete Rose, recipient of the 1976 Roberto Clemente Award1

The baseballs are signed by Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Ton Seaver, Ferguson Jenkins, Don Drysdale, and Sandy Koufax – each one a Hall of Fame pitcher against whom Clemente hit .300 or higher. (Photograph by Duane Rieder.)

Roberto Clemente’s offensive accomplishments should leave zero doubt as to the merits of his special election to the Hall of Fame in 1973: a career batting average of .317; four National League batting titles (1961, 1964, 1965, and 1967); the 1966 National League Most Valuable Player Award (he batted .317 with 29 home runs and 119 RBIs); the 1971 World Series MVP; the 11th player to have 3,000 regular-season hits; and only the second player to hit in every game of two consecutive World Series appearances (1960 and 1971).

Despite these achievements, Clemente’s offensive talent could be viewed as underappreciated by those who have cited his 240 regular-season home runs as a somewhat muted offensive record compared with other elite players of his era. He topped the 20-home-run mark just three times, for instance. Clemente for his part acknowledged this criticism throughout his career. “I can hit with anybody,” he insisted. “I believe I’m as good a hitter as Willie Mays or Henry Aaron. My only drawback is lack of home run power.”2 (Aaron hit 755 home runs and Willie Mays hit 660.)

A closer examination of Clemente’s offensive production reveals that he was arguably one of most intelligent hitters of his era. He demonstrated raw offensive power and was able to adjust his batting approach according to in-game circumstances. Simply put, Clemente could not only hit, but hit with power.

THE EARLY YEARS

Clemente’s first playing experience occurred when he joined his local slow-pitch softball team in 1942, and taught himself the basics of hitting with a guava tree limb that served as his first bat.3 He quickly fell in love with the game and spent hours on the neighborhood softball field, noting in his diary that he once hit 10 home runs during a marathon game.4 Clemente next progressed to fast-pitch softball, where in 1952 his strong fielding skills and ability to consistently pull the ball led to an invitation to a tryout co-hosted by the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Santurce Cangrejeros at Sixto Escobar Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Of the 72 players attending the tryout, Clemente was the only one to attract the interest of Dodgers scout Al Campanis. Impressed with his defensive abilities, Campanis invited Clemente to hit batting practice. Clemente did not disappoint. “The kid swings with both feet off the ground and hits line drives to right and sharp ground balls up the middle,” marveled Campanis. “He was the greatest natural athlete I have ever seen as a free agent.”5 Campanis also rated Clemente’s hitting power as “A+” in his scouting report.6 Despite this strong interest, major-league rules dictated that Clemente could not sign with the Dodgers until his 18th birthday. However, the Dodgers’ co-host, the Santurce Cangrejeros, wasted little time signing Clemente to a contract to play in the Puerto Rican Winter League.

Buster Clarkson, as the Cangrejeros’ manager and Clemente’s first skipper in professional baseball, recognized his raw offensive talent and made sure he was offered a similar amount of batting-practice pitches as his teammates.7 Clemente credited Clarkson with helping him improve his batting stride toward the pitcher, thus increasing his offensive production. Of Clemente, Clarkson noted, “[His batting stance] had a few rough spots, but he never made the same mistake twice. He was baseball savvy.”8

Clemente signed with the Dodgers a year later for a $10,000 salary and a $5,000 signing bonus. The Dodgers sent him to their International League affiliate in Montreal for the 1954 season, which meant that he became eligible to be claimed by another organization via a supplemental draft at season’s end.

Clemente saw limited playing time during the first half of his only season in Montreal. His manager, Max Macon, claimed this was due to Clemente’s free-swinging nature at the plate. “If you had been in Montreal that year, you wouldn’t have believed how ridiculous some pitchers made him look.”9 Despite limited playing time, Clemente showed flashes of offensive power. On July 25 he slammed a pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the 10th to win the first game of a doubleheader at home vs. the Havana Sugar Kings. The ball sailed over the 340-foot left-field fence and left the ballpark. “Clemente is a player with potential greatness,” wrote one reporter. “His clout over the left field wall … won the opening game Hollywood style.”10

FROM A YOUNG “BUC” TO “THE GREAT ONE”: 1955-1972

After being claimed by the Pirates in the November 1954 supplemental draft, Clemente made his major-league debut the following spring. The 1955 season also showcased Clemente’s unorthodox batting style, which was partly in response to a back injury sustained in an offseason car accident in Puerto Rico.11 This approach at the plate quickly caught the attention of teammates and reporters. “He stood at the batting cage, his head rolling as he jerked his neck in a series of exercises.… The posture was awkward. The swing was sudden and appeared unpremeditated.… Only after the bat strikes the ball is it obvious that this is a good hitter.”12

Clemente hit his first big-league home run on April 18, 1955, against the New York Giants. He hit the ball 450 feet to left-center field off the bullpen at the Polo Grounds (which was located in fair territory), and legged out an inside-the-park home run.13 A few weeks later, on June 5, while facing the Cincinnati Reds at Pittsburgh’s cavernous Forbes Field, Clemente hit a triple to dead center field that “must have traveled 450 feet in the air and would have been a homer in any National League park except Forbes Field and the Polo Grounds.”14

Clemente’s willingness to hit almost any pitch proved to be one of his strongest offensive abilities. He had only 18 walks in 501 plate appearances in 1955 and just 13 walks in 572 plate appearances in 1956. This led Clemente to develop a reputation that “he hit everything that didn’t hit him first.”15 Indeed, opposing managers told reporters they instructed their pitchers to give intentional walks to Clemente, but on many occasions he would swing at the pitches for base hits.16 Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Sutton once remarked of Clemente, “Anything between the on-deck circles was a strike to him. I’ve seen him double on knock-down pitches.”17

Interestingly, 2,154 (or 72 percent) of Clemente’s 3,000 hits were singles. That high a percentage could be considered a misleading indicator of a lack of home-run power, as Clemente showed he could crush hits that didn’t clear the outfield wall at Forbes Field. During a game against the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field on June 13, 1963, Clemente launched a pitch more than 400 feet; it was hit so hard to the wall that it quickly bounced to Reds’ center fielder, Vada Pinson, who quickly relayed the ball back to the infield, “restricting Clemente to a laser single.”18

On occasion, however, the baseball gods granted Clemente a trip around the bases for his line- drive efforts, such as on May 11, 1957, when Clemente scorched a hit over the head of Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Richie Ashburn. The ball rolled to the batting cage, which was stored in fair territory in deepest center field. When Ashburn finally got to the ball, Clemente was already at third base, and he scored easily for an inside-the-park home run.19

While Clemente is perhaps best known for hitting bullet line drives, he also hit monstrous home runs that left his fellow players speechless. In the first game of a doubleheader at Wrigley Field on May 17, 1959, Clemente hit a moon shot off Cubs pitcher Bob Anderson to deep right field, estimated at a minimum distance of 500 feet in negligible wind conditions. The Cubs hitting coach, baseball legend Roger Hornsby, remarked that it was the longest home run he had ever seen.20

Neither the daunting dimensions of Forbes Field nor the pressure of facing one of the National League’s greatest pitchers intimidated Clemente. On May 31, 1964, he led off the bottom of the third inning by launching a pitch from Sandy Koufax that hit the light tower in left-center field, an estimated 450 feet from home plate. Koufax said the ball was still rising when it hit the tower, which suggests it would have gone even farther with no resistance.21 Koufax later summarized his career facing Clemente as a sort of puzzle: “There is just no way you can develop a pitching pattern for him.”22

Clemente also harnessed his power to carry the Pirates offense when necessary, such as on May 15, 1967, vs. the Cincinnati Reds. In one of his best run-producing games, Clemente had three home runs and a double and drove in all of Pittsburgh’s runs in an 8-7 loss. “It was almost like Roberto Clemente playing the Reds all by himself and coming so close to wrecking them single-handedly,” a sportswriter observed.23 Clemente, much to his modest nature, downplayed his performance. “Yes, my biggest game, but not my best game,” he said. “My best game is when I drive in the winning run. I don’t count this one, we lost.”24

When Clemente arrived in the big leagues, Willie Mays encouraged him to never be intimidated by pitchers. “Get mean when you go to bat,” advised Mays. “And if they try to knock you down, act like it doesn’t bother you. Get back up there and hit the ball. Show them.”25 Clemente made good use of this advice during a game at Dodger Stadium on June 4, 1967. After Clemente hit a home run in the fifth inning, Don Drysdale threw a “duster” at him in his next at-bat, sending him to the ground.26 With the count 3-and-1, Clemente drove the next pitch an estimated 430 feet over the center-field wall. For his efforts, Clemente was greeted with a loud round of applause by the Dodgers faithful as he rounded the bases.27

Clemente’s power production was so consistent that offnights at the plate attracted attention. In the All-Star Game in Anaheim on July 12, 1967, he struck out four times for only the second time in his career. Clemente’s National League teammates were shocked by what they saw, prompting Atlanta Braves catcher Joe Torre to deadpan, “Did everybody take notes on how to pitch to Clemente?”28

Perhaps one of the most overlooked of Clemente’s home runs came in the second game of a doubleheader on June 27, 1971, at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. He belted a pinch-hit homer off Joe Hoerner to become the first of only seven players to hit a home run to Veterans Stadium’s upper decks in its 33-year history.29 Clemente’s feat was underappreciated at the time because of a newspaper strike in Pittsburgh but has since been validated by multiple witnesses, including the Phillies players.30

On September 30, 1972, Clemente became only the 11th player to reach 3,000 career hits. His landmark hit came at home off the Mets’ Jon Matlack, a leadoff double in the fourth inning. Clemente dedicated the hit to Pirates fans, the people of Puerto Rico, and Roberto Marin, the Puerto Rican businessman who originally invited Clemente to play on his softball team and became so impressed with his performance that he recommended that the Brooklyn Dodgers sign Clemente.31

CLEMENTE’S APPROACH TO HITTING

Through the years baseball fans and historians have offered several possible reasons for why Clemente, a perennial challenger for the National League batting title, rarely set home-run records. Clemente, for his part, claimed it was due to the deep dimensions of Forbes Field: 365 feet in left field, 406 feet to left-center field, 457 feet to deep center field. “I would hit more homers if I were playing anywhere but in Pittsburgh,” he said. “Forbes Field is the toughest park to hit home runs. If I played in Wrigley Field, I’d be a power hitter. I could hit 35 to 40 homers a year with my home games there.”32 Said longtime teammate Bill Mazeroski, “Don’t let anybody kid you he can’t hit for distance. When he wants to, he can power one as far as anybody in baseball. He’s smart enough to go for line drives at Forbes Field. That’s no park for home run hitters.”33

Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh offered his own rationale for Clemente’s offensive results. “I have always said that everybody expects too much of Roberto. He’s batting in the third position and in my style of play his job is to set up runners as well as drive them in. If you were to take Roberto’s runs set up, you’ll come up with a tremendous plus in his favor. Everybody always mentions the RBIs, but nobody ever mentions the runs set up. That’s equally important.”34

A potential clue to the origin of Clemente’s raw offensive power likely lies in the mechanics of his swing. According to Clemente biographer Bill Christine, “No kid on a sandlot will ever be taught to swing a bat like Roberto Clemente. The batter’s box was never deep enough for him. He had reflexes which enabled him to wait until the last fraction of a second before whipping the bat around. His hands, those strong hands and powerful wrists, he kept them close to the midsection. He felt that there was no pitch that was impossible for him to attack.”35

Generating power off his left foot, Clemente “would never swing the bat at the baseball, he would always throw the bat at the baseball.”36 His unique lunging motion meant that “Clemente made his charge at the pitchers like a mad man.”37 Interestingly, during his 1966 MVP season, Clemente’s offensive numbers rose to career highs in home runs and RBIs, which he attributed in part to improved field conditions at his home ballpark that helped him enhance his swing. “For years, I have been pleading with somebody in charge at Forbes Field to put clay instead of sand in the batter’s box,” he said. “Suddenly, this year, they put clay in the batter’s box. Now I have firm footing. Now I can get a toe-hold.”38

Regardless of how he did it, Clemente demonstrated incredible offensive ability to hit virtually any pitch for power to any part of the ballpark. As Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times noted, “They didn’t make the pitch Roberto Clemente couldn’t hit. All he required of a baseball was that it be in the park. He was the most destructive World Series player I ever saw outside of Ruth and Gehrig.”39

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank David Speed and Bill Nowlin for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this article.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted B​aseba​ll-Re​feren​ce.​com, R​etros​heet.​org, N​ewspa​pers.​com, and Clemente’s file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Notes

1 Associated Press, “Pete Rose Given Clemente Award,” Wilmington (Ohio) News Journal, May 13, 1976: 16.

2 Associated Press, “Clemente Claims He’s Best in Game,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 21, 1964: 23.

3 Bruce Markusen, Roberto Clemente: The Great One (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, Inc., 2013), 22.

4 Markusen, 23.

5 Markusen, 26.

6 David Maraniss, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 27.

7 Bill Christine, “Roberto! A Self-Made Hitter,” New York Daily News, April 3, 1973: 146.

8 Markusen, 29.

9 Stew Thornley, “Roberto Clemente’s Entry into Organized Baseball: Was He Hidden in Montreal?” Accessed April 7, 2022, h​ttps:​//mil​keesp​ress.​com/c​lemen​te195​4.​html.

10 Lloyd McGowan, “Rookie Roberto’s homer, Lasorda Win, Revive Hopes,” Montreal Star, July 26, 1954: 28.

11 Markusen, 52.

12 Jimmy Cannon, “Clemente Still Wonders: Who’s Stranger in Field?,” Orlando Evening Star, March 21, 1972: 30.

13 Les Biederman, “Roberto’s Bat Softens Rivals for Buc Raids,” The Sporting News, September 17, 1966: 6.

14 Les Biederman, “The Scoreboard,” Pittsburgh Press, June 6, 1955: 22.

15 Jim Murray, “Roberto’s Revenge,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1964: 1.

16 Murray, “Roberto’s Revenge.”

17 Associated Press, “300-Win Hurlers History?” Rome (Georgia) News-Tribune, January 7, 1998: 3B.

18 Les Biederman, “Bailey in Fast Company,” Pittsburgh Press, June 14, 1963: 28.

19 Les Biederman, “Phils Blast Friend Early, Turn Back Pirates, 7 to 2,” Pittsburgh Press, May 12, 1957: 69.

20 Les Biederman, “Tape Measure Homer Belted by Clemente at Wrigley Field,” The Sporting News, May 27, 1959: 10.

21 Sandy Koufax with Ed Linn, Koufax (New York: Viking Press, 1966), 220.

22 Frank Finch, “Bucs’ Clemente Toughest NL Hitter,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1965: 50.

23 Les Biederman. “Clemente’s ‘Biggest’ Game Wasted,” Pittsburgh Press, May 16, 1967: 34.

24 Biederman. “Clemente’s ‘Biggest’ Game Wasted.”

25 Biederman. “Clemente’s ‘Biggest’ Game Wasted.”

26 Charley Feeney, “Veale Gets 7th Victory with Help,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 5, 1967: 34.

27 This Day in Baseball, “Roberto Clemente Hits 2 Home Runs off Don Drysdale,” Accessed April 22, 2022, h​ttps:​//thi​sdayi​nbase​ball.​com/r​obert​o-cle​mente​-hits​-2-ho​me-ru​ns-of​f-don​-drys​dale-​accou​nting​-for-​all-o​f-pit​tsbur​ghs-r​uns-i​n-a-4​-1-vi​ctory​-over​-los-​angel​es-cl​ement​es-fi​rst-b​omb-t​ravel​s-400​-feet​-to-t​ie-th​e-s/.

28 Les Biederman. “Reds’ Perez Lives Like a King, Plays Like One,” Pittsburgh Press, July 12, 1967: 62.

29 Gene Collier, “Of Veterans: One Spit On, the Other Knocked Down,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 26, 2003: B-2. This home run has often been misquoted as the “Liberty Bell Ringer” that hit the decorative Liberty Bell attached to the center-field upper deck at Veterans Stadium. Clemente researcher David Speed has noted that while the home run did not hit the bell, it was nonetheless an excellent example of Clemente’s raw offensive power.

30 David Speed Facebook post: June 27, 2018, Accessed April 30, 2022, h​ttps:​//www​.face​book.​com/p​hoto/​?fbid​=1021​53422​2137​6250.

31 Charley Feeney, “Roberto Collects 3000th Hit, Dedicates It to Pirate Fans,” The Sporting News, October 14, 1972: 15.

32 “Clemente Claims He’s Best in Game.”

33 Al Abrams, “Sidelights on Sports: Clemente Not Appreciated?,” Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, February 26, 1965, 20.

34 Associated Press, “Clemente Sparks Late Rally, Pirates Win, 6-5,” Monessen Valley Independent (Monessen, Pennsylvania), May 18, 1971: 9.

35 Bill Christine, “Roberto! A Self-Made Hitter.”

36 Markusen, 168.

37 Les Biederman, “Clemente Sinks Feet in Clay to Mold Stout Swat Figures,” The Sporting News, July 2, 1966: 8.

38 Biederman, “Clemente Sinks Feet in Clay to Mold Stout Swat Figures.”

39 Jim Murray, “Clemente: You Had to See Him to Disbelieve Him,” Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1973: 49.