How many people know that name? Roberto Clemente. How about Jackie Robinson? While Jackie Robinson, the man that broke the color barrier in baseball, is a household name, I personally feel that the acts of Roberto Clemente go a great deal more unnoticed. Unfortunately, Roberto Clemente is mostly remembered because of his tragic death: a plane crash in the Caribbean on his way to Nicaragua. Roberto Clemente is more than just a superstar baseball player, community servant and Latino. He is a national hero, and the spokesman not just for his native Puerto Rico, but also for Latino ball players as a whole.
Roberto Clemente was born on August 18, 1938 in Carolina, Puerto Rico. In Roberto’s early life, he worked tirelessly in the sugar fields while attending Vizcarando High School. Playing baseball there eventually got him noticed and earned him a spot in the minors on the mainland, where he began to excel as a player but struggled with the racism of the tumultuous 1960s. Struggling to speak the language and being constantly judged by the color of his skin infuriated Clemente. But he kept playing, eventually he was drafted and put under contract by the Pittsburgh Pirates where he gradually became one of the stars of the team. Clemente worked tirelessly to perfect his game and help his team win, not just at the plate but in the field as well. In 1960, Clemente led the league in batting average (.353) and led the Pittsburgh Pirates to a pennant and the World Series title. However, this only earned him a reserve spot in the All-Star game. This slight, just showed the inherent disrespect that many still felt about Latino players. This only motivated Clemente further to prove to everyone that Latino players were just as good as white players.
In the subsequent years, Clemente won 12 gold gloves, three more batting titles, and a National League MVP awards. He also led the Pirates to another World Series title in 1971 and registered his 3,000 hit the next year in 1972. But all of these accomplishments are miniscule compared to his impact for the Latin, specifically the Puerto Rican community. Clemente made it a point to use his success throughout his career as a platform to help his community. For example, after winning the NL MVP in 1967 (the first Hispanic player to win the award) he addressed a nationally televised audience in Spanish, which had never been done by a ball player before speaking specifically to his family and his fans in Puerto Rico. More than that, Clemente gave back. Clemente made it one of prime goals to use his success in order to bring baseball to his native Puerto Rico. He established hundreds of baseball clinics for young boys, saying that baseball has skills and attributes necessary to keep boys off the streets and help form them into stand up human beings. He went so far as to manage the Puerto Rican national team as well and construct a grand new stadium in the heart of San Juan. To his death, Clemente sought to help his community. The reason he was flying to Nicaragua was to deliver supplies to the victims of the terrible earthquake that had just occurred.
“Of the many, many people I have met in this dynamic radio and television line of work, I haven’t met anybody with such incredible qualities of humanism and discipline, of being a good father, a good son.” This quote by Cuban sportscaster Ramiro Martinez best describes what Clemente meant not only for baseball, but for this nation as a whole. Clemente is the definition of a good role model, a man to be emulated, admired and imitated. This baseball season lets appreciate what this man did for all those Latin players in the league today. Play ball.