It is crazy to think that Roberto Clemente would have only been 79 years young this week. With his playing career and life having ended 41 years ago, Clemente is a distant memory of a Golden Age of baseball in Pittsburgh. With his birthday this past week, many Yinzers reflected on the life and career of The Great One.
Clemente was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico in 1934. He was an avid fan of baseball in his youth, listening to a combination of baseball games and static on his radio, that consisted mostly of the latter. He played stickball with all of the kids in his neighborhood. In 1952, Clemente joined the Puerto Rican winter league and was signed by the Dodgers’ Branch Rickey to a $10,000 bonus in 1954.
After keeping Clemente in the minor leagues for all of the 1954 season though, he became eligible for the Rule 5 Draft and was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates. He made his debut for Pittsburgh in 1955 and played there through 1972. He collected exactly 3000 hits and batted .317 lifetime. He also hit 240 homeruns and collected 1305 RBI in those 18 years. He won two World Series titiles, 1960 and ’71. On the field, he is one of the greatest ballplayers who ever lived. Off the field was no different.
Clemente was a pioneer for Latin American baseball players. He was often disliked by the media for speaking Spanish. They also criticized him for being stupid when he didn’t speak perfect English. He was often tried to be Americanized by being called Bob or Bobby, but he insisted to be called Roberto. Some used racial slurs for being black and Hispanic. He was chastised by Pittsburghers for being injury prone. Yet, he put all of this aside. He insisted that he not be referred to as a Latino but a Puerto Rican. He was and is a role model for Hispanic ballplayers to this day, including Cardinals OF Carlos Beltran and Pirates OF Jose Tabata. His final act and his demise was an act of charity for Nicaraguan earthquake victims. He overloaded the plane and it crashed over the Atlantic Ocean.
It is a player like this that keeps a fan base in a city that has had 20 straight losing seasons. Personally, it was a player like Clemente that kept me interested in the Pirates. Lord knows, it wasn’t going to be superstars like Tike Redman, Chris Duffy, Jose Castillo, or Bryan Bullington. In a time with no hope, it was Clemente and other transcendent greats like Willie Stargell that kept me a Pirates fan.
But something funny is going on in Pittsburgh this summer. The Pirates have a legitimate playoff team. This isn’t a fluky team like the ’11 or ’12 version that will eventually collapse. This is a bona fide talented team. And while all of this is going on I’d like to think that The Great One is smiling down from heaven at the way Andrew McCutchen dominates the game with such grace. Or the way Starling Marte plays the game with such reckless abandon and a laser beam for an arm. I bet he is reminded of his friend Many Sanguillen every time he watches Russel Martin gun down a runner. Ore thinks of Vern Law and Elroy Face while watching this Bucco pitching staff mow down the National League.
Not many franchises get the chance to have a player like Roberto Clemente. He transcended the game and was a leader for Latin Americans in the game of baseball and civil rights. Yet, while doing all this he was just excited to play the game of baseball. He never forgot how lucky he was and he was proud of it. As he once said, “When I put on my uniform, I feel I am the proudest man on Earth.”
Photo Credit: (Flickr.com/glindsay65)
