- 2 days ago
12 Gold Gloves, 3,000 hits, 1 MVP, 2 Championships, 1 WS MVP, .317 average, little to no respect until he was gone
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00:00century. At the plate, he would stretch and coil like a large cat, and lightning bolts would sizzle
00:06off his bat. In the field, he ran down the uncatchable and unfurled throws of pristine
00:11poetry. And yet, Roberto Clemente, despite a dozen gold gloves and four batting titles,
00:17wasn't fully appreciated. As we'll see over the next half hour, the Pittsburgh Pirates right
00:22fielder played in the time of Mantle, Maze, and Aaron. And though his career belonged in the
00:28same ballpark, he was the one in the shadows.
00:35I had got the job to work in Pittsburgh in May of 66, and Jimmy Cannon was one of the
00:41fellows
00:41that recommended me for the job in Pittsburgh. He says to me, he says, you know, you're going
00:45to a town. Maze, and Aaron, and Mantle were hitting the home run, so they captivated the media,
00:56and it kind of overshadowed Roberto a lot. He was a tremendous ball player. The reason
01:03I think he might have not got the recognition, because he was in Pittsburgh. If you don't
01:07play in New York City, you know, one of those large cities, they didn't even think you were
01:11a baseball player. He wanted recognition and appreciation, and it came too slowly for him.
01:18As part of the first large Latino wave to play in the majors, Puerto Rican Roberto Clemente
01:24faced a language and cultural barrier that played out in the Pittsburgh sports pages of
01:291955 in derision, ignorance, and bad taste.
01:34He'd use a phrase, say, like, I hit the ball, and they would print H-E-E-T instead of
01:42H-I-T.
01:42They quoted him as though he were Tarzan. Meet Tarzan, you Jane.
01:50He felt it was a form of mockery, where he was being made to look like some kind of exotic
01:55character. He didn't feel like one. He just felt like a man who deserved a certain amount
02:01of respect.
02:03I have a feeling those old-time beat writers cleaned up the quotes of a lot of the good old
02:07southern boys who didn't exactly speak in the king's English.
02:11Say he would hit a home run and win a game, they would either quote him with a funny accent,
02:17or they would ignore him and go over to the guy who pitched the game and quote him.
02:21A brilliant outfielder with a rifle arm, Clemente was often dismissed as a hot dog, and when
02:27he missed a game, he was called either lazy or a hypochondriac, but also stung deep with the
02:34constant lampoons of his broken English.
02:37He would say things like, my bad shoulder feels good, but my good shoulder feels bad,
02:46or I feel better when I'm sick. And the sports writers would write this as comedy,
02:52and he was deadly serious, and he resented that.
02:55He was accused of malingering, that he imagined a lot of illnesses. He thought he wasn't treated
03:03fairly, and he felt that that was true of most of the Latinos.
03:09So every time we complained, they said we're faking.
03:12Hermione is playing ball, but I was afraid to complain, because they said we complain too
03:17much.
03:18Wow.
03:20There was one thing that he would mutter in the clubhouse about this and be a sports writer,
03:25and he just didn't trust him.
03:28That distrust grew roots in 1960, a world championship season in Pittsburgh. Shortstop Dick Grote,
03:34the National League batting leader at 325, was voted MVP. Fomente hit 314, but his 94 RBIs
03:42were nearly double those of his teammate. This Khomeini told me, he said,
03:49I never complained about Grote winning. I complained about being voted aced.
03:56When he says, I did not deserve to finish eight, and he spoke his mind, that was perhaps the first
04:02time he came out really in the open. I don't deserve this.
04:07Despite others' devaluation of him, Fomente knew who he was, and what he was worth. Viewed
04:13through the double lens of sports, he was at once seen as dignified and cocky.
04:19When he says, for me, I'm the best in the world, you have to understand that Vattens are
04:24sensitive and proud people. And if you ask a plumber or an engineer, are you any good? He'll
04:32say, for me, I'm the best plumber on the island, or for me, I'm the best engineer on the island.
04:38It's an assertion of self-respect and confidence in your ability.
04:42A lot of people who did not know Roberto the human being, like I did, would understand that
04:49his pride translated instantly into arrogance. He was not an arrogant guy.
04:56He knew what he could do. He was sure no one was better than he was.
05:01And he was out there to prove it.
05:04The opportunity came in the 1971 World Series. Before playing the Orioles, Clemente set the
05:10stage by declaring to the national press, nobody does anything better than me in baseball.
05:16What?
05:17All the skeptics that thought that Hank Aaron or Willie Mays was much better than Clemente,
05:25I'm going to show even those guys that I am as good as they are, or better.
05:31Rabia's hit well.
05:35A Clemente hold on. The Pirates lead 1-0.
05:39Nobody hit 400 off our pitching staff. Maybe off of one pitcher. You know, a guy might have
05:45one guy's number, but not on our whole staff.
05:48Rodney Clemente continues to remotely annihilate all the world's pitching.
05:53We're in this morning's battle. We showed up to the World Series that year, and we took
05:58our positions. That's all we did. We just showed up.
06:03And Clemente was 37 in that series.
06:07Chase for Clemente. Gallops over.
06:10Grabbed it, world. Here's Rutman coming to throw. What a throw!
06:16Clemente carried the Pirates to victory with at least one hit in each contest, extending
06:21his World Series streak to 14. With a 4-14 batting average and a crucial home run in Game
06:277, he was named MVP.
06:30People took a different look at Roberto Clemente. I think people really thought that this is
06:36one of the all-time great ballplayers, if they didn't think that before.
06:40I remember he said, I now have peace of mind. That was his moment of fulfillment.
06:45I think Roberto did mature as he went along. Also, I think the American public became more
06:51comfortable with him. But it took a long time for America to appreciate him.
07:13who had the audacity on national English TV to take a little break at the top of the question,
07:19say, excuse me, but I really need to send the message back home. That tells you how important
07:23his background was. That background began for Roberto Clemente Walker on August 18, 1934,
07:32in Carolina, Puerto Rico. The youngest of seven, Roberto learned early the value of work. He
07:38often accompanied his father to his foreman's job at the local sugar mill.
07:42When he was about eight or nine, he wanted a bicycle and apparently carried heavy containers
07:51of milk for a neighbor every morning and every evening and got a penny in the morning and a penny
07:57and saved 20-some dollars to buy a bicycle. Roberto identified a lot with the strugglers.
08:04He used to tell me, taxi drivers, people who work in the factories, the guys who pick up the garbage,
08:11he respected those people. He told me more than once, the people who struggle are the people
08:17who know the true essence of what to be alive is.
08:22Nowhere was Clemente more alive than on the baseball field. He caught the eye of Brooklyn scout,
08:28Al Campanis, who signed the 19-year-old for $10,000 in February of 1904.
08:34Sent to the Dodgers' AAA Farm Club in Montreal, Clemente was the best-kept secret in baseball.
08:42Whenever we saw scouts come into the ballpark, we didn't play him. He was on deck. And I saw about
08:50five or six scouts, and I hollered to the manager, and I pointed. He took Clemente out for a pinch
08:57hitter
08:57in the bottom of the first inning. And that young man was really upset.
09:03We just sit there and he said, Joey, what's wrong with the Dodgers? They don't let me play.
09:08Despite the Dodgers' efforts to hide his talent, Clemente was picked first by the cellar-dwelling
09:14Pirates in the December 1954 draft of minor leaguers. Although it took just six years for Pittsburgh
09:20to win the World Series with Clemente, it took longer for him to be welcomed by his teammates.
09:26He didn't go out of his way to come to us, and we didn't go out of our way to
09:31go to him.
09:33So both ends just didn't gel. Bobby was on the bus, and we joked and had fun around the
09:39batting cage and so forth, but it wasn't like he went out to dinner with us after the games.
09:44Bobby kind of lived in his own world. Some of the guys don't even know where Puerto Rico was.
09:50They probably thought Puerto Rico was a jungle. He never let anybody call him Bob. He said Roberto.
09:55He corrected everybody that said to his mate, Bob. He said Roberto.
10:01Keenly aware of the prevailing social order of mid-century America, Clemente often remarked
10:07that as a black Latino, he had two strikes against him. Yet over the years, he publicly decried
10:13that Latinos, like blacks, were virtually shut out from lucrative Madison Avenue endorsements
10:19and the managerial ranks of the major leagues.
10:23This was the whole period of the civil rights movement. Some of the athletes, they focused
10:28on the ball game, but Clemente was a very complex figure who was aware of his importance.
10:34He was an athlete, but at the same time, he was a spokesman for the Latin community.
10:38He had a relationship with Martin Luther King. They met in Puerto Rico once, in the mid-60s,
10:45and they spoke about what could be done to better race relations in the States.
10:50I am very outspoken. I feel something that, not only about me,
10:55or I feel something that isn't justice toward my teammate or somebody else,
11:00I don't want to say something about it.
11:02Clemente was a very militant, a very vocal defender of the Latin American player,
11:07and I got him some enemies, and I got him some criticism.
11:12The impact that he had in the Caribbean society, the Hispanic society,
11:16was this uplifting belief that, yes, we can achieve greatness in this sport.
11:24In the Latin, the coaches, he's number one.
11:28One of the reasons why today he would be well-known is because he was fighting for us.
11:34To hear Felipe Luce, he's our Jackie Robinson.
11:37To see some, he saw the word 21, play right field.
11:41He's, he's our man.
11:49Since I met him, he was always always insisting that he was going to die young.
11:53Always.
11:54I said, well, don't talk about such things, you know.
11:58And, uh, I said, no, you will see.
12:00I, I know I will die young.
12:03On September 30th, 1972, Clemente became the 11th player in history to reach 3,000 hits.
12:11And Bobby hits the drive into the golf in the left-hand field.
12:14There she is.
12:18He's falling at him.
12:20When he took that pose, I had that image of him standing there.
12:25It wasn't jumping up and down.
12:27It wasn't jubilation.
12:28It was a quiet gesture of, yes, I've done this.
12:32And I acknowledge all of you.
12:34And here I am.
12:37Clemente's landmark hit came in his last regular season at bat.
12:40Almost three months later, he was at home in San Juan when a major earthquake struck Managua,
12:47Nicaragua.
12:49There were reports that, uh, the collected relief supplies from Puerto Rico were being sold to the
12:58survivors of the earthquake in Managua by members of the Nicaragua National Guard.
13:03He told Vera, uh, that if they were selling those supplies and he went there, he would stop it.
13:12They wouldn't do that with Roberto Clemente there.
13:15On New Year's Eve, Clemente boarded a relief plane bound for Managua.
13:19A makeshift crew was in command of the DC-7, which itself had mechanical problems
13:24and was overloaded with emergency supplies.
13:28They crashed.
13:29His son begged him not to go.
13:30He had a premonition that something was going to happen.
13:34His wife, Vera, didn't want him to go.
13:38But he went because, uh, he cared.
13:42After we said goodbye, he stayed on the door.
13:45He stayed standing there.
13:48And he had a very sad look, very deep and very sad look.
13:54I can never forget that look.
13:59Pittsburgh Pirate's off-gilder Roberto Clemente headed up relief efforts in his native Puerto Rico
14:04for victims of the Nicaraguan earthquake.
14:07Late last night, he was killed from a cargo plane that he was aboard,
14:10crashed shortly after takeoff from San Juan.
14:14I was in Milwaukee at the time.
14:16I was listening to the five o'clock news and heard that his plane had gone down.
14:22It was probably one of the saddest days of my life.
14:25It was the loss of a national hero.
14:27The only thing I can think of that I, in my own lifetime, liked it is when President Kennedy
14:33was killed.
14:34It was that kind of...
14:35It was an international hero.
14:37His country, our country.
14:40The thing, it sort of sent a wave of sadness throughout the whole country.
14:45A three-day period of mourning was declared in Puerto Rico.
14:49The pirates chartered a plane to attend a memorial service in their fallen hero's hometown
14:54of Carolina.
14:56Despite an outpouring of grief, the loss of Roberto Clemente, at 38, was too much for some
15:02to accept.
15:04Manny Sanguin, the catcher for the pirates, refused to believe that Roberto was dead and
15:09would go out into the ocean and literally look for the plane and look for Roberto floating.
15:16I want to look for my friend.
15:19That's what was in my mind, that he was down there.
15:23And I want to see him.
15:26I think part of the mystique of Roberto Clemente is the fact that they never found his body.
15:31There was no sense of closure.
15:33It's not just a death.
15:35It's a hero's death.
15:36A lot of athletes do wonderful things, but they don't die doing that.
15:40Everybody knew Clemente's full play.
15:42But the way he died was for people to know the human.
15:47He had to die like that for all the world to know what kind of a man he was.
15:53There's something about early death, especially if it's under heroic circumstances.
15:59There's tragedy along with all the glory.
16:03So I think that Clemente is, in an odd way, elevated by the circumstances of his death.
16:11Three months following his death, Roberto Clemente was voted into the Hall of Fame by a special
16:16bound, five years before he would have been eligible.
16:19He was the first Latino to be inducted into Cooperstown.
16:24We always miss him.
16:25That's never going to change.
16:27Never going to change.
16:29We try to live up to his name, but it's reality.
16:35He's not here.
16:36It'd be difficult for an American to measure the importance of Clemente's name in Latin America.
16:44He's been deified.
16:45He's a larger-than-life saint.
16:48I think Clemente really is one of the greatest who ever lived.
16:51He didn't have Ted Williams' batting eye.
16:53He didn't have Joe DiMaggio's grace.
16:56He didn't have Lou Brock's speed.
16:58He just had enough of everything.
17:00And he had a heart that was bigger than Three Rivers Stadium.
17:07He was a-
17:08He was an incredible fielder.
17:11And listen to this.
17:13He batted .334 after turning 35.
17:24Last 12 years of his career, batted .331.
17:31I mean, he wasn't-
17:33He wasn't ready to go.
17:35He wasn't ready to retire.
17:41Submitted from the All-Century team.
17:43He said Sports Illustrated told him that after his 3,000th hit,
17:47it would be on the cover of the magazine.
17:49Instead, he was bumped by Joe Namath.
17:51And even in his own town, his 3,000th was pushed in the lead story of the sports section
17:56by a Pitt football defeat.
17:58Whether it was difference in language or culture, small market, or simple ignorance,
18:04Just Do always seemed to allude Roberto Clemente.
18:08For Sports Century, I'm Chris Fallon.
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