He never saw the new year

Real Writing on Racing 💯

Forty nine years ago this New Year’s Day the world woke up after a late night of partying to find out that the great baseball icon Roberto Clemente had perished when the plane he was on, loaded with relief supplies for earthquake-stricken Nicaragua, crashed into the ocean just minutes after takeoff from his native land of Puerto Rico. Unlike today when we receive breaking news within minutes of it happening, word was a little slow to hit the airwaves and newspaper headlines. The entire world was shocked and saddened as the news started to spread that Clemente, who was more folk hero than mere baseball star to those who lived on the island, was dead and the fact that it happened on a selfless humanitarian mission made the cut even that much deeper.

Think about what you were doing last night on New Years Eve right around 9pm and consider that on the last night of his life at that same time Clemente was boarding a decrepit cargo plane packed to the brim with emergency rations and medical supplies for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by a major earthquake that had hit the Central American country just days prior. He was going personally to ensure that the donations including a ship full of provisions that had embarked a few days prior, got to those in need and didn’t wind up in the hands of the unscrupulous. He had raised $150,000 worth of supplies in just a few days prior to that fateful night, banging on the doors of the richest Puerto Rican’s and forcefully bending them to his will, something that he had done on a baseball field his entire life. In 2022 terms that is about a million dollars, a remarkable number considering that in 1966 when Clemente won the National League’s MVP award he earned $40,000.

Often a tragic ending or premature death can exaggerate the true standing of a person, perhaps giving them a bit of undeserved boost simply for having had a hasty demise. For Clemente that emphatically isn’t so, his passing at the age of 38 didn’t merely elevate him as an all-time great baseball figure but as a man whose status is so lofty that the label ‘legend’ might not even be adequate. His 18 year playing career was jammed full of records and awards, he was a 12 time all-star, a 4 time batting champion, he won 12 consecutive gold gloves and is generally considered the greatest defensive right fielder in baseball history. He won the NL MVP in 1966 finishing ahead of Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and was named the World Series MVP in 1971 leading the only team he ever played for, the Pittsburgh Pirates, to a series win over the Baltimore Orioles, hitting .414 over the seven games.

Yet the true greatness of Roberto Clemente was his humanity, not just his willingness to help others but his desire to. His grace yet also stubbornness and blunt nature in dealing with the underlying racism that served him a double dose as not only a man of color but as a Spanish-speaking ‘foreigner’ helped pave the way for so many others that followed in his footsteps. Clemente was the first star Latino player in what was still America’s past time and he was proud of that, he wasn’t willing to downplay who he was or where he was from despite the pressure that those times in our history created. When you think about what the face of modern baseball and other sports like racing look like today, a far more diverse culture featuring latino’s in starring roles is what you see. Before Albert Pujols or Mariano Rivera or Alex Rodriguez or David Ortiz or Ivan Rodriguez or Vladimir Guerrero senior or junior or Juan Soto or so many others…there was Clemente. Ask Angel Cordero what Roberto Clemente means to him or Puerto Rican jockeys that have followed in his footsteps like Irad and Jose Ortiz or especially Johnny Velazquez who might be the most famous athlete born in Carolina, PR if it wasn’t for a guy who passed away in the ocean just a few miles away from his birthplace when Johnny was just 2 years old.

This isn’t exactly a racing story but it’s one that needs to be told every year when we are thinking about the past year and looking forward to new beginnings. There is so much more to the life of Roberto Clemente than we wrote here and if you had never heard of him before do yourself a favor and Google his name. If you know the story, don’t forget it.

Despite a long search that lasted weeks Roberto Clementes body was never recovered. There is something almost poetic about that, even in death Clemente did it his way, washing up lifelessly on some shore was just beneath him.

RIP Roberto Clemente - we will never forget