DAVID ALEMAÑY PRESENTS
Roberto Clemente Walker
The Greatest
21
Early life
• Born in August 18 1934, in Carolina Puerto
Rico
• Son of Melchor Clemente and Luisa
Walker and the youngest of seven sibling
• His family was poor, so in his childhood he
was a milk deliver helping the family to
survive.
• Studied in Carlos Vizcarrondo school in
Carolina
Other sports in the boyhood
• From his early childhood Roberto showed
signs of great athletic ability. At school, he
won regional competitions, once tossing
the javelin 190 feet—the world record in
1953 was just over 263 feet. He was also
very fast on the track competing in both
sprinting and hurdling events.
Firsts steps in baseball
• At the age of 14, Clemente played softball with
men on the Sello Rojo team, sponsored by a
large rice-processing company. He quickly
moved up to a very competitive amateur
baseball league, playing for a team known as
Ferdinand Juncos.
• Roberto’s mother wanted him to seek a career in
engineering and hoped he would pursue the
profession. But in 1952, before he finished high
school, Roberto was offered a professional
baseball contract. Engineering would have to
wait.
Puerto Rico baseball league
• At age 18, Clemente made the
huge leap from amateur status to
the Puerto Rican professional
league. He signed with the
Santurce Cangrejeros in 1952 for
$40 per week, with a signing bonus
of $400. The Cangrejeros were
good. Although Roberto played
sparingly, they won the Puerto
Rican championship in his rookie
year. In his is second year (195354), Roberto was able to
concentrate on his growing skills by
playing every day. His game
improved. He hit a respectable .288
for the season and attracted the
attention of major league scouts.
Cangrejeros
• In February of 1954, Clemente signed with the
Brooklyn Dodgers and reported for duty to their
top minor league team, the Montreal Royals.
The man who signed Clemente, scout Al
Campanis, had pleaded with Dodger
management to place him on the major league
roster right away. Otherwise, Roberto might be
lost to another major league team after only one
season. The Dodgers would come to regret their
decision.
Caribbean series of 1955
• After a disappointing season in Canada,
Clemente returned to Santurce to play in the
winter league of 1954-55. The Cangrejeros
brought together a constellation of stars headed
by Willie Mays. They leveled the competition in
Puerto Rico and went on to win the Caribbean
World Series. Dubbed “Murderers Row” and
"Escuadrón del Pánico (The Panic Squad),” the
‘54-55 Cangrejeros are considered by many to
be the best Caribbean baseball team of all time.
The Panic Squad
Begin a Pirate
• Legendary baseball executive Branch Rickey
moved from the Dodgers to the Pittsburgh
Pirates in 1951 and immediately nabbed
Clemente from Brooklyn. Roberto heard the
news back in Puerto Rico and later admitted, "I
didn’t even know where Pittsburgh was."
• Clemente’s true baptism into the majors came
on April 17, 1955, when he connected for a
single—against the Dodgers—in his first game.
Against the racial issue
• surrounded by the racial
politics,
• the brutal scrutiny of the press,
• the business of the big
leagues.
•
"No. 1, he didn’t speak the
language. No. 2, he was in a
cultural twilight zone for him.
Most important-I don’t think
anybody understood this-but he
never had to deal with racial
prejudice because they didn’t
deal with that in Puerto Rico. So
you can imagine what a change
it was for a kid of only 20 years
of age playing at that level of
sports having to deal with those
three things."
—Nellie King
Pirate teammate, 1955-57, and
Pirates broadcaster
Civil rights defender
• He became a union leader in the incipient Major
League Baseball Players Association and
defended players’ rights to demand better
working conditions and benefits.
• The farther away you writers stay, the better I
like it. You know why? Because you’re trying
to create a bad image of me… you do it
because I’m black and Puerto Rican, but I’m
proud to be Puerto Rican."
—Roberto Clemente, 1969
USA baseball path
• Clemente’s bat and base
running mastery made him an
offensive powerhouse.
• His speed was always a threat,
both on offense and defense.
On the base paths, Clemente
combined speed with
aggressiveness and cunning,
lengthening many hits into extra
bases. He studied the way balls
bounced off fences in various
parks so that he could stretch
his hits into doubles and triples
unlike other, more ordinary base
runners.
• Clemente tied the National League record by
ripping a total of ten consecutive hits over the
course of two consecutive games.
• Clemente’s right-field defense was unrivaled.
With lightning-quick reflexes and foot speed, he
repeatedly robbed batters, by tracking down
drives into the gap between right and center
field.
• Of all his gifts, Clemente’s throwing awed fans
and observers most. He possessed one of the
most powerful and accurate arms in the history
of the game, leading the league in assists by
outfielders in five different seasons.
Sports Clinics Charity
• Before I came here, you
never had many
outstanding players from
the Caribbean. There were
some good ones and now I
won the MVP. This makes
me happy because now I
feel that if I could do it, then
they could do it. The kids
have someone to look up to
and to follow. I show them
what baseball has done for
me, and maybe they will
work harder and try harder
and be better men."
—Roberto Clemente
National League Most
Valuable Player, 1966
"
Always, they said Babe Ruth was the best there was. They said you’d really have to be
something to be like Babe Ruth. But Babe Ruth was an American player. What we
needed was a Puerto Rican player they could say that about, someone to look up to and
try to equal."
-Roberto Clemente
Family
•
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Don Melchor – Clemente father
Luisa Walker – Clemente mother
Roberto Clemente
Vera Zabala – Wife
The Kids
• In the 1971 season, the Pirates won
the National League and faced the
Baltimore Orioles in the World Series
Baltimore had won 100 games and
swept the American League
Championship Series, both for the third
consecutive year, and were the
defending World Series champions.
The Orioles won the first two games in
the series, but Pittsburgh won the
championship in seven games. This
marked the second occasion that
Clemente had won a World Series with
the Pirates. Over the course of the
series, Clemente batted a .414
average (12 hits in 29 at-bats),
performed well defensively, and hit a
solo home run in the deciding 2-1
seventh game victory. Following the
conclusion of the season, he received
the World Series Most Valuable Player
award.
September 30, 1972
• In a game at Three Rivers Stadium, he hit
a double off Jon Matlack of the New York
Mets for his 3,000th hit. It was the last atbat of his career during a regular season,
though he did play in the 1972 NLCS
playoffs against the Cincinnati Reds. In the
playoffs, he batted .235 as he went 4 for
17. His last game ever was at Cincinnati's
Riverfront Stadium in the fifth game of the
playoff series.
Career highlights and awards
• 12× All-Star selection (1960, 1961, 1962, 1963,
1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971,
1972)
• 2× World Series champion (1960, 1971)
• 12× Gold Glove Award winner (1961, 1962,
1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969,
1970, 1971, 1972)
• 1966 NL MVP
• 1971 World Series MVP
• 1971 Babe Ruth Award
• Pittsburgh Pirates #21 retired
Nicaragua
• On December 23, 1972, a massive earthquake
devastated the Nicaraguan capital of Managua.
7,000 people died and thousands of others were
injured. More than 250,000 people were
suddenly homeless.
• Roberto lost many friends in the quake. He had
spent most of November in Nicaragua managing
a Puerto Rican all-star team in the Amateur
Baseball World Series tournament. He felt the
threat to his many colleagues, thousands of fans
and friends.
• Clemente accepted the honorary chairmanship
of an earthquake relief committee and used
local media to appeal for help. He worked day
and night, even soliciting donations door to
door. The relief team raised $150,000, and
gathered and shipped nearly 26 tons of food,
clothing and medicine by air and sea. Then
came reports from Managua—the corrupt
regime of General Anastasio Somoza was
intercepting the deliveries.
• Roberto wanted to make sure the food and
medicine got to the people who needed it. On
New Year’s Eve, he helped load an aging DC-7,
then boarded the flight.
• The airplane he chartered for a New Year's Eve flight,
a Douglas DC-7[3 had a history of mechanical
problems and sub-par flight personnel, and it was
overloaded by 5,000 pounds. It crashed into the ocean
off the coast of Isla Verde, Puerto Rico immediately
after takeoff on December 31, 1972. A few days after
the crash, the body of the pilot and part of the fuselage
of the plane were found. An empty flight case
apparently belonging to Clemente was the only
personal item recovered from the plane. Clemente's
teammate and close friend Manny Sanguillen was the
only member of the Pirates not to attend Roberto's
funeral. The catcher chose instead to dive into the
waters where Clemente's plane had crashed in an
effort to find his teammate. Clemente's body was
never recovered.
Honors
• Roberto Clemente
Coliseum in San Juan
Puerto Rico
• Sportive City Roberto
Clemente in Carolina
• Roberto Clemente
Stadium in Carolina
• Schools and other
facilities around the
Island and United
States
Statue of Clemente on PNC park
in Pittsburgh- home of the Pirates
• “Any time you
have a
opportunity to
make a difference
in this world and
you don’t do it,
you are wasting
your time in this
earth”
• Roberto Clemente