Clemente

by The Clemente Family

  Journalists at the time usually corrected the grammar of many white athletes, yet they often did not with Clemente and other Latin players. From the April 1961 Sports Illustrated: “‘This is where it hurts. I had a very bad winter.’ The speaker was Pirate Right Fielder Roberto Clemente, and he was pointing to his stomach, rubbing it gently. ‘Something off with my diet. I eat the wrong food or too much food or not enough food. I don’t know. Doctors don’t know,’ he said. ‘I feel very bad at the World Series. That’s why I did not do so well.’ When reminded he hit .310 in the World Series, Clemente said: ‘Yes, but I not hit with power.’”

  Critics called him a hypochondriac, but his ailments—including lingering damage from his car accident—were real. The New York Times once listed every one from which he suffered. Backaches were the primary culprit, but there were bone chips in his right elbow, pulled muscles, a severely strained right instep, a thigh hematoma, tonsillitis, malaria, stomach issues, and perhaps most of all, insomnia.

  “If I could sleep,” he once told a teammate, “I would hit four hundred.”

  He sought relief from chiropractic medicine, which taught him to twist his neck and wrestle the vertebrae into place. Once, when asked how he felt, Clemente said, “Well, my bad shoulder feels good, but my good shoulder feels bad.”

  | CHAPTER SIX |

  EMERGENCE

  ROBERTO CLEMENTE JR.: My mom always says, “Your dad was a proud man. He stood up for himself.” Sometimes I think people may have interpreted that the wrong way. He wanted to set a good example for the Latin ballplayer. I think he wanted people to know that they were as talented as anyone else. I think Dad felt like he had to constantly prove himself.

  ROBERTO CLEMENTE, 1961, AFTER WINNING THE SILVER BAT FOR BEING THE LEAGUE’S BEST HITTER: In the name of my family, in the name of Puerto Rico, in the name of all the players who didn’t have a chance to play for Puerto Rico in the big leagues, I thank you. You can be sure that all the Puerto Rican players who go the States do their best.

  * * *

  CLEMENTE WAS MANY things to many people. Most of all, he was a good man. He was not, however, a flawless man. His pride was like a type of shield that enabled him to endure the various indignities of the time. From a January 1973 Sports Illustrated, which appeared shortly after Clemente’s death: “When Roberto Clemente was breaking into the major leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1955, Henry Aaron had already established himself as a star and Willie Mays had won a batting championship, had been named Most Valuable Player, had helped his team win two pennants and the autumn before had made one of the most spectacular catches in World Series history. Clemente was having a modest rookie season: a .255 batting average, only five home runs, only 47 runs batted in. Yet the extraordinary skills were already evident, and one day that season in New York the 21-year-old Clemente was invited to appear on a postgame interview. The announcer reviewed his playing and then, thinking to give the youngster a compliment he could savor, said, ‘Roberto, you had a fine day and a fine series here. As a young fellow starting out you remind me of another rookie outfielder who could run, throw and get those clutch hits. Young fellow of ours, name of Willie Mays.’ There was a noticeable silence. Then the Pittsburgh rookie answered, ‘Nonetheless, I play like Roberto Clemente.’

  “Such pride, such insistence that he be respected for what he was himself, was the hallmark of Roberto Clemente.”

  Before playing the Orioles, Clemente declared that “nobody does anything better than me in baseball.” It wasn’t said with arrogance but in defiance of those in the media who had mocked him personally and derided his abilities and those of other Puerto Rican baseball players.

  As Clemente’s talents became more recognized, some in the media, as well as Topps baseball card company, attempted to de-Latino Clemente by referring to him as “Bob.” He refused to accept the name. He repeatedly insisted he be called Roberto.

  That same pride sometimes caused Clemente to be overly defensive.

  * * *

  ONE OF THE greater moments of frustration for Clemente came while he was in Montreal. Clemente was scheduled to bat seventh against a pitcher named Jackie Collum. When Collum was four years old, the middle and index fingers on his left hand were severed after being caught in a piece of farm machinery. Thus, Collum had difficulty throwing a fastball, and relied on throwing sliders and off-speed pitches.

  In the first inning, Montreal hitters blasted Collum, and then, batting seventh, it was Clemente’s turn. He headed out of the dugout, but before reaching the batter’s box, Clemente was pulled back by manager Max Macon, and replaced. That moment was one of the more indicative of how the Dodgers were indeed burying Clemente to keep him from prospering, and Clemente had seen enough. He was furious.

  Clemente went back to his hotel and began packing to leave when there was a knock at the door. It was Pirates scout Howard Haak. He’d been assigned to watch Clemente and, like almost everyone who saw him play, was stunned at his abilities. Haak knew that Clemente could help transform the fortunes of the Pirates almost immediately. Haak reminded Clemente that leaving would contractually bind him to playing for the Dodgers. But if he stayed, the Pirates would draft him. Clemente calmed himself, stopped packing, and listened intently. His intellect took over and his passions cooled. “Finish the year,” Haak told Clemente, “and next season you’ll be playing every day for the Pirates.”

  ROBERTO CLEMENTE JR.: Dad obviously had a lot of respect for Willie Mays. When some of Dad’s teammates talk about [Mays], they always thought Dad respected him highly but was also really competitive with him. I think Dad thought Willie was respected, while Dad felt like he had to fight for respect.

  * * *

  CLEMENTE AND MAYS would each earn twelve Gold Glove awards, a record for outfielders. While Mays would become the bigger name, he wasn’t the greater talent. In preparation for this first season with the Pirates, Clemente returned to Santurce, and while his first year at Santurce had been frustrating at times, his second time was vastly different. It was on this second go-round that Clemente truly started to open eyes, mainly because he was playing next to Mays. Mays was four years older than Clemente, and the younger player was watchful, studious, and respectful. “Don’t let the pitchers here show you up,” Mays would tell Clemente. “Get mean when you go to bat. If they try to knock you down, act like it doesn’t bother you. Get up and hit the ball. Show them.”

  It was the winter of 1954, and Clemente would use his time around Mays to hone not just his baseball skills but his competitive drive. Clemente would be ready for the major leagues, but a man who spent his life in Puerto Rico wasn’t ready for Pittsburgh. Clemente told one writer at the time, “I didn’t even know where Pittsburgh was.”

  The climate and culture were, of course, dramatically different. Pittsburgh was at the beginning of a renaissance that saw the city transform itself from a smog pit with polluted rivers to a cleaner place. Like many other American cities at the time, Pittsburgh was highly segregated, with African-Americans predominantly living in an area called the Hill District. “I couldn’t speak English,” Clemente remembered. “Not to speak the language…that is a terrible problem. Not to speak the language meant you were different.”

  “He was a rare individual, and by that I don’t mean strange,” says Bill Virdon, the only man to play with, coach, and manage Clemente. “He was a stranger from another country, and he didn’t understand our ways. We didn’t understand his ways. The first two or three years he was in Pittsburgh, we kind of frowned on some of the things he did. We thought there was something wrong with him when he didn’t play sometimes, but as we learned more about each other, we really learned to appreciate him. All the years I managed, I never managed a more cooperative and understanding player.”

  JUSTINO CLEMENTE: The Pirates drafted Clemente and they got him for $4,000. It’s the greatest bargain in baseball history. [Laughs.]

  VERA CLEMENTE: What confused my husband most, I think, when
he came to [the United States] was [the looseness of] the language. In Puerto Rico, we say what we think. This is how we were all raised. We’re direct. If we ask, “How are you?” We mean, “How are you?” We want to know the answer. [Roberto] would say, “If you really don’t want to know how I’m feeling, then why ask me?”

  * * *

  “I REMEMBER HIM driving us around Puerto Rico a few weeks before he died,” said the late former Pirates pitcher and broadcaster Nellie King. “He was so proud of the place. And he said, ‘I tell you something about Puerto Rico. When they love you here, they give you the shirt off their backs. But if they tell you, “If you come around here tomorrow, I’m going to kill you,” that means that if you come around that place tomorrow, they are going to kill you.’”

  In many ways, as strange as it seems, Clemente’s sincerity, his directness, was off-putting to some. The fact that Clemente despised pretentiousness should have been an endearing quality, but initially it added to the narrative that he was different. While many Pittsburgh fans and teammates showed Clemente great respect, others behaved with remarkable insensitivity. A woman fan once asked Clemente whether he wore a loincloth when living in Puerto Rico.

  In the late 1950s, Clemente was one of about two dozen Latin players in the major leagues. There were two Latinos on the Pirates in 1955. Some sportswriters didn’t even bother to hide their disdain. One wrote that Clemente was the “chocolate-colored islander.” When Clemente would say he hit the ball they would spell “hit” “heet.”

  “No, me no married yet,” one newspaper quoted Clemente as saying, “not even girl. I still too yong. Plenty time. I make beeg ligues first.” If Clemente hit a homer, he’d be ignored by some of the journalists. They’d talk to other players instead. Unable to digest the fact that Clemente was an outstanding athlete, they called him a hot dog. Specifically, one writer called him a Puerto Rican hot dog. If he didn’t play because he was injured, he was called lazy.

  Clemente represented a swath of players after Jackie Robinson who made it into baseball but, because of the color of their skin, still faced terrible racism. These weren’t just black players but also Latin players and various mixes thereof. They had to deal with the sting of prejudice while also facing the thorniness of a language barrier. Baseball executives and managers did little or nothing to prepare these players for the world they were entering. Clemente wasn’t just brave in staring down the bigotry he faced; he also took on white teammates who were hateful to Pirates of color. The first black player in the history of the Pittsburgh franchise was second baseman Curt Roberts. Clemente said in an interview with United Press International writer Milton Richman, “I didn’t like some of the things the white players said to Roberts, so I said some things to them they didn’t like.”

  This is the baseball world Clemente entered.

  VERA CLEMENTE: My husband was never scared to talk about civil rights. He watched the civil rights battles in the South and felt very close to them. He met Martin Luther King several times. Roberto wanted to do his part for baseball, so he would speak out about the issues in baseball. He’d talk a lot about how being a black Latino coming into baseball meant you had two strikes against you. He wanted the Latino players to get their fair share of money. He wanted them to be managers. Roberto was very vocal. The biggest thing he wanted was the Latin player to get his respect.

  * * *

  SLOWLY, AMERICA WAS beginning to fully digest Clemente as both a player and a human being. The country liked what it saw. Most did, anyway. On September 29, 1972, at the start of a series between the Pirates and the New York Mets, a man sent a typewritten note in red ink to Three Rivers Stadium. The letter began simply: “To Mr. Roberto Clemente.”

  The letter continued: “ON SEPTEMBER 29TH, FRIDAY AT PITTSBURGH PIRATES THREE RIVERS STADIUM IN THE TOP OF THE SECOND INNING YOU WILL BE SHOT WHILE PLAYING RIGHT FIELD. I’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU. LET’S SAY IT’S A PRESENT FROM A METS FAN. SEE YOU IN HELL. P.S. DID YOU EVER GET SHOT WITH A SHOTGUN BEFORE?”

  The letter was sent to the Pirates as regular fan mail but wasn’t discovered by the Pirates until November 1. The team notified the FBI. According to the FBI’s own files, the agency took the threat seriously, with its laboratories testing the note for forensic evidence but finding none. Clemente at the time was in San Juan, and the FBI contacted him there to warn him about the threat. The author of the letter was never identified and the FBI closed its investigation.

  * * *

  IN HIS EARLY days with the Pirates, Clemente would hear the racial slurs and try to ignore them. Some of his teammates would yell them at opposing black players. Clemente would hear racial slurs, become disgusted, and move to the opposite side of the dugout. “Sometimes I acted like I didn’t hear it,” he once said. “But I heard it. I heard it.”

  Other times, Clemente would confront his teammates directly. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, players took a poll on whether they should play that night. “If you have to ask,” Clemente would say of the meeting, “we do not have a great country.”

  Clemente pushed Pirates management to sign more players of color, and they listened. When Clemente went to the Pirates in 1955, the team was a collection of white men. By the early 1970s, approximately half of the Pirate roster was either black, Latin, or spoke Spanish.

  His first major-league hit came in 1955 against the Brooklyn team (and farm system) that had shunned him. Clemente singled a pitch from Johnny Podres, and just like that his career began. That moment signaled something else: Clemente was physically strong, but no hitter could muscle Forbes Field. It was a monstrosity—457 feet to left-center field. Clemente knew he wasn’t capable of beating Forbes with his biceps, so he used brains and finesse. He became a singles hitter.

  It was an interesting time for both the country and Clemente. Outside of the clubhouse, he studied the news of what was happening in the South. He followed Rosa Parks’s civil disobedience and the murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi for flirting with a white woman. Clemente wasn’t fighting for his life or the freedom of an entire race, but he was fighting nonetheless.

  Clemente was an oddity in the Pittsburgh clubhouse, not solely because of his ethnicity and how he spoke, but also for how he approached his craft. Clemente’s grumpy back kept him out of the lineup on occasion, and this caused some of Clemente’s teammates to not just mock his injuries but question his toughness and dedication. Pirates pitcher Nellie King told writer Phil Musick in 1973, “[N]o one then seemed to realize the sensitivity he had for his body. He looked at it the way a mechanic looks at a racing car. If he wasn’t right, he wanted to tune it. Some guys used to ridicule him because he didn’t play every day, but most of them were playing every day so people would say, ‘Gee, that guy has balls.’ They were doing it because they were afraid of criticism if they didn’t. The only thing that dictated what Clemente did was what he felt was right…. I know Roberto was hurt deeply by the criticism he took the first years [in Pittsburgh]. He was withdrawn partly because of the language. He’d only ever been out of Puerto Rico one other time. Everything [in Pittsburgh] was confusing to him.”

  Some two decades later, King would give perhaps the best quote ever regarding Clemente’s creative skills and views about his body. King told the Sporting News in 1992, “I always looked at him as an artist, and artistic people have sensitivities that the rest of us don’t have. We think they’re crazy. His special sensitivity was to his body. ‘People who pay to see me perform pay to see me at my best,’ he would say. He told us once, ‘In the summer, I play baseball. In the winter, I work baseball. In the summer, when I get hurt playing, I write down what I hurt, the date I hurt it, and how I hurt it. In the winter, I look at that chart, and I see where my body is weak, and I work to strengthen that part of my body.’”

  | CHAPTER SEVEN |

  PREMONITIONS

  ROBERTO CLEMENTE JR.: I was seven years old, in my bed, trying to sleep. I woke up from a dream, but it was
more. It was a vision. My father was going to die. I climbed out of bed and ran to my dad.

  He was catching a flight the next morning. “The plane is going to crash,” I told him. My dad rarely slept during the early morning hours, himself an occasional victim of insomnia. In some of my father’s own dreams, he was on a plane, spiraling downward. He would tell my mom, Vera, “I’m going to die young.”