My all-time favorite player in any sport is Roberto Clemente - sometimes referred as the most PERFECT baseball player of all time. Clemente had it all.
Posted on 12/31/2005 6:30:03 AM PST by cll
Clemente, a 12-time All-Star who had 3,000 hits for the Pittsburgh Pirates, died in 1972 at age 38 in a plane crash on New Year's Eve. The Puerto Rican native was taking relief supplies to victims of a Nicaraguan earthquake.
Roberto Clemente Jr. will take the same amount of food, medicine and other items that his father carried during the original trip.
"It's been 18 months that I had a spiritual awakening in which I communicated with dad. It was the first time that I really cried for dad ... and it was then that I understood I had to make this trip to obtain spiritual peace," he told The Associated Press.
Clemente Jr. was 6 when his father was killed. He said he had a premonition of his father's crash and pleaded with him not to go.
"For me, definitely, it's a trip full of emotions," he said. "For many years I was filled with a feeling of guilt for not stopping what happened and this closes a chapter in my life."
Major League Baseball hands out the annual "Roberto Clemente Award" to a player who "demonstrates the values Clemente displayed in his commitment to community and understanding the value of helping others," according to the MLB Web site.
Clemente Jr. said his vision was to send help one time a year to a country in need to honor his father's memory. He planned to make the Nicaragua trip last year but decided to send aid to victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami in Thailand.
Vera Clemente said the only thing that worried her about her son's trip was the date.
What happened 33 years ago, "for me is if it was yesterday," she said. "I have faith in God that all is going to go well for him
I think you've got the year wrong.
Ping!
Roberto Clemente PING!
Clemente was a great ballplayer. This guy has a nice idea. But he sounds like he's a bit obsessed.
Wow! Five whole posts before the first wet blanket
(((sigh))) yeah, it sure looks like Roberto Jr. has spent his entire life trying to fill his Dad's shoes.
I certainly wish him well, but it's an awfully tough act to follow.
The film, "Chasing 3,000," stars Ray Liotta and Jeremy Davies as the adult brothers. Trevor Morgan and Rory Culkin play the same characters as boys. The film's premiere will coincide with the July 2006 opening of the All-Star Game at PNC Park.
Hopefully not all of it.
One another note, New Year's Eve is also when Hank Williams died. Maybe it would be fun to buy a bottle of whiskey, rent a Cadillac and re-enact The Ride.
Clemente didn't intend to go on this trip in the first place. He was organizing the relief efforts from the U.S. after the December 23rd earthquake in Nicaragua, and a number of flights had already been made before December 31st. He decided to go himself on what turned out to be his fateful flight because word had gotten back to him from Nicaragua that most of the supplies from the earlier flights had been stolen at the airport in Managua, either by his own volunteers or by government officials on the ground.
"I think you've got the year wrong."
Thank you for the ping. Roberto Clemente is my all-time sports hero.
(Which surprises my friends who know my alma mater is the same as Bo Jackson, Pat Sullivan and Charles Barkley. War Eagle!)
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