Episode 20A - Roberto Clemente: 10-Minute Profile

After a brief podcast update, this episode provides the highlights from the life of Roberto Clemente, one of the first Latin American athletes to become a baseball star in the United States. Clemente grew up in Puerto Rico, and in 1955 he moved to the continental USA in order to play for Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates franchise. After initially struggling with injuries, the language barrier, & culture shock, Clemente became an All-Star right fielder during the 1960s. He was a standout offensive & defensive player who became a favorite of baseball fans throughout the Western Hemisphere. He also became a major civil rights advocate for his fellow Afro-Latinos. Shortly after leading the Pirates to the 1971 World Series title, Clemente led a relief mission to provide aid to the survivors of an earthquake in Nicaragua. Tragically, a cargo plane carrying supplies for the Nicaraguan people crashed with Clemente on board. Shortly after his premature death, Roberto Clemente was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he is still widely remembered for his community service & humanitarian efforts.

Transcript

“From Boomers to Millennials” is a modern US history podcast, providing a fresh look at the second half of the 20th Century. Welcome to Episode 20A, also known as “Roberto Clemente: 10-Minute Profile.” But before we begin our latest brief biographical profile, we will provide you with a short show update and feature our latest history podcast spotlight. 

This month’s special spotlight is awarded to the This Day in Esoteric Political History podcast, which features relatively short episodes recounting specific incidents in American political history. The show is part of the Radiotopia network, and it features host Jody Avirgan and history professors Nicole Hemmer and Kellie Carter Jackson. If you are intimidated by all of the interminable history podcasts whose episodes are 2 to 3 hours long each, this show is a diet-sized alternative, because it includes many appetizer-length episodes that are only around 20 minutes long. But don’t make the mistake of assuming the show’s short duration means it will only feature a shallow analysis. The hosts and guests are extremely knowledgeable about both famous & obscure topics from US political history. I must confess that their episodes have sometimes given me ideas for topics to discuss here on the “From Boomers to Millennials” podcast. For instance, it was on their show that I first learned about the 1961 Goldsboro, North Carolina plane crash incident, where a B-52 military airplane crashed & the H-bomb it was carrying nearly exploded, as we discussed back in Episode 20. Give “This Day in Esoteric Political History” a listen at “thisdaypod.com.”

I would be remiss if I did not mention the historical amount of chaos going on with the US government right now, here as I record this episode at the beginning of March 2025. I’m sure our podcast will have more to say about these events, but things are so up in the air right now; we will wait to see how the situation develops before providing much commentary. This is a history podcast, not a current events podcast, after all. I will say that whatever the current US government may think, as far as this podcast is concerned, we Americans still need international allies. That’s why I’d like to give an update on the Top 10 countries with the most downloads of our show. Our current Top 10 countries are as follows: 10) France; 9) Norway; 8) Spain; 7) Mexico; 6) Ireland; 5) Germany; 4) Australia; 3) Canada; 2) the United Kingdom; & 1) these United (well, sort of united) States of America. The USA still has 81% of our overall downloads, and we love our American listeners, but we welcome the growing number of people from outside my country who want to listen to “From Boomers to Millennials” in order to learn about our history so that they can better understand what our whole deal is. By the way, we are proud to report that we currently have received downloads from 100 countries, located all over the globe.

In today’s supplemental profile episode, we will examine the legendary life of mid-20th Century baseball star Roberto Clemente. Each of our 10-minute profiles start out with the question, what makes this person interesting & significant? In this case, Clemente was one of the first Latin American star athletes in US history. He became known not only as an incredible athlete, but also as a humanitarian who provided a positive role model for generations of Hispanic people. As a Puerto Rican man of primarily African descent, Roberto Clemente became a celebrated icon for the Caribbean region’s large population of Afro-Latinos.

Roberto Clemente was born in August 1934 in the city of Carolina, Puerto Rico, just east of the territorial capital of San Juan. He was a talented athlete from the time he was a very young man. Originally, he competed in track and field, hoping that he could become an Olympian. However, he eventually dedicated himself full-time to the sport of baseball, and he became a star player for a local San Juan based professional team known as the Cangrejeros de Santurce (the team’s name, Cangrejeros, roughly translates to “The Crabbers” or “The Crab-Catchers”).

Clemente’s talent attracted scouts from the USA’s Major League Baseball association, and he was drafted into the majors by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1954. In April 1955, Clemente made his MLB debut, and he showed that he had the capacity to be a standout player. Yet in his early years, his performance was uneven, as he physically struggled with some injuries, and mentally experienced culture shock adjusting to the MLB and to the USA. There were very few Spanish-speaking players in the US at the time, and Pittsburgh was not exactly a hotbed of Hispanic culture. Roberto eventually became more comfortable, both on and off the field, but he always returned to Puerto Rico during the off-seasons. His family and his social life were there, because it was the one place where he felt truly comfortable and at home. In 1964, Roberto married a woman from his hometown, named Vera, at San Fernando Church in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Roberto & Vera went on to have 3 children. 

Clemente was a promising athlete from the beginning of his time in the majors, but by the middle of his career he began emerging as a truly great player. He was an offensive standout with an excellent batting average, and he also was an elite defensive player – a right-fielder with a rocket arm, who could make throws that most players found impossible. His prime years were during the Sixties; he was selected as a Major League All-Star for 8 consecutive seasons, starting in 1960, and in 1966, he was chosen as the Most Valuable Player (or MVP) of the National League. Clemente also won 12 straight Gold Glove awards for his outstanding fielding acumen. He would play for the Pirates for the entirety of his US professional baseball career, leading them to a World Series title in 1971.

Off the field, Clemente became a major supporter of the US civil rights movement. He met with Martin Luther King Junior when the reverend visited Puerto Rico in 1962, and they discussed the discrimination faced by the Latin community in the USA. As I mentioned before, Roberto was of mostly African ancestry, but because he had grown up in Puerto Rico, he had been familiar with a much less racially-stratified society than the continental United States. When he came to the USA to play professional baseball, and particularly when he traveled through the Jim Crow South, he was shocked to endure the experience, for the first time in his life, of being viewed as a (quote-unquote) “Black man” and therefore as a second-class citizen. After becoming a star, Clemente commented, (quote) “My greatest satisfaction comes from helping to erase the old opinions about Latin Americans and Blacks” (close quote).

His Latin cultural background also often caused Clemente to feel like a fish out of water in the United States. Particularly during his first few years in the continental USA, he struggled with the language barrier. As someone temporarily living in a non-English speaking country, I can confirm to listeners that you never truly appreciate the ability to easily communicate with all of the people around you, until you experience the lack of it. Roberto was always fiercely proud of his Hispanic heritage; he disliked it when sportswriters tried to Anglicize his name into “Bob Clemente.” He also did not take kindly to any mockery of his accent. As his career proceeded, he gradually let his guard down some & became more friendly with teammates and the media. He became a fan favorite and a nationally beloved baseball star, and he was especially popular in Western Pennsylvania & in Latin American communities all across the country.

During the off-season, Clemente devoted himself to volunteering and humanitarian work, particularly on his home island of Puerto Rico. In November 1972, Clemente managed the Puerto Rican national baseball team at an international event known as the “Amateur World Series,” which took place in Managua, the capital of the Central American country of Nicaragua. In the tournament, Puerto Rico finished in 6th place, while Cuba won the Gold. Just three weeks later, Managua, Nicaragua was rocked by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, which killed thousands, wounded tens of thousands, and left hundreds of thousands of residents homeless. Clemente, who had returned to Puerto Rico, sprang into action, personally organizing a charitable relief mission for the people of Nicaragua.

Clemente was troubled to hear reports that the first three planes carrying the relief aid he had obtained for the Nicaraguans had their cargo intercepted by the country’s corrupt government, and it was not given out directly to the needy people. Outraged, Roberto Clemente determined to personally board the fourth flight to Managua, in order to ensure that the supplies were allowed to be distributed directly to the people impacted by the earthquake. Clemente and 4 other men departed from Isla Vista, Puerto Rico on a DC-7 cargo plane on December 31st, 1972. Tragically, the plane had been overloaded with the relief supplies; the DC-7’s engine failed soon after takeoff, and the plane violently crashed into the ocean. There were no survivors.

Roberto Clemente’s death was widely mourned all around the Western Hemisphere. Considering the circumstances of his death, the US Baseball Hall of Fame waived the 5-year waiting period for entry following a player’s death or retirement. In March 1973, sportswriters elected Clemente into the Hall of Fame by an overwhelming margin. Major League Baseball then renamed its award for sportsmanship and community service after him, and it is known as the Roberto Clemente Award to this day. In 1974, New York City renamed Harlem River State Park, located in the Bronx, home to one of the USA’s largest Puerto Rican populations, as “Roberto Clemente State Park” in his honor. The Pittsburgh Pirates erected a statue of Clemente outside of their stadium in 1994.

Roberto Clemente left a lasting legacy as a cultural ambassador for Puerto Rico, as a civil rights advocate for Latin Americans (especially for Afro-Latinos), and as a humanitarian who created an example to emulate for athletes & other celebrities interested in giving back to their communities. Although most of us don’t have the same resources that Clemente had, I think one lesson we can take away from his life, especially during these difficult times, is the importance of contributing to our communities in whatever way we can. 

This concludes our latest 10-minute profile. I’d like to dedicate this episode is dedicated to my mother, because Roberto Clemente was her favorite player when she was young. This one’s for you, Mom. Listeners who are less biased than my Mom can also provide positive feedback on this episode on our socials via Instagram or Bluseky, or you can send us an email at boomertomillennial@outlook.com. Even better, you could also write us a nice review on Apple Podcasts, which helps more people find the show. Give us 5 stars, please. In our next episode, we will return to the political dramas of the early 1960s. Until then, take care, everybody, and thanks for listening!