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A TRUE PUERTO RICAN HERO: By Pedro Roman Wednesday Night Class Spring 2017 As a Spanish-speaking black man from Puerto Rico, Clemente battled against discrimination from day one in America and was outspoken about the inequities he faced. During his first seven years at Pirates Spring Training in Florida, he was not afforded the comfortable amenities a downtown hotel offered. Instead, Clemente was confined to living with a black family in the Dunbar Heights section of Fort Myers. When the Pirates held its annual spring golf tournament at the local country club, Roberto and the other black teammates were excluded. As if that was not enough disrespect, while his white teammates dined at roadside restaurants on Grapefruit League road trips, Clemente would have to remain on the team bus. Fed up with such atrocities, he finally coerced the Pittsburgh Pirates front office management to allow the black players to travel in their own station wagon. Clemente said that enduring the unjust racial divide during spring training was like being in prison. As if a strange language and a new culture were not challenges enough, Clemente also met racism and discrimination in their crudest forms. He quickly became an active defender of his rights and the rights of others. In one of his first games as a professional, he protested angrily when fans yelled racial insults at one of his teammates. He became a union leader in the incipient Major League Baseball Players Association and defended players’ rights to demand better working conditions and benefits. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968, Pittsburgh Pirates All-Star Roberto Clemente was devastated by the news. However, out of respect for the slain leader, he gathered up his teammates for a meeting to prevent the Pirates and Astros from opening their season on April 8th–the day before King’s burial. He convinced his fellow Pirates, which included 11 African-Americans, to stand with him in unity. As a result of his extraordinary call to action in honoring his fallen hero, Pirates 1968 Opening Day was postponed and moved back to April 10th in observance of King’s memorial service. Like Dr. King, Clemente was a passionate believer of social and economic justice. Clemente once said, “If you have the chance to make things better for people coming behind you and you don’t, you are wasting your time on earth.” Clemente’s relationship with the press was marked by racial tension. Some members of the press were rude or scornful simply because he was black and Latino. Some made fun of his heavy Latin accent, quoting him with phonetic spelling rather than merely reporting what Clemente said. From 1955 to 1972, Clemente played eighteen seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates and participated in fifteen seasons of Caribbean baseball. At a late career stage when the performance of most players begins to wane, Clemente was still setting records. 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. One of the DC-7’s engines exploded almost immediately after take-off. There were two more explosions, then a fourth. Unfortunately, neither the supplies, nor Clemente, reached their intended destination. His DC-7, laden with supplies, took off from San Juan, but crashed shortly thereafter. Clemente’s body was never found, and it was believed that he was killed when the plane crashed, his body either sunk into the ocean or drifting out to see in the storm. Roberto Clemente lived in two worlds. One was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Pirates, the major leagues, awards, fans, and media. The other was Carolina, Puerto Rico, Caribbean baseball, home, family, leisure, and personal dreams. His first great sense of accomplishment was being able to give his parents a house in the El Comandante development in Carolina. It was back in Carolina, after nearly ten years and a World Series Championship with the Pirates, that Clemente met a hometown girl who became his wife. When Roberto and Vera Zabala were married, the governor of Puerto Rico was a guest of honor. When it came time for the births of each of the three Clemente sons, Roberto insisted that Vera return to Puerto Rico so that they would be born on Puerto Rican soil. Roberto loved his homeland. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1973 in a special election that waived the mandatory five-year waiting period. Induction also came with another honor. Clemente became the first Hispanic player to ever be enshrined in the MLB Hall of Fame, helping to further legitimize the impact that players from Latin America had upon the game.