Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407290023
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PITTSBURGH LENGTH: Long
The unseen yet undeniable star of the 1994 All-Star Game won't get a hit, won't steal a base, won't get an at-bat. Instead, he will bring to baseball's showcase a majestic and regal presence, an aura that has graced only a chosen few.
The Griffeys, Bagwells and Bondses will not walk beside him at Three Rivers Stadium, where his motivation came not from contract incentives but an intense Latin pride and machismo.
Twenty-one years since his posthumous induction into the Hall of Fame, where he finally achieved equal footing with the game's greats, Roberto Walker Clemente again will be an All-Star.
On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Pirates will use the stage of baseball's biggest show to introduce a new generation of fans to No.21 - an athlete who not only was larger than life, but was revealed to be an even bigger man in death.
Maybe it will be only in the mind, but for one star-filled night, Clemente again will throw out a runner rounding first with a blind, frozen-rope throw from the right-field corner, again will contort and crane his neck in a home-plate ritual before unleashing another line drive.
Twelve times during a Pirates career that began in 1955 and ended prematurely in 1972, Clemente made the All-Star Game his personal showcase, one he shared with the more popular, more publicized players of his era: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Henry Aaron.
Now, it will be Clemente's game again.
``We wanted to do something to make this All-Star Game even more special, so it was obvious to us that Roberto Clemente had to be a part of this game,'' said Steve Greenberg, the Pirates' vice president of marketing. ``An All-Star game is special, but Roberto Clemente will make this a very special event.''
A lifelike Clemente statue - the $300,000 cost was covered by fan donations - will be unveiled at Three Rivers' main entrance. His image also appears on T-shirts, glasses, calendars, buttons, pennants and stamps licensed by the Pirates and Clemente's wife and three sons.
There are two newly issued Clemente books, two TV specials in Pittsburgh commemorating Clemente's life and career and a newly released video. Two restaurant chains are marketing Clemente drinking glasses and holograms, and a cereal maker issued a limited-edition Clemente box.
When the Pirates began licensing Clemente articles, they soon realized how popular he remains more than two decades after his death.
``It is frightening, really,'' said Roberto Clemente Jr., who returned to Pittsburgh to run the Baseball Is Great program that is re-introducing baseball to inner-city youth. ``What is happening in Pittsburgh is overwhelming.''
And, perhaps, unprecedented. Clemente is more popular today than when he got his 3,000th and last hit on Sept.30, 1972 - three months and a day before his death.
The Pirates' right fielder from 1955-72, Clemente won four batting titles, batted .317 in his career, won 12 Gold Gloves and hit in all 14 World Series games he played for the champion 1960 and 1971 Pirates. A 12-time All-Star and the 1966 National League Most Valuable Player, Clemente died with four others in a Dec.31, 1972, plane crash while carrying relief supplies to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua.
Clemente's throwing arm was so strong, so unerringly accurate, he once did the impossible by throwing out Mays - yes, the Willie Mays - at first on what appeared to be a routine single to right field.
While the Pirates have won another World Series and six division championships since Clemente's death, they still have not recovered fully from the loss. Clemente is to the Pirates what DiMaggio and Mantle are to the Yankees and what Mays is to the Giants - a man who epitomizes what baseball is all about and how it should be played.
``He walked a little taller than most men,'' said Willie Stargell, the Hall of Famer who shared the Pirates' outfield with Clemente for 10 years. ``He had an eternal flame burning inside of him whenever he stepped on the field.''
Clemente, who would have turned 60 on Aug.18, was an enormous star in Pittsburgh, and his popularity was unquestioned. But he also played in a time when racism was prevalent, and some fans - and, it seems, even some teammates - disliked him merely for the color of his skin.
For nearly 10 years, Clemente couldn't stay in the same spring-training hotels as his white teammates, some of whom privately criticized him for inventing invisible injuries so he could skip an occasional game, for hanging out with other Latin players and for speaking Spanish so his English-only speaking teammates wouldn't know what he was discussing.
``The biggest misunderstanding with Clemente was not that he was black, but that he was Latin,'' said former Pirates pitcher and broadcaster Nellie King. ``We didn't understand Latins.''
And some fans didn't understand that Clemente belonged in that same, small elite circle as Mays and Aaron - players who come along perhaps once in a lifetime.
Clemente's true greatness was not realized until after his death - when his on-field performance and off-field benevolence could be added up, summarized, chronicled and critiqued. Only then did many recognize the charitable work he did, the dream he had of building a Roberto Clemente Sports City in his native Puerto Rico, a complex his wife, Vera, operates today.
That dream lives on, and, at least in Pittsburgh and Puerto Rico, so does the spirit of Clemente.
by CNB