Today my "Hall of Fame Inductees" thread moves on to 1973, and a
special election that was held because of tragic circumstances, the
election of Pirates great Roberto Clemente:
As we all know, Clemente was killed in a plane crash as he was
trying to deliver relief help to victims of a Nicaragua earthquake on
New Years Eve, 1972.
Just an outright superstar of the game, Clemente was a Most
Valuable Player in 1966, a four time batting champ, a two time World
Champ (1960 and 1971) and Gold Glove winner TWELVE times.
It has always astounded me at the quirks of fate in the game, as he
collected his 3000th hit on his final Major League at-bat before the
tragic crash, leaving us with one of those incredible instances where we
think "it couldn't have happened any other
way".
It's also really nice to see Major League baseball was once again open to do the right thing (as with Lou Gehrig) and waive the mandatory five-year waiting period
before electing him into the Hall in 1973.
Seems many times MLB doesn't think straight, leading us to gripe about one thing or another…
