A SPECIAL REQUEST FOR A SPECIAL CARD- 1974 ROBERTO CLEMENTE

Forgive me for forgetting exactly who, but someone who reads this blog brought up the subject of creating a “Hero” card for Pittsburgh Pirate great Roberto Clemente, perhaps in the 1974 Topps set, memorializing the recently deceased superstar while on a flight to help victims of an earthquake on New Year’s Eve, 1972.
I thought this was a very nice idea and went ahead with the following:

Clemente was indeed a ‘hero” to so many outside of baseball, even before he died so tragically trying to help others in need, so a card calling him as such made sense.
On the ball field he was perhaps the greatest Pirate outside of a guy called Honus Wagner, being named to 12 all-star teams, taking home four batting titles, and winning 12 straight Gold Gloves while collecting exactly 3000 hits with a .317 lifetime average.
Who knows how much longer he could have, or would have played had tragedy not struck, but it never mattered as far as his baseball accomplishments.
The man was already in the upper stratosphere in his sport.