Up on the blog today, a spotlight on my "Classic Baseball" custom card for "The Great One", Roberto Clemente, all-time great and true hero in a time when the term gets thrown around a bit too freely:
On the field Clemente's numbers were incredible: four batting
titles, five seasons batting over .340, four 200 hit seasons, 12
all-star nods, 12 Gold Gloves and a Most Valuable Player Award in 1966.
And a prime example of Clemente's importance to the game was his
immediate induction into Cooperstown by special committee in 1973,
waiving the standard five-year wait before a player joins the Hall
ballot, as well as the establishment of the "Roberto
Clemente Award", given every year to the player that exemplified
"outstanding baseball playing skills who is personally involved in
community work."
The man was truly something else, and I'm not even thinking of his baseball prowess.
As we all know, after the 1972 season, a season which saw him
attain his 3000th career hit on the last at-bat of the regular season,
Clemente was was killed on December 31, when the plane he was a passenger on crashed on it's way to deliver relief packages
to victims of a massive earthquake in Managua, Nicaragua.
A tragic end to one of the game's greatest players of the post-war era.
It's even more tragic when you read that the only reason Clemente
was on the plane in the first place was to ensure the supplies would
reach their intended target, since the previous three planes full of
supplies were diverted by corrupt politicians.
