Sunday, May 3, 2015

HALL OF FAME #18: ROBERTO CLEMENTE: CLASS OF 1973

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…

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