Roberto Clemente

Roberto Clemente Walker was born in Barrio San Anton in Carolina, Puerto Rico, August 18, 1934. He was the youngest of four children. He stood 5 feet and 11 inches tall, and he weighed 175 pounds. Roberto excelled in track and field, winning medals in the javelin throw and short distance races. However, his real love was baseball. He played amateur baseball with Juncos Double A Club and soon went on to play with the Santurce Crabbers in the Puerto Rican Winter League. From Santurce he signed with Montreal's Triple A team. Clemente joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1955, where he played his entire eighteen year Major League Baseball career from 1955 to 1972. Roberto played in two World Series, batting .310 in 1960 and .414 in 1971. He was the National League Batting

Champion four times, was awarded twelve Gold Gloves, selected National League

MVP in 1966 and was chosen as the MVP in the 1971 World Series. He was also a 12

time National League All-Star. Throughout his career, he played in 2,433 games. Out of the 9,454 times at bat, Roberto got a hit 3,000 of those times. He had 440 doubles, 166 triples, and 240 homeruns. Roberto had 1,305 RBI’s and he scored 1,416 runs for his team. Overall, his career batting average was a .317. On November 14, 1964, he married Vera Cristina Zabala in Carolina, Puerto Rico. They had three sons: Roberto Jr., Luis Roberto and Roberto Enrique. Proud of his heritage Roberto insisted that Vera give birth to all three sons in Puerto Rico. The boys were six, five and two, when their father met his unfortunate death.

New Year's Eve, December 31, 1997 marked the 25th Anniversary of a tragic plane

crash. The plane was taking medical, food and clothing supplies to Nicaragua, to help out after an earthquake. Vera and friends begged him not to take the trip because of poor weather and an unstable cargo plane, but Roberto was determined. He was upset that the previous supplies had not made it to the victims. Roberto was going to personally see to it that the victims received the much needed supplies. Unfortunately the plane went down off the coast of Puerto Rico. Roberto's body was never found. Just months after Roberto joined an elite group of players with 3000 hits, he was gone. Roberto’s tragic death in 1972 prompted the Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors to unanimously wave the customary five year period for induction, which opened a door for the Baseball Writer’s Association of America to hold a special election on Clemente’s behalf.