Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente will be honored on Thursday, Dec. 31 at Seaside Park’s Diamond No. 10, next to the monument for the former Pittsburgh Pirates star. The ceremony begins at noon. Everyone is invited to attend.
Clemente was killed on New Year’s Eve, 1972 while trying to fly earthquake relief supplies to Nicaragua. The plane crashed into the sea just after takeoff and Clemente and everyone else on board were killed.
The Amigos de Clemente (Friends of Clemente) will host the ceremony. Amigos de Clemente is a group of Bridgeport-area baseball fans who are dedicated to honoring Clemente’s humanatarian efforts as well as his talents as a baseball player.
“When we honor Roberto Clemente each December 31, we pay our respects, not only to the selfless and heroic way in which he died but to the courageous way he chose to live, and the role model that he has become,” said Wilfredo Mantos, Amigos de Clemente spokesman. “We honor a man who overcame both racism and language to become an acknowledged superstar who was always willing to give of himself and died while on a mission of mercy.”
The group has also supported the national effort to get commissioner Bud Selig to have Major League Baseball formally retire Clemente’s No. 21, like it did with Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 back in 1997.
“Clemente was a rare superstar who used his celebrity to help people, and whose dignity, pride, character and personal integrity marked him as a role mode we should all do well to emulate,” said former Superior court judge Carmen Lopez, a member of the Amigos de Clemente. “If commissioner Selig can be convinced to retire No. 21, the act will acknowledge that the greatness of Roberto Clemente will be discovered in the history books, not just the baseball record books.”
Clemente spent 18 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, totaling 3,000 hits. He won four National League batting titles, 12 Gold Gloves, was the NL’s Most Valuable Player in 1966 and the World Series MVP in 1971. He was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973 becoming only the second player to have the mandatory five-year waiting period waived.
