American Experience (1988–…): Season 20, Episode 12 - Roberto Clemente - full transcript

♪ ♪

BROADCAST ANNOUNCER:
That is hit well.

(spectators cheering)

A Clemente home run!

NARRATOR:
On October 17, 1971,

the underdog Pittsburgh Pirates
defeated the Baltimore Orioles

in game seven
to win the World Series.

Many players had contributed
to the victory,

but everyone agreed
who was most responsible...

their veteran right fielder
from Puerto Rico,

number 21, Roberto Clemente.



SPORTSCASTER:
And here with me right now,

the greatest right fielder
in the game of baseball...

NARRATOR:
But it wasn't just his play
on the field that day

that his admirers
would remember.

It was what he did afterwards.

And before I say
anything in English,

I would like to say something

for my mother and
father in Spanish.

En el día más grande
de mi vida,

para los nenes,
la bendición mía

y que mis padres me echen
la bendición en Puerto Rico.

The Latinos
who were listening to that

were watching
the English-language TV.

To have someone suddenly
speak to you in Spanish



reinforced a pride
in your own language and culture

and in who Roberto was.

LES BANOS:
I cried when he did this,

because that was him.

He loved his family,
he loved his country.

He loved the United States, but
his love was for Puerto Rico.

NARRATOR:
He was baseball's
first Latino superstar,

before America's pastime became
truly international.

ROBERT RUCK:
Clemente is the first athlete

to transcend both race
and nation and culture.

He's also not defined
by commercialism.

It's about pride; it's about
doing what he believes is right.

It's about loyalty.

NARRATOR:
He played with
unparalleled grace

during turbulent times,

with passion and pride
that were often misunderstood.

GEORGE WILL:
He was a puzzle, I'm sure,

to a lot of the sporting press,
and they were

mysterious and somewhat
adversarial, in his view.

SAMUEL REGALADO:
Clemente was
a complicated individual

because he stepped into
some very complicated times.

NARRATOR:
He was larger
than the game he loved

until his sudden, tragic death
made him larger still.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(birds squawking)

NARRATOR:
"I grew up with people

that really had
to struggle to live,"

Roberto Clemente recalled.

"My mother never went to a show.

She didn't know how to dance."

Like many others
in rural Puerto Rico,

life for Clemente's family
revolved around sugarcane.

His father, Melchor, worked
as a foreman in the fields

near the small town of Carolina.

His mother, Doña Luisa,

often rose at 1:00 a.m.
to make lunches for the workers.

Roberto, the youngest
of seven children,

started working when he was
just eight years old.

Life in Carolina was hard,

with more than its share
of tragedy,

but Clemente
remembered it fondly.

"We used to get together
at night and make jokes

and eat whatever we had to eat,"
he said later.

"It was something wonderful
to me."

Shy, pensive, restless,

Roberto was devoted
to the island's favorite sport.

DAVID MARANISS:
Baseball was it for Clemente
from an early age.

People in his neighborhood
in San Anton said

they always saw him throwing
something against the wall.

It could be a sock
or a bottle cap or something,

but he always had that motion
of throwing.

♪ ♪

Baseball captured Roberto
as it did

thousands and thousands
of young boys in Puerto Rico

in that era because it was
what was available.

Puerto Rico
was not a soccer island.

It was baseball.

♪ ♪

JUAN GONZALEZ:
In Puerto Rico,
people argue and fight.

The fanaticism toward baseball
is much greater

than it is
here in the United States.

NARRATOR:
As a teenager in the late 1940s,

Clemente would catch the bus
into San Juan

to watch
the Puerto Rican winter leagues,

dreaming
of his own baseball future.

(crowd cheers)

Already
a talented player himself,

he watched some
of the game's best,

including Black players
from America's Negro Leagues,

attracted by the island's
open racial climate.

GAME ANNOUNCER:
A high pop-up
back to first base.

That's second baseman Taylor
scooting over near the line

to make the catch for the out,
and that retires the side.

MARANISS:
It was so different
in Puerto Rico

from in the United States
in that period.

If you were a Black Puerto Rican
or a Black American,

you could eat
wherever you wanted to,

you could sleep
wherever you wanted to,

you could date
whoever you wanted to.

There wasn't
this constant reminder

of the color of your skin.

NARRATOR:
Following his favorite team,
the San Juan Senadores,

Clemente saw top ballplayers,
Black and white,

play with the Caribbean League's
trademark swashbuckling style.

For 15 cents,

Clemente could watch
the outfield play of his idol...

Negro League veteran
Monte Irvin.

SAMUEL REGALADO:
For Roberto Clemente,

the Black ballplayers
in many respects represented

a very important time
in his youth.

They were the standard-bearers
for Roberto Clemente.

They were the models.

NARRATOR:
At 18, Clemente got
his first break,

playing for the Santurce
Cangrejeros for $40 a week.

Soon, the island's
top baseball men

were talking
about the young outfielder

with the quick bat
and the rocket arm.

One called him "the best free
agent athlete I've ever seen."

♪ ♪

In 1954, Melchor Clemente

signed a contract
on behalf of his son

with the Brooklyn Dodger
organization,

for the unimaginable sum
of $5,000,

plus a $10,000 signing bonus.

His stay with the Dodgers
would be short-lived.

He would soon be drafted away
by the Pittsburgh Pirates,

but Roberto Clemente
was living the dream

of every Puerto Rican boy
who'd ever swung a bat.

He was on his way north

to play baseball
en las grandes ligas.

♪ ♪

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
At Fort Myers,

spring training begins
for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Manager Danny Murtaugh...

NARRATOR:
For 20-year-old
Roberto Clemente,

the annual ritual
of spring training in Florida

was both familiar and strange.

He had played baseball
in a warm, sunny climate before,

but he had never encountered
Jim Crow.

REGALADO:
They're training in the South,

and it's in the South
that Roberto Clemente,

like other
Latin American Blacks,

are introduced
to the overt racism

that they had heard about
back in their homeland

but now actually see
in front of them,

and it's really a concept

that is very difficult
for them to grasp.

MARANISS:
The whole team stayed
at the Bradford Hotel downtown,

except for Clemente and three
other Black and Latino players,

who had to find
their own lodging

on the other side
of the tracks, literally.

In every aspect
of his life there,

he felt segregation strongly

for, really,
the first time in his life.

♪ ♪

GONZALEZ:
He was coming here
as an American,

playing baseball in his country,

but he was being treated

as a Black American,
as a foreigner.

The way he was being identified

just didn't jibe
with his reality.

REGALADO:
You had this combination
of young ballplayer,

anxious to succeed, has...

to a certain extent
delusions of grandeur,

and then there's the reality
of his position as a person,

and in the South,
during the period of the 1950s,

it didn't matter whether or not

you're a professional
baseball player;

you're just Black.

(machinery squealing)

NARRATOR:
With the start
of the regular season,

the team came north
to Pittsburgh,

a tough,
smoke-belching steel town,

where Clemente took a room

in a middle-class
African-American neighborhood.

Pittsburgh fans loved their
Bucs, as they called the team,

but they didn't quite know
what to make

of their lone Latino player,

and Clemente didn't quite know
what to make of Pittsburgh.

You were Black or you were white
in Pittsburgh.

You weren't Latin.

You weren't Puerto Rican.

On the other hand, I suspect

that both Black
and white Pittsburghers

had a hard time
understanding Clemente.

They had little experience
with people from Latin America,

with Latin American culture,
with that sense of Latin pride.

The Black community saw him,

and physically he was Black
to them, but not culturally.

ORLANDO CEPEDA:
He told me that
it was very lonely for him,

because of communication.

He couldn't communicate.

That's why, uh,

we had two strikes:

being black

and being Latin.

NARRATOR:
Clemente spent little free time

with his fellow Pirates,

some of whom found him
guarded and aloof.

Whatever the reason,
the result was obvious:

besides baseball,
number 21 and his teammates

had little in common.

Clemente, after baseball games,

has no one, really,
to pal around with

in terms of his teammates.

He often wanders around
by himself.

And Clemente, in fact,

signed autographs till the last
person had his baseball signed,

in large part because Clemente
had really nothing else

better to do
that day after games.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
In the days before publicists
and security guards,

players and fans could sometimes
have a human encounter.

One day, a 17-year-old fan
from rural Pennsylvania

saw Clemente
after a Phillies game.

CAROL BASS:
I decided to approach him
and I said,

"May I please have
your autograph?"

And I had just begun
to learn some Spanish,

and so I said,
"Oh, gracias, Señor Clemente."

And he smiled and he looked up

and he started to rattle
and go off in Spanish.

And he just went on and on,
and I was just like,

um, you know, so nervous inside
and I thought,

"Oh, my gosh, you know,
how do I, you know,

"what do I do to tell him,

you know, I don't understand
what he, what he had to say?"

"Mr. Clemente, I'm so sorry."

I said, "I'm just beginning
to learn Spanish,

I only know a few words."

Well, he, you know,
started to laugh.

He said, "You know,
you're never going to get

a lot of autographs being
so far back."

MARANISS:
An athlete's life
is mostly being uprooted.

And a lot of athletes
deal with that by finding

superficial outlets.

Clemente mostly dealt with it

by trying
to find reminders of home

and family wherever he was.

Carol was one part of that,

and an unlikely white girl
from Philadelphia

becomes part
of the Clemente family.

NARRATOR:
Over the years, Clemente would
host Carol and her parents

when they visited him
in Puerto Rico.

But friendships with individual
fans were one thing;

relations with Pittsburgh's
hard-bitten press

were quite another.

Theirs was an awkward dance

of mutual incomprehension

and often hostility.

ROY McHUGH:
If Clemente wasn't approached
in the right way,

he would flare up.

His feelings seemed to be

right on the surface.

And, uh, the wrong question

or the wrong word
would set him off.

I can't say that I enjoyed
talking with him.

What cracked me up
about Roberto was

in a lot of his interviews,

they would come
and interview him,

he would start
talking about life.

And the writers just
wasn't ready for that.

NARRATOR:
Baseball players were supposed
to be upbeat and uncomplicated.

Not Clemente.

The Pirate outfielder
was often moody,

haunted by chronic insomnia;

a serious man, ill at ease
in a boisterous locker room.

An accent didn't help.

REPORTER:
You think the deals are going
to help the ball club?

CLEMENTE:
Uh, well, we have lots
of question mark, and, uh...

I hope the deal help us.

I know that we have
a young ball club.

We got lots of speed.

And we have a better pitching
staff than last year.

NARRATOR:
For much of
the Pittsburgh press,

it seemed
a Latino player's background

was something to be
mocked or ignored.

GONZALEZ:
There was an attempt to really

sort of deny the Latino heritage
of these ballplayers.

♪ ♪

I was, uh, just a kid then,
but I remember

he was always
called Bobby Clemente.

They Americanized the names,

and always the sportswriters
and the ballplayers

ridiculed their attempts
to speak English.

OLIVER:
Bottom line was, there wasn't

a lot of knowledge
of Puerto Rican players.

There wasn't a lot of knowledge
of even Black players

at that particular time.

And it had a lot
to do with not being around.

If you're not around
a certain group of people,

then you form opinions.

NARRATOR:
Clemente repeatedly broke
an unwritten rule

for professional athletes:

never say what's really
on your mind.

And another: never complain
about injuries, aches or pains.

I wasn't feeling good last year,

and I hit .312.

And I hope that with my rest

and my stomach stop hurting me,
I feel I think

I can have a better year;
I hope so anyhow.

I was underweight,
underweight last year.

I was having a little trouble...

NARRATOR:
His stomach, his back,

his legs, his neck...

Everything seemed
to plague him at some point.

Before long,
Clemente acquired a reputation

as an oversensitive
hypochondriac.

One day after a game,
he was sitting

in front of his locker
with his uniform off

and Joe Brown,
the general manager,

told him to get into the shower
and get dressed.

He said, "You'll catch cold."

He said, "I don't want
you to be sick."

And Clemente said, "I feel
better when I'm sick."

I don't know
what he meant by that,

but he knew what he meant.

WILL:
We acquired a national stoicism

from the '30s and our troubles
in the Depression,

from the '40s from the war.

Stoicism was identified
with manliness.

And it was thought
somehow less than manly

to complain about ailments,
even though real.

RUCK:
White ballplayers
and Black ballplayers

were relatively taciturn.

They chewed tobacco.

Not too many of them had a great
sense of style or flair.

Certainly if they asked
these players questions

about how they were feeling

and the player actually talked
about their feelings,

that was not something
they were accustomed to.

Frank, there's a lot
of reasons for it.

I believe, uh, the biggest one
being, uh, confidence.

Uh, the main thing,
and, uh, swinging the bat.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
There was a source

for some of Clemente's pain,

but he seldom spoke of it.

Back in 1954, he had
been in a serious car accident

that damaged his spine and neck.

The injuries would plague him
for the rest of his life.

Stung by what
he saw as unfair criticism,

Clemente lashed out
at his detractors.

"Hypochondriacs don't produce,"
he growled.

"I produce!"

WILL:
Clemente played
hard all the time.

He played all the time,
but he talked all the time

about how hard it was
to do what he did.

And I think it grated on some
people who thought

that the ideal ballplayer should
be like Gary Cooper:

tall, silent, stoical.

NARRATOR:
In his first five seasons

with the Pirates,
Clemente hadn't exactly

lit up Forbes Field
with his hitting.

He'd batted over .300 only once,

with seven or less homers.

ANNOUNCER:
Roberto Clemente
fields the ball...

NARRATOR:
His play in right field
was something else.

He'd won over a growing
number of local fans

with his powerful arm
and remarkable range.

Still, he was
on a lackluster team

and the national press
barely noticed.

Until, that is, 1960.

(crowd cheering)

GAME ANNOUNCER:
The Rock sends one
deep to right.

♪ ♪

REGALADO:
In 1960, the Pittsburgh Pirates

were no longer the
laughingstock of baseball.

The Pittsburgh Pirates

are champions
of the National League.

ANNOUNCER:
Roberto Clemente,

one of the outstanding
baseball players...

NARRATOR:
That year, Clemente led the team
in runs batted in,

was second in home runs
and game-winning hits,

and led the league
in outfield assists.

REGALADO:
By 1960, he is an all-star
player in the National League.

He is becoming
a real threat to opponents.

He might not be recognized
by that...

by the national media...

but on the baseball diamond,
clearly his opponents recognized

Roberto Clemente's rising star.

NARRATOR:
For the first time in 33 years,

the Pirates found themselves
playing in the World Series.

Unluckily, they had to face
the New York Yankees,

winner of five titles
in the past decade

and a team packed
with superstars

such as Mickey Mantle,
Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford.

RUCK:
The 1960 Series
was David and Goliath.

The Yankees were the franchise
of professional sport,

winning more titles
than any team in any sport.

MARANISS:
The Pittsburgh Pirates
came into the World Series

as massive underdogs.

They have a very good team,

but no one had really
heard of the Pirates players.

NARRATOR:
Helped by some timely hitting
from Clemente

and his outfield play,

the Pirates managed to win three
of the first six games,

despite being outscored by
the powerful Yankees, 46 to 17.

The seventh and deciding game
would be played in Pittsburgh,

where only the most
diehard Bucs fans

gave the home team
much of a chance.

In the bottom of the ninth,

David and Goliath were tied
nine to nine.

♪ ♪

As Pittsburgh held
its collective breath,

Pirate second baseman
Bill Mazeroski

came to the plate.

(music playing,
spectators cheering)

ANNOUNCER:
There's the drive,
it's hit deep into left field.

She's going way, way back.

And back goes Yogi Berra,

and you can kiss it good-bye.

It's gone!
The game-winning home run!

The Bucs are the champions
of the world.

(spectators cheering)

NARRATOR:
When Mazeroski reached home,
Clemente was there,

celebrating one of the greatest
upsets in baseball history,

proud of his contribution
to the team's success.

Once off the field,
he expected to make a quick exit

and catch a plane
to Puerto Rico.

But he hadn't counted on the
scene outside the clubhouse.

(cheering, whooping)

"There's Clemente!"
someone shouted.

And the crowd surged forward.

It took him an hour
to make his way through.

♪ ♪

After years of feeling
himself an outsider,

he had won them over.

The fans of Pittsburgh, he said,

had made it all worthwhile.

(birds squawking)

Finally back in San Juan
at the airport,

Clemente received a greeting
befitting a returning hero.

Proud Puerto Ricans had followed
the Series closely

on the radio and in the papers.

A sign in the crowd said

what everyone felt about
their triumphant native son.

He had barely touched ground

when the crowd scooped him up
and carried him away.

(cheering, applause)

GONZALEZ:
He was the hero of the island.

He was like a god.

The pride
that Puerto Ricans felt

over what he had managed

to accomplish in baseball
was incredible.

NARRATOR:
The celebration went on
for weeks.

During the day, dressed
in his major league uniform,

he led clinics for groups of
worshipful Puerto Rican kids.

Most nights, he attended
banquets held in his honor.

But Clemente had a different
kind of honor in mind...

the National League's
Most Valuable Player Award

for the 1960 season.

On November 17, the results were
finally announced.

In the vote of the nation's
baseball writers

for the league's top player,

Clemente finished eighth.

He took it hard.

BANOS:
He felt that he did the best
performance in his life

in the 1960 World Series.

And personally, he felt this,

he should deserve the
Most Valuable Player for this,

but he didn't get it.

And he felt, you know,
a certain amount of prejudice

was involved at the time.

WILL:
He was very sensitive to slights

and to the sense
that he was not noticed.

Clemente's resentment arose
from, first, his pride;

second, from the injustice
of the vote.

You can't say absolutely

that Clemente should
have been the MVP,

but there weren't seven
more valuable players

in the National League
than Clemente that year.

MARANISS:
I've heard that he never wore
his World Series ring after that

because he was so upset.

Whether that's
apocryphal or not,

it represents accurately
the way he felt.

He felt that he had
been done in by racism.

It was sort of a reminder

that life in America
was different

from his life in Puerto Rico,

that the way he was regarded
was different, and worse...

and that he would not allow
that to happen again.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Roberto Clemente arrived
for spring training in 1961

with a new contract
worth $35,000

and something to prove.

♪ ♪

Fueled by his anger
at being overlooked,

the 27-year-old Pirate
outfielder

lifted his play to a new level.

That year he would hit
a league-leading .351,

while playing stellar defense.

Even as the Pirates returned
to their losing ways,

Clemente was emerging as one
of the greatest right fielders

in the game of baseball.

Over 50 years,

I've watched many, many baseball
games in my lifetime.

I can never remember anyone

who threw a ball better
than Roberto Clemente

when there was a baserunner
heading to third

or a baserunner
trying to score at home.

It was a rifle;

it was an incredible arm
that he had

and incredibly accurate.

And so, there were some ways

that he was so superior
to all the other ballplayers

that all of the issues of race
and, and nationality,

and language and, uh,
all fell by the wayside

once the game started.

He would gesture and move
his shoulders and his neck

as though we were trying
to work the kinks out.

Then, he would settle himself
in the batter's box,

and all hell would break loose.

♪ ♪

Clemente played with abandon.

He was like a horse galloping
around the bases,

you know, arms flailing.

The way he handled his body
was incredible.

I mean, just incredible.

It looks like he was galloping.

Looked like he was all arms,
but got there quickly.

His body was a baseball machine.

WILL:
In every facet of the game...

Hitting, catching,

hitting with power,
throwing the ball...

the classic five-tool player,

that was Roberto Clemente.

(spectators cheering)

NARRATOR:
Across the U.S.,

the Pirates' talented right
fielder was now being cheered

by a growing number
of Latino fans.

Through the 1960s,
a surge in immigration

from Latin America
and the Caribbean

brought new faces
to U.S. cities

and to baseball dugouts as well.

When Clemente first entered
the major leagues in 1955,

there had only been a handful
of Latino players;

now, nearly a decade later,
there were dozens.

But not everyone in baseball
welcomed the trend.

WILL:
Alvin Dark, the manager
of the San Francisco Giants,

forbade the speaking of Spanish
in the clubhouse.

He thought that Hispanic players
were somehow an alien presence

and a threat to cohesion.

I don't know
what the thinking was.

Orlando, you think you're
going to beat this guy out?

It's going to be tough
because he always hit, uh,

he never hit
below .350.

NARRATOR:
Number 21 soon realized

that he had become something
more than a right fielder.

Whether he wanted it or not,

he had become a role model.

I watch him every day,

and I try to learn
stuff from him,

because he's the best
hitter in baseball.

And he's the best
that ever lived.

BANOS:
He was very careful always,
his appearance,

because he felt the first
impression very important,

especially from him,

because he felt
he not representing

Roberto Clemente alone.

He always told me,

"I'm representing the people
of Puerto Rico."

WILL:
He represented impatience.

He was a cauldron of energy,

representing the upward mobility

of people who had hitherto
been excluded.

(lively Latin jazz
melody playing)

NARRATOR:
Each October, after the end
of the baseball season,

Roberto would return
to Puerto Rico.

Driving the streets of San Juan
in his white Cadillac,

he attracted attention worthy
of a movie star.

Still in his 20s,

he was handsome,
famous, and single.

MARANISS:
He was magnetic.

There were always women
writing him love letters,

trying to be near him and, uh,

it wasn't that
he was just walking around,

proudly, as a hunk,
he was a very soft guy

who wanted to hear
other people's stories

and so that added
to his magnetism.

NARRATOR:
After a decade on the road,

Clemente was eager
to settle down.

Vera Zabala was striking...

a 22-year-old college graduate
who worked in a bank.

And she was from Carolina,

Clemente's beloved
childhood home,

where her father, like his,

worked in the sugarcane fields.

MARANISS:
She didn't even know

that Roberto Clemente
was a ballplayer.

He started calling her at work,

asking her for dates, and, uh,

eventually, Clemente
got up the nerve

to sort of deal with the father.

(speaking Spanish)

NARRATOR:
November 14, 1964,

the couple married
and settled down in Carolina.

The next year,
Vera gave birth to a son.

Two more boys would follow.

Vera soon discovered

that her husband had
some eccentricities.

MARANISS:
Clemente was kind of New Age
before there was New Age.

He was an incredible masseuse,

he was constantly taking
different proteins

and odd concoctions of shakes
to try to stay healthy.

He believed in
mystical connections

between life and death

and people
who were no longer around.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
His connection to the dead

centered on
a childhood tragedy...

the loss of his sister Anairis,

burned to death
in a cooking accident

when Roberto was just an infant.

For the rest of his life,
he would be haunted by fire,

and by thoughts
of his own mortality.

MARANISS:
He talked for
the rest of his life

about feeling this sister
at his side.

He had
a certain melancholy to him.

You see it in his eyes.

VERA CLEMENTE:

(siren blaring)

(crowd clamoring)

NARRATOR:
In the mid-1960s,
Clemente found himself

engaged by events
beyond the ballpark

as America entered a time
of unprecedented change.

(protesters chanting)

NARRATOR:
As Clemente watched
and read about the protesters

pouring into
the nation's streets,

he identified closely

with the growing movement
for civil rights.

(protesters shouting)

MARANISS:
Clemente was interested
in more than sports.

He was very political.

And one of the people
he admired most in the world

was Martin Luther King.

The one time we know

that Dr. King went down
to Puerto Rico,

Clemente sought him out and
spent most of a day with him;

took him to his farm.

RUCK:
Because he's
in the Black community,

and because
he's traveling around,

it's clear at that time
that this is a guy

that's interested
in what's going on around him

and has opinions about that.

He's not only an observer.

He's somebody
who's passionately connected

to what's going on.

He's talking about those things.

He's arguing about those things.

MARANISS:
It goes back to the way

they were treated
in spring training

when they were on those buses
going from one town to another,

and the white guys would go
into a restaurant

and bring back sandwiches
to the...

Clemente and the few Blacks
and Latinos.

That was not going to fly
with Clemente.

Now we are in Florida,
not too far from Puerto Rico,

and you see the white players
go to a restaurant and, uh...

and they said, "Fellas,
do you want anything to eat?"

Now, we are sitting
in the back of the...

We are sitting in the bus.

We weren't sitting
in the back of the bus,

but we were sitting
inside the bus and, uh,

I remember, I told a fellow,
one of the players, I said,

"Look, if you will
accept anything

"from anybody
from that restaurant,

"you and me, we're going at it.

"We are going to have a fight,
because I think it's unfair.

"If, uh, this is the way
it's going to be,

"this is the way
we're going to suffer.

"So now, I don't want you to...

none of you fellas
to eat anything."

NARRATOR:
Celebrity did little

to dull his sensitivity
to injustice.

If anything,
it only sharpened it.

Once, out shopping with Vera

in a New York department store,
the couple was ignored

until someone recognized
the famous ballplayer.

When the salespeople suddenly
lavished them with attention,

Clemente would have none of it.

NARRATOR:
By the end of the decade,

increased Latino immigration

and a galvanized
civil rights movement

were transforming the country.

Baseball was changing, too,

with the unlikely Pirates
leading the way.

In 1971, Clemente found himself
leader of a team

unlike any other
in baseball history.

BLASS:
It's almost Latin,
Black and white.

It sounds so trite
and so contrived.

We had a bunch of guys
who could play.

MANNY SANGUILLEN
(speaking Spanish):

MARANISS:
It was a time of change
and transformation

that scared a lot of people,

and one of the manifestations
of that was that the Pirates,

as they became more Black
and Latino,

became less popular in the city.

RUCK:
Roberto is the guy
they look up to...

white, Black and Latin.

They look up to him because
he delivers on the field,

but he's the guy that holds them
together off the field.

And he's much more of a leader,

much more
of a clubhouse presence by 1971,

which, in many ways, is his
coming-out party to the world.

(spectators cheering, whistling)

ANNOUNCER:
The 1971 World Series
being brought to you

from Memorial Stadium
in Baltimore.

NARRATOR:
In 1971, Pittsburgh managed

to reach the World Series
once again.

At 37, the oldest player
in the Series,

Clemente had battled injuries
all season.

But his intensity
hadn't diminished,

nor his competitive drive.

BANOS:
He pulled me aside, he said,
"I guarantee you,

we're going to win."

And I told him,

"Roberto, you cannot say
anything like it,

"because if it don't
turn out to be,

"you'll be a laughingstock,

everybody make a joke
out of it."

MATINO CLEMENTE:

STADIUM ANNOUNCER (over P.A.):
Roberto Clemente!

(crowd cheering, applauding)

MARANISS:
He came up to Jose Pagan, one
of his teammates, and said,

"You guys just get on my back,
and I'll carry you."

(crowd cheering)

NARRATOR:
The Baltimore Orioles
had four 20-game winners

on their pitching staff

and were hands-down favorites
in the Series.

That didn't faze number 21.

MARANISS:
There was one moment

that overwhelmed
everything else,

and it wasn't a throw
or a great hit.

It was a dribbler
that Clemente hit back

to the Baltimore pitcher
Mike Cuellar.

RUCK:
That caused the pitcher
to throw wildly.

He wasn't just going to assume

that the pitcher was going
to throw him out.

And it was his hustle
that did it.

BROADCAST ANNOUNCER:
He does it all;
he runs, he throws...

MARANISS:
Everybody I've talked to
on both teams said

that they could just feel

Clemente's overwhelming
will to win

dominating that Series.

BROADCAST ANNOUNCER:
And he's going to beat
Frank's throw.

NARRATOR:
After the two teams traded wins,
forcing a seventh game,

Clemente reassured
his teammates.

BROADCAST ANNOUNCER:
That is hit well!

NARRATOR:
In the fourth inning,
he blasted a towering home run,

breaking a scoreless tie.

Five innings later,

the Pirates
were World Champions.

(cheering and whooping)

MARANISS:
Clemente was brilliant
in that World Series.

He batted .414,
he got a hit in every game,

he was terrific in right field,

but it was more
than any of that.

ANNOUNCER:
Boy, how that man can run
for 37 years old!

(crowd cheering and whistling)

WILL:
His performance was a jewel.

One of the greatest
performances...

five or six or seven...
In World Series history.

(spectators cheering)

NARRATOR:
In the jubilant
Pirate locker room,

Clemente took the opportunity
to speak directly

to those
who mattered most to him.

The greatest right fielder
in the game of baseball,

Roberto Clemente.

Bobby, congratulations
on a great World Series.

Thank you, Bob,
and before, uh...

I say anything in English, I
would... I would like to say

something for my mother
and father in Spanish.

GONZALEZ:
Roberto was breaking the mold

and saying, "Yes, I will talk
to you, but first,

let me talk to my family
and my community."

I think that was
enormously important,

certainly for those Latino fans
here in the United States,

as well as for those, you know,

in Puerto Rico
and throughout Latin America

who were also listening to that.

(Roberto Clemente speaking
in Spanish over TV)

(speaking Spanish)

(cheering)

♪ ♪

BLASS:
It's still chaotic
and everything.

We get on the airplane,

and before we take off,
I'm sitting by the window,

Karen's in the middle seat.

Roberto Clemente comes up
the aisle,

and looks at me,
and I'm sitting there,

he says, "Come here, Blass,
let me embrace you."

And I walked up,
and he gave me this big hug,

and I get goose bumps now,
thinking about it.

Here's Roberto Clemente
getting up out of his seat,

coming up and wanting
to give me a hug, and I just...

it validated everything
that I ever thought

that could happen to me
in the game of baseball.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Over a remarkable career,

Clemente had converted
even the skeptics:

four batting titles,
National League MVP.

The next season, 1972,
would see him reach

one of baseball's
most prestigious milestones...

3,000 career hits.

But the game's
best right fielder

had other things on his mind.

RUCK:
There's something
going on with Clemente

in the later years,
where he's making a transition

from ballplayer to a statesman;

you know, from somebody

who is putting up Hall of Fame
numbers on the field,

but to somebody
who you can just see

what he's becoming
off the field.

(indistinct chattering)

He's spending a lot of his time
thinking about things,

planning things,

beginning projects
which he hoped to accomplish

once he left the ball field
for good.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
That winter, Clemente found
corporate sponsors

for baseball clinics
across Puerto Rico

and worked on plans
for his passion...

an ambitious sports city
for underprivileged kids.

He traveled more widely
throughout Latin America

and even coached an amateur team
in Nicaragua.

RUCK:
I think that Nicaragua in 1972
did remind Roberto

of what Puerto Rico was like

when he was a boy
in the '30s and the '40s.

He approached kids
and kids approached him

and he talked to them
and he went into their homes

and he found out
about their lives

and... he identified with them.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
On December 23, 1972,

the Clementes awoke
in Puerto Rico to the news

of a massive earthquake
in Nicaragua.

Roberto quickly located
a ham radio operator

who could provide details
of the damage

and asked what help
people needed on the ground.

The reply was immediate and,
for Clemente, heart-wrenching:

"Food, clothing,
medical supplies... everything."

He threw himself into the
relief effort, body and soul.

MARANISS:
It became his passion.

For the next week or so,
he was...

that's all he was doing,
day and night,

was trying to round up aid
for the people of Managua.

NARRATOR:
When he heard the news
of corruption and looting,

of relief supplies stolen,

Clemente decided
to intervene personally.

He would accompany a planeload

of emergency supplies
to Nicaragua.

RUCK:
The people on the ground

in Managua are calling Roberto.

"Roberto, you have to come.

If you come here,
it'll get where it needs to go."

NARRATOR:
Clemente wasted no time.

At San Juan's
International Airport,

he chartered the first plane
and pilot he could find.

After some frantic hours
of repairs,

the DC-7 was finally
cleared for takeoff.

It was a few minutes after
9:00 p.m.,

December 31, 1972.

The plane was
sort of tipping wrong

and the front wheel was a
little... almost off the ground

and the back wheel was smashed,

and said something,
something's wrong here.

But Clemente was so determined
to get to Nicaragua

to do what he thought
he had to do

that he wasn't really
paying attention

to any of that stuff.

It barely got off the ground,
just over the trees,

over the ocean about a mile,
and it disappeared.

NARRATOR:
Just as Clemente's
plane departed,

Carol Brezovec and her mother
were arriving on the island.

Vera had gone
to the terminal to meet them.

BASS:
She was explaining to us,
you know, what had happened

and how she had taken Roberto
to the airport and that...

he was on his way to Nicaragua

and that he would call
as soon as he got there.

NARRATOR:
But the phone call never came.

Late that night,
Clemente's niece called Vera.

She had heard a radio report

that a plane had crashed into
the ocean just after takeoff.

BASS:
Things just became much more
serious and much more quiet.

By then, there should have been
a phone call from Roberto

to say he was okay,

you know, "I'm here, I'll be,
you know, right back."

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
The following day,
a rescue fleet

surveyed the waters
off San Juan to no avail,

as a disbelieving crowd
gathered on the beach,

praying for a miracle.

BASS:
You know,
the reality became more clear

as we would see more and more...

(voice quavering):
medical supplies wash up...

and signs that, in fact,
this was the cargo plane,

and this was the plane
that, um... he was on.

NARRATOR:
Pittsburgh teammates waited
anxiously for news.

One even joined
in the rescue effort.

But Roberto Clemente's body
would never be found.

(Sanguillén speaking Spanish)

♪ ♪

OLIVER:
It knocked me off my feet.

You looked at Roberto
as someone who was invincible.

We knew that
we had lost our leader.

♪ ♪

(train clattering on tacks,
brakes squealing)

GONZALEZ:
It was two days after his death,

and I come out of my apartment
in the South Bronx

and people are pouring out
with cans of food

and blankets and other supplies
to give to the victims

of the earthquake in Nicaragua.

Here were
all of these Puerto Ricans,

all of them
impoverished themselves,

and, to some degree, it seemed
to me their way of, like,

expressing not only their sense
of loss over Clemente,

but their sense of continuing
what he was trying to do.

And that truck filled up
in... in half an hour.

Great athletes compress
life's trajectory unnaturally...

rapid ascent, glamorous apogee,
slow decline.

Most great athletes...

live most of their life
after their life, as it were.

"Didn't you use to be
a ballplayer?"

Clemente was great
and gorgeous to watch;

elegant, noble, right until
this horribly abrupt end.

(applause, whistling fade in)

♪ ♪

(applause, whistling fade out)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪