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Share this Twitter Myspace Digg Del.icio.us Reddit Slashdot Furl Yahoo Technorati Newsvine Facebook Export PDF Print E-mail Tags clemente roberto field dodgers brooklyn left baseball 1955 ball man player pittsburgh season hitter puerto time run amoros played history Article Index What if Roberto Clemente had remained a Dodger — and the Dodgers had stayed in Brooklyn? Page # All Pages

Had Clemente been playing in left field, he never could have made the play, because he was right handed. He would have needed to run at full speed sideways to his right and cross his body at the last moment with his left arm in order to catch the ball with his left gloved hand — a virtual impossibility.

Yet there is no doubt that Clemente would have been one of the most popular baseball players in the history of Brooklyn. He was both Black and Puerto Rican, playing in a borough where the Black and Puerto Rican populations were growing rapidly.

Clemente would have been playing in Brooklyn in the late 1950s and early 1960s with another superstar, a left handed pitcher by the name of Sandy Koufax. Sandy was Jewish, pitching in a borough with the largest Jewish population in America. The presence of Clemente and Koufax on the same team would have given the Brooklyn Dodgers the most powerful ethnic appeal of any ball club in baseball history.

I am most fortunate, however, that Roberto Clemente did not stay in Brooklyn but instead became a Pittsburgh Pirate. While he was a Hall of Fame ball player, it was Roberto the man, not the legend that had the lasting impact on me.

Roberto was a proud black Puerto Rican, playing during an era where discrimination against Blacks and Puerto Ricans in baseball was pervasive. He fought for the rights of his fellow Black and Hispanic players and played on the field with passion and fire, while always retaining his supreme dignity.

He died on December 31, 1972, when a plane transporting him to Managua, Nicaragua crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. At that time, Roberto was coordinating an effort to provide food and medical supplies to victims of the recent Managua earthquake. He was flying to Managua after learning that the then Somoza government was preventing the supplies from reaching their intended recipients.

When Howard Cosell reported the news of Roberto's death, he described him as follows: "He was as fine a man as he was a ball player, and he was all the man at both."

My deep admiration for Roberto remains a constant with me. During my tenure in the George W. Bush administration as Region 2 EPA Administrator, I became very involved with environmental matters in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Whenever I would speak before an organization or a governmental gathering, I would say the following:

"I grew up in Pittsburgh. My favorite person in Pittsburgh was a man by the name of Roberto Clemente. He was a great man and a great baseball player. I thought it was wonderful and long overdue when Jackie Robinson's uniform number, 42 was retired from all of baseball. I won't be satisfied, however, until Roberto Clemente's uniform number, 21 is retired from all of baseball as well."

Every time I said this, I received a standing ovation.

I admired Clemente, the ball player, but I absolutely venerated the man. The memory of Roberto will always be a blessing to me.

Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush. Region 2 EPA consists of the states of New York and New Jersey, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and seven federally recognized Indian nations. He currently serves as a professor of political science at Monmouth University.