I woke up today to find that Vera Clemente passed away over the weekend. She had been hospitalized around November 1, and I was hoping she would be all right, but it was not to be. I had just finished reading a lot about Roberto Clemente, who died when I was very little, and I felt compelled to post some kind of memorial to him so other people might be inspired to learn more about him, too. I had already put it together and was going to do that around New Year’s Eve, the day in 1972 when he died in an attempt to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, but now I think it’s better to memorialize Roberto and Vera Clemente together. I am sure Roberto would like it much better that way. As I did with Roberto, I’ll let other people who knew Vera do the talking.
Vera Cristina Zabala de Clemente (1941 — 2019)
“Doña Vera is in heaven, reunited with Roberto. Vera and Roberto dedicated their lives to helping others, now we must do as they taught us. Encircle their family with love, prayers, support and guidance. God blessed us with Roberto & Vera, we will follow their lead & bless others.”
— Manny Sanguillén, teammate and close friend of Roberto Clemente
“It couldn’t have been easy for her, losing her husband and raising three young boys by herself. I never sensed any bitterness, though, on her part. She never wanted anyone to feel sorry for her. She went on to raise three great sons and doing so much good with her charity work with the Roberto Clemente Foundation, both in Puerto Rico and Pittsburgh.”
— Steve Blass, another teammate and close friend of Roberto Clemente
“Vera. The world has lost a force for compassion, grace & charity. Pittsburgh has lost an Ambassador of kindness. I’ve been blessed to know Doña Vera Zabala Clemente since childhood. Sending love to Roberto, Luis & Enrique. Thanks for sharing your mom with all of us.”
— Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto
”She was an extraordinary woman. She helped him a lot (in community work). Roberto was very confident in her judgment. She was intelligent and capable, more objective than him. Roberto was soft-hearted, and she was in charge of alerting him to people who wanted to take advantage of him. He had unquestioning faith in her.“
— Osvaldo Gil, longtime family friend
“Other women don’t interest me. The one that I love is here.”
— Roberto Clemente, when asked by Vera’s father why a rich, famous ballplayer chased by so many women would ask a humble couple for the hand of their daughter
Roberto Clemente Walker (1934 — 1972)
Who am I?
I am a small point in the eye of the full moon.
I only need one ray of the sun to warm my face.
I only need one breeze from the Alisios to refresh my soul.
What else can I ask if I know that my sons really love me?
— a poem written by Roberto Clemente one Father’s Day
“No Puerto Ricans will use the number because of Roberto Clemente. The way I see it: Roberto Clemente is a figure for Latinos just like Jackie Robinson was for African-Americans. Clemente didn’t just break barriers but inspired other Latinos to get into baseball.”
— Carlos Correa, Puerto Rican superstar shortstop, who wears No. 1 for the Houston Astros and who devotes much of his time to helping children, like his idol
"As far as retiring the number [league-wide], I know what he means to [Puerto Rico]; I know what he means to the Latino players; I hope it happens. It'd mean a lot to that community."
— Alex Cora, first Puerto Rican manager to win the World Series, with the Boston Red Sox in 2018, speaking of the rising #Retire21 movement
“At the conclusion of the [1971 World] Series, he asked to say something in Spanish to his parents and children in Puerto Rico. With this act, asking for his parents’ blessings in Spanish on live global broadcast, he galvanized the hearts of all Hispanics across the nation. Today, we are proud that our Dad's legacy is stronger than ever with numerous namesakes like baseball leagues, parks, schools, awards, and statues around the world celebrating everything he represented and stood for, including standing up against injustice and the importance of humanitarianism. Our Dad was an incredible athlete, but more importantly, he continuously used his platform to better humanity.”
— Roberto Clemente Jr. and Luis Clemente, on the occasion of their father being honored with a Google Doodle
“Now, we were in Florida, not too far from Puerto Rico, and usually the white players would go to a restaurant and say, ‘Fellas, do you want anything to eat?’ Now, we’re sitting [...] inside the bus, and I remember, I saw a fellow, I saw one of the players and I said, ‘Look, if you will accept anything from anybody in that restaurant, you and me, we’re going at it. We’re going to have a fight, because I think it’s unfair.”
“I was in New York one time buying some furniture, and [...] these people met us at the door, and they said, ‘What do you want?’, and we said, ‘We would like to see the showroom, and see some furniture,’ and they said, ‘Well, let’s wait for a little bit, and we’re going to send somebody to the last floor to see what we have,’ so they said that they had ONE floor of furniture, so they took us to a place where the furniture in the showroom wasn’t the furniture that they were showing us, upstairs. And I said, ‘We would like to see the furniture downstairs that was in the showroom.’ And they said, ‘Well, you don’t have enough money to buy that.’ And I said, ‘How do you know that I don’t have enough money?’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s very expensive.’ And I said, ‘I would like to see it, because I have the right to see it as a human being, as the public that buys from you.’ So, finally they showed it to us, and I remember, we were going to Europe, and I had some money in my wallet, I had $5,000 in my wallet, which I took the whole amount of money out and I said, ‘Do you think this one can buy it?’ So they wanted to know who I was, and all this stuff, and when they found out who I was, then they said, ‘We have SEVEN floors full of furniture, and we're going to show it to you, and don’t worry about it. You know, we thought you were, like, another Puerto Rican.’ And right away, I just got mad, and I said, ‘Look, your business is to sell to anybody. I don’t care if I’m Puerto Rican, or I’m Jewish, or I’m whatever you want to call me, but, you see, this is what really gets me mad. Because I’m Puerto Rican, you treat me differently from the other people. I have the same American money that you are asking for, but I have a different treatment. Right now, you’re giving my wife a different treatment, and myself and my friend, and they’re Puerto Rican, so I don’t want to do anything about that. I don’t want to buy your furniture.’ So I walked out.”
— Roberto Clemente, in his last interview, with Sam Nover
“So there he stood at second.
What shakes me deeply, and makes me emotional about this photo is that we the viewers know what those in Pittsburgh had no way of knowing on September 30, 1972.
That hit number 3,000 would be his last.
And yet I love this photo for all it captures about Clemente.
I love how the photographer captures this precise moment of Clemente standing proud and resolute.
The look on his face draws me in closer. He is not quite smiling but one can still sense a level of contentment on his face.
The eyes are intense, focused. He seems to be looking directly at someone — perhaps making eye contact with family members in the stands. He is not here for the camera, he is here for the fans and his family.
This image is seared into the hearts and minds of so many. The Great One lifting his cap and acknowledging the crowd.”
— Adrian Burgos (“El Profe”) for La Vida Baseball
"He did not just lend his name to the fund-raising activities the way some famous personalities do. He took over the entire thing, arranging for collection points, publicity and the transportation to Nicaragua."
— Luis Vigoraux, a television producer involved in the Nicaragua earthquake relief effort
“He would say, ‘How can the rich have so much and there are people starving?’ This was his mindset, his spirituality.”
— Al Oliver, teammate and friend of Roberto Clemente
"It was an old plane, and it was loaded by inexpert people. They just kept putting down boxes wherever there was a place and didn't even try to balance the load. Everybody pleaded with Roberto not to make the trip. We said that he knew everything about baseball but nothing about airplanes. He insisted that the people in charge wouldn't let the plane take off if it couldn't make it to Nicaragua. And then he said that if you are supposed to die, you are going to die.”
— José Pagán, teammate and close friend of Roberto Clemente
“He put in reportedly 20 hours a day during the five days of the collection drive, sacrificing his Christmas. And then, on New Year's Eve, he gave up his life when the overloaded DC-7 plunged into the ocean minutes into the flight. It's not easy to put into words the feeling of deep sorrow, the sense of disbelief and the tears that were shed. I was just one, in an island of 3 million, sunk in collective mourning. It wasn't supposed to end that way.”
— Carlos Cabán, chief editor of ESPNdeportes.com
“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, 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.”
— Juan Gonzales, writer
“My mother gave me the only explanation that made sense. ‘If he had died as a player, only the sports fans would have remembered him. But by dying while helping others, he would be remembered as a humanitarian.’ And she was right.”
— Osvaldo Gil, Clemente family friend
"My wife was looking at me and we almost started crying. Everything started from there."
— Carlos Carrasco, 2019 Roberto Clemente Award winner, whose daughter, after joining him on one hospital visit, cut off some of her hair and told him, "just give it to the kids."
“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don’t do that, you are wasting your time on this Earth.”
— Roberto Clemente