Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
by David Maraniss
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Book Summary Information
Author: David MaranissEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04-03
ISBN: 074329999X
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780743299992
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
Book Review: Hometown Son Makes Good, Very Good
Summary: 5 Stars
There is source material in this work for three separate books, actually: the first would be the story of Caribbean baseball and its grand entrance into the United States Major Leagues, as personified by Roberto Clemente, Vic Power, and others. The second volume would detail Clemente's extraordinary and unusual career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, including an impressive array of hitting and fielding records, two remarkable World Series, and the mixed reaction of Pirate Nation to his outspoken ways. The third part would be the dramatic and perhaps criminal tale of events leading to Clemente's untimely death in the midst of earthquake relief operations for stricken Nicaragua.
For better or worse, we have all of these stories in one volume which results in a powerful but dizzy tale that struggles to give all of these aspects of Clemente's life their due. And if there is a common thread that holds the work together, it is the Clemente drive to make his statement, whether it be in the face of prejudice and/or bureaucracy in the Brooklyn Dodger organization, the popular conception in Pittsburgh that he was a hypochondriac whiner, or his own perception of being slighted in the MVP voting in 1960.
Roberto Clemente was born on August 18, 1934, in what is today the San Juan suburb of Carolina. In the 1930's Carolina was hardscrabble living, a town whose passions fortunately included baseball. Maraniss provides a fine overview of organized baseball in the Caribbean. Its professional leagues, certainly those in Puerto Rico, were as hotly contested as Yankee Pinstripes and Red Sox Nation. By 18 Clemente was playing the outfield for the Santurce Cangrejeros. It was five years since Jackie Robinson broke the US color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the same Brooklyn Dodgers actively scouted the young Clemente. Despite the quality and intensity of Puerto Rican baseball at that time, there was also a sense on the island that native sons who excelled in US Major League Baseball would bring prestige to the Commonwealth.
Thus, Clemente incurred no family wrath when he signed with Brooklyn in 1954. Although Puerto Rican by birth, his dark skin presented as Negro, and he discovered the hard reality of North American racial bias. Assigned to Montreal of the International League, he was miserable and hidden on the Royals' bench by Dodger management until wily scouts of the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates plucked him away. The new Pirate Clemente was regarded as something of a loose cannon. There was truth in this assessment: the right fielder was entirely unorthodox in every aspect of his game--fielding, batting, running.
Clemente's early years in Pittsburgh were awkward, and his relations with the local press were marked by mutual cultural misunderstandings, but he became a favorite of the fans, including influential announcer Bob "The Gunner" Prince. His hustle and stats began to soothe the concerns of new manager Danny Murtaugh, who was building the famous 1960 squad that overcame the NY Yankees in a long remembered October classic. Clemente had an outstanding season and World Series, but the MVP award of 1960 was voted to Pirate shortstop and teammate Dick Groat. It can be said with some accuracy that Clemente took this setback to his death.
Despite a long and highly successful career with the Pirates, Clemente's personality was perplexing and often misunderstood. Maraniss wrestled mightily with this hard truth. Clemente was personally generous, gracious to fans, devoted to his family and friends. As the Pirates representative, he joined forces with Marvin Miller and the fledgling players union to back Curt Flood's groundbreaking challenge to the reserve clause. His marriage to Vera Zabala seems to have been a happy one; Clemente would refer to her as his closest friend and confidante [and certainly an extraordinary listener.]
But, by no stretch of the imagination could Clemente be described as a happy man. A lifelong insomniac, Clemente was impulsive and outspoken. A proud man, he quietly seethed through the 1960's as it became clear he was regarded as at best the third best outfielder in his league, always a step or two behind Mays and Aaron. When he managed his emotions, he was magnificent: the 1971 World Series was his opportunity to make his case for his body of work, and he used that stage magnificently. The following year, however, his anger would cost him dearly.
During the Christmas season of 1972 Nicaragua was devastated by an earthquake. This nation held a special place in Clemente's affections: he had played and managed there, and acquired many friends and mentors there over the years. And, as Maraniss notes many times, Clemente was consistently generous with his time, energy, and money. Many nations came to the aid of the stricken nation, but none more so than the people of Puerto Rico, prompted in no small part by Clemente's televised appeals and organized collections of food, supplies, and money.
As the rescue week wore on, Clemente became incensed that the aid being sent to the Nicaraguan people was being intercepted by the troops of strongman Anastasio Somoza. In retrospect, there were a number of diplomatic ways to address the problem. Clemente opted for a physical showdown at the Managua Airport with the Somoza people. He hastily contracted for another relief plane in which he himself would be a passenger. His homework was poor--the only charter available was an under serviced war horse owned by amateurs who in truth did not know how to fly such a plane, and then loaded it with supplies well above the plane's capacity. One by one, his friends begged off the flight. Nonetheless, Clemente's "blood was up" for his cause. The thought of Clemente facing off with Somoza is tantalizing, but it never happened. The ill advised rescue flight crashed into the sea almost in sight of the San Juan Airport. Clemente the ballplayer was dead; Clemente the icon was canonized.
Summary of Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
On New Year's Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero's death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, a book destined to become a modern classic. Much like his acclaimed biography of Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss uses his narrative sweep and meticulous detail to capture the myth and a real man.Anyone who saw Clemente, as he played with a beautiful fury, will never forget him. He was a work of art in a game too often defined by statistics. During his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he won four batting titles and led his team to championships in 1960 and 1971, getting a hit in all fourteen World Series games in which he played. His career ended with three-thousand hits, the magical three-thousandth coming in his final at-bat, and he and the immortal Lou Gehrig are the only players to have the five-year waiting period waived so they could be enshrined in the Hall of Fame immediately after their deaths.
There is delightful baseball here, including thrilling accounts of the two World Series victories of Clemente's underdog Pittsburgh Pirates, but this is far more than just another baseball book. Roberto Clemente was that rare athlete who rose above sports to become a symbol of larger themes. Born near the canebrakes of rural Carolina, Puerto Rico, on August 18, 1934, at a time when there were no blacks or Puerto Ricans playing organized ball in the United States, Clemente went on to become the greatest Latino player in the major leagues. He was, in a sense, the Jackie Robinson of the Spanish-speaking world, a ballplayer of determination, grace, and dignity who paved the way and set the highest standard for waves of Latino players who followed in later generations and who now dominate the game.
The Clemente that Maraniss evokes was an idiosyncratic character who, unlike so many modern athletes, insisted that his responsibilities extended beyond the playing field. In his final years, his motto was that if you have a chance to help others and fail to do so, you are wasting your time on this earth. Here, in the final chapters, after capturing Clemente's life and times, Maraniss retraces his final days, from the earthquake to the accident, using newly uncovered documents to reveal the corruption and negligence that led the unwitting hero on a mission of mercy toward his untimely death as an uninspected, overloaded plane plunged into the sea.
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