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Hi, I'm Ariel Demos and I'm hosting a new podcast called Feistiest Reports.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of NPR Radio's HowStuffWorks. Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Brian over there and Jerry to kind of mentioned Jerry and this is stuff you should know.

I'm surprised you picked this topic. Why I don't recognize you as a baseball guy.

Oh, man.

Probably the the first thing I was ever truly into was baseball cards, like getting the newest edition of, like, the Becket's price guide was like one of my like the highlights of my month. Whenever really? Yeah. For a few years I was super into baseball cards, was funny, is like I would still I'd watch baseball here, there. But it was baseball cards in particular I really cared about. But yeah.

So I didn't really watch baseball. No, not really interesting, but I really loved baseball cards like I was in like I hate baseball but I love baseball cards. It wasn't like complicated and complex like that. It was just I didn't watch. I liked baseball cards more than I liked baseball itself. That's all I got for you.

Roberto Clemente fan. Well, I mean, he was he was playing his final years when I was being born, so I was not a fan, but I I grew up, obviously Braves fan. But the in the mid 1970s, when I first started being a baseball fan, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a couple of really good teams. And he was he was not long gone before those years or so is or was still sort of ever present when I first started watching baseball in The Pirates, when they had those great, awful stovetop flat caps.

Oh, I love those things. But yeah, on their own, just as an article of fashion, they're horrid, but they were so unique and different to, you know. Yeah, I mean, they were they they rank among the worst uniforms, but, all right, they're just very 70s.

So yeah, they are super 70s I think is why I like I love them adverts.

I mean, I think they're a throwback to the old old days. So that was the original. It was their version. But yeah, I don't think they like invented those caps. I think like some of the early baseball caps might have been flat like that. I might be wrong.

I did not know that.

I think the Astros had the best 70s uniform of all, though they rank as one of the worst to Oh, you're crazy. You have terrible taste.

I'm just talking about if you look up articles like worst baseball uniforms ever, those are the ones that are listed. OK, well then you're not crazy, but whoever is writing those articles is crazy.

But I assume you're talking about the orange shooting stars and Stripes.

Yeah, with like red and blue. It's very pretty. OK, OK, so anyway, we're not talking about fashion or uniforms or anything like that, although this is not at all surprising that we even started on this, we're talking about one particular player who wore that funny looking pirates hat, Roberto Clemente, who was actually never wear that hat.

So. Well, then what are we even doing? It came along that came along after him.

What's the point of even doing this episode then, if he never had?

I'm just I'm just trying to get the Pittsburgh people from e-mailing us. And I appreciate that, Chuck. I appreciate it. So we are talking about a Pittsburgh pirate, Roberto Clemente. And I knew like I knew of him. I was aware of him. I know that he's one of the all time greats. I hadn't seen many plays of his. But, like, you can't you can't be into baseball and not know about Roberto Clemente. But I definitely didn't know nearly as much about him as I do now, thanks to this help from Roos, who apparently was raised, the Pittsburgh Pirates fan.

So he had plenty of good things to say about Roberto Clemente. Yeah, I think maybe we should tick off a few of these career stats just to give you an idea of who we're talking about here. Lifetime batting average of 317, which if you if you don't know anything about baseball and you think a success rate of 30 percent is terrible. It is. And almost everything else in life. But in baseball, that means you're a hall of Famer.

That's how hard it is to hit a baseball.

Right. I was going to say it really goes to show how difficult hitting baseballs in the major leagues are, you know?

Yeah, you hit three out of 10 and you're great. I think you've said that before on the show. But he got 12 gold gloves and the right field led the league in batting the National League. That is four different times, two World Series Championships MVP, 1966 MVP, the World Series and 71 revetted for which is just crazy good, I think. Six time all star, just really just an amazing career and obviously Instant Hall of Fame career.

Yeah.

And he was really well known for his arm. Like he would throw people out at home from right field, from the outfield. He could throw without a bounce. He could throw all the way in and beat a runner to third or to home, which is just amazing and is one of the things that really got people excited about him and watching him play. But like, if you look at just the stats, especially taken individually, like he was a great player and one of the all time greats.

But statistically speaking, it doesn't necessarily show up like there's plenty of people who have better stats. But one of the things that made Roberto Clemente such an amazing baseball player as he was one of the true what are called complete players or a five tool player where he could run, he could throw, he could bat, he could field. And like I keep I keep forgetting what the fifth one is. But he could he could still crackerjacks in the stand like nobody's business as well.

You've got an actual baseball guy on the other end of the call here, you know who, me? Oh, OK. Well, Mr. Baseball Guy, if he's not selling Crackerjacks, what's the fifth tool? Use me at your disposal.

It's a hit for power and hit for average. So there's two headings.

That's the. Oh, well, whoever knows that, nobody knows that. You can't just use the same thing twice and call it five tools.

Well, no, you can because a lot of players can have a big boom stick, but they bat like two 230. But if you can hit for average and hit for power, that's a big, big deal. And if you can make the most exciting play in baseball to me, which is a right field to third base assist, then I mean, there's nothing more thrilling to me. It's really a throw see for sure. It definitely more than even home plate for some reason, probably because it's further.

One of the other things that I think people loved about Roberto Clemente, and I think that made him such a true baseball player in a lot of people's eyes, at least in mine. But he was very well known for going after pitches that other people would have taken as a ball, clear balls well high and outside, high and inside low and whatever. And he would go after them and he would hit them a lot of the time, which is one reason why his batting average was so high, because he would go after those pitches that other people would just let go by.

And then in hitting them, he would send them into places where you wouldn't expect him being a right handed batter to hit so he could get to base pretty, pretty frequently, too. He also was a fast runner, but he ran like he was out of his mind completely.

Yeah, it's pretty fun to see him run. He would hit pitch outs, which if you like I said, if you don't know baseball pitch out is when there's somebody on first base and the catcher signals to the pitcher right before they throw the the and first is going to steal second. So they throw it completely out of the strike so the catcher can stand up and catch it to make the throw to second. And that's called the pitch out. It's not not even a real pitch.

And he would swing and hit pitch outs, which is that's awesome. No one does that. It's unheard of. It's crazy. Yeah, that is crazy. So it's suffice to say that Roberto Clemente is one of the great baseball players of all time because he had it all. But it was also, it turns out, a really great human being in a lot of ways, too. He was an activist for civil rights during the civil rights era, and he was also a humanitarian, as we'll see, like he really cared about other people and especially the plight of people who were less fortunate than him because he came from less fortunate circumstances to begin with.

And he never forgot it, like he was genuinely one of those guys who never let his fame get to his head in the ways that he let his fame get to his head was in, say, animosity toward the sporting press or saying, like, you guys aren't giving me enough credit for being a great player. I am. That was separate. That was different when it came to people outside of baseball, just everyday people. He was he was friends with those people throughout his whole career in life.

Yes.

And that is why Major League Baseball has honored him with the Roberto Clemente Award every year, which is given to the player that they feel best represents the humanitarian and humanitarian and philanthropic side of the game or outside the game, rather. So quite, quite an honor to have an award named after you.

So I think we should take a break and then maybe go back to the beginning where and when he was born right up to this. Hi, I'm Ariel Demos, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Feistiest Reports, with so much going on around the world, so many people telling you they have the definitive take on the news, we bring you to the news so you can hear it for yourself from the NEWSROOM that has earned more Emmy nominations than any other news team.

This podcast goes where the story is from conflict zones to the labyrinth of digital life. You've never traveled quite like this yet. The Vice News Reports podcast on the Inkheart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kuhnen is a conspiracy theory so complex that formed a cult like following. Many of its followers think Q is associated with Donald Trump and that he's cryptically communicating with them via obscure image boards online. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world believing this and as a result, KUIN, on his torn families apart, led people to violence and is even infiltrating the highest levels of government with disinformation. Now, in 2020, more than 70 US congressional candidates have either shed or outright endorsed Kuhnen material.

President Trump has even given a veiled thumbs up to the movement outside of what the conspiracy community thinks. Nobody quite knows the true identity of. Q We aim to change that. I'm Jake Hanrahan. Join me for a Q Clearance, a podcast series that aims to look at who is really behind. Q and on listen to Q clearance on the radio up a podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so Clemente was born in Puerto Rico.

He's born in a little town called Carolina or Carolina, and it was sugarcane territory, sugar cane plantations.

And his dad, he was actually born Roberto Clemente Walker. His mother's maiden name was Walker and his father's name was Clemente. So he used both until he got into baseball. And he was born in the middle of the Great Depression, the youngest of seven kids. Very tough way to be born into life. It was, but I mean, like if you're you know, if you come from a farming family, it makes sense, you know, to have a lot of kids.

Yeah, sure. And plus, you have a lot of people to play with as you're growing up, too.

That is very true. So he his father was actually a foreman on a sugar cane plantation and his mom was a huge influence in his life. I get the impression slightly more of an influence than his father was even. But one of the things that she had hope for her son was that he would become he would study engineering. I'm not sure why, but she wanted to become an engineer. And he said, yep, I really like playing baseball, like to the point where he and his brothers and his friends would make baseballs out of whatever was handy, like they would put, like, stones in a sock.

They would want a paper tape, whatever they could get their hands on and use whatever they could for a bat. And they would play baseball. And then as they got a little older and started to start playing in school, they had actual equipment to play with and they would just play constantly. I've read he had 10 home runs once in a game that started at 11 a.m. and ended after six because they just kept playing and playing and playing like that's all he wanted to do was play baseball.

And one of the reasons why is because he was really, really good at it from a very young age.

Yeah, I think the. I have a theory about Caribbean players that they develop so well because so many of them don't have the right gear growing up and especially back then, because if you're out there with a broomstick and a bottle cap, imagine what that does for your hand eye coordination to when you have like a real barrel of a baseball bat and a baseball like, it's no wonder that he could hit anything if you're growing up hitting bottle caps. And this wasn't just him.

So many Dominican and Puerto Rican and Cuban. And now just all over the place in the Caribbean, players are coming up and they I think they make do with less as children. Yeah. And that really, really hones their skills in ways that, you know, there's a baseball problem in America, period like that. Far, far fewer kids are growing up playing baseball now, and there's far fewer American baseball players now as a result.

So one other reason Chucky is super into baseball was because the whole island of Puerto Rico is into baseball at a time like it had been exported a couple of decades before he was born from Cuba to Puerto Rico. And then also, by the time he was playing, the Puerto Rican baseball leagues had really developed into something substantial and they played their season in the winter. So if you were an American ballplayer, you could play in your off season down in the Caribbean, specifically in Puerto Rico, among other places.

But Puerto Rico is a really attractive place to play because they were so into it. There were so many teams and so many good players already down there. But one of the still is. Yeah, but one of the ways that it developed was from especially Negro League players making their way down there in the off season to play. I believe Roberto Clemente actually played a season with Willie Mays himself and Willie Mays had just led the the New York Giants to the to win the World Series.

And a couple of months later, he was down in Puerto Rico playing during the winter, the winter leagues, because that's just what you did when you really wanted to play baseball. You go down to the Caribbean in the wintertime.

Yeah, it's something that still happens. And it's mainly what you see now is players, younger players play winter ball in Puerto Rico to just hone their skills and to get better. It's not something you see a lot of veterans doing. That's why it's pretty remarkable and I think shows the love of his country in the game. Yeah, that Clemente played winter ball like every year through his career. Yeah.

One of the reasons I saw that he did that was because he knew that most of the people who lived in Puerto Rico wouldn't be able to afford to go up to the states to watch him play. And he wanted to for them to be able to see him play. So he played every year. Another thing, it was like you were saying, some of those younger players hone their skills down there. He kept his skills honed by playing winter ball like he kept his swing loose.

And he he he didn't fall out of shape ever because he played baseball basically year round for 18, 20 years. Yeah.

So by the time he hits 14, he's recruited to play softball, which is a little weird, but it was a competitive softball team and then eventually an amateur baseball team and was making, I think, like 40 bucks a week at 17 playing amateur baseball in Puerto Rico.

And this was, you know, this was a time where you didn't have baseball scouts combing the Caribbean for the next new young talent. It was it was it was very new idea to go to the Caribbean to find players and not a lot of teams. I mean, most teams were doing it a little bit, but they didn't have the robust scouting programs down there like they do now. Right. And they said the Dodgers, the Brooklyn Dodgers, who very famously broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson in 47 per cent scout name out companies who went down to Puerto Rico saw 19 year old Roberto Clemente in 1954 and said, this guy is a five tool dynamo and we need we need to get him up here as fast as we can.

And it wasn't I mean, that was actually kind of insightful of him because it wasn't readily obvious, especially very early in his career when he was playing with the where they called the Kengor Harris, the crabbers, that he was just going to be one of the all time greats because he swung at lots of pitches that other people wouldn't have swung at. He ran like he was crazy. He was still finding his his skills. But to to be able to see how great he was going to be at that young stage.

I mean, that's that's a credit to that to what's his name, Campanis eye for talent.

Yeah. Yeah. And he went on to be a lifelong baseball executive, I think retired and shame for something like racial statements he made, but long time based. Our guy, but the Dodgers got Clemente and there was a thing there was a rule back then from 1947 to 1965 that they got rid of in 65 for very good reason.

There was a little bit weird if you're a baseball fan today, because it's so different now.

But the rule was that if you were a player that was signed for more than four thousand dollars as a signing bonus, then you had to be on a Major League Baseball roster for two full seasons. And if you weren't, then you would become part of the rookie draft and Clemente was signed for, I think, ten thousand dollars and I'm not sure why they signed him for that much, maybe he wouldn't have gone for less, but it was not a great move because this meant that the Dodgers.

Had to either take him to the major leagues for two full seasons, which was not a good call because most players in baseball start out in the minor leagues. In fact, although no one makes that jump straight to the major leagues, even if it's just like a cursory half season or so, but that's even really rare. But they they kept him in the minor leagues and their plan was to hide him and literally he would go like two months between starts because they didn't want they wanted to get those two seasons out of the way, because after those two years, you could send someone to the minor leagues.

But it didn't work. People saw him play. And even though he didn't get to play much in, the Pittsburgh Pirates really homed in on him right away.

So, yeah, the Pittsburgh Pirates were led. I think their GM was Branch Rickey, who was the guy who had scouted Jackie Robinson and got him onto the Dodgers. Now he worked for the pirates, so he ended up getting his hands on Roberto Clemente and brought him to the pirates. And so apparently when they found out or when Clemente found out that he had been drafted by the pirates, he was done in Puerto Rico. And he said later on that he had he didn't really know where Pittsburgh was.

He had been excited to play for New York because there's a big Puerto Rican community in New York and all of a sudden he sent off to Pittsburgh, doesn't know where it is and doesn't really know anybody. So this is kind of his his entree into America. But it actually was even rougher than that because first he started out, I guess, on Pittsburgh's minor league team or and that's what it was. It was in spring training down in Fort Myers Beach, Florida.

And he came face to face with the stark reality of basically Jim Crow south in the 50s. First thing when he got to America. And he he was one of the reasons I said earlier he was a civil rights activist because he did not take very kindly to that and bristled and railed against it from the outset.

Yeah, he didn't he didn't have any.

He didn't have any frame of reference for this, like he came from Puerto Rico where this wasn't a thing, he was of African descent. So to Americans, he was a black man. To him, he was Puerto Rican. He was caught between two worlds and didn't understand why he had to stay in a different hotel or eat in a different restaurant than his white teammates. And so this really upset him. And what upset him even as much was how his other black teammates on the team understood it and just basically had to take it because they were afraid if they caused a ruckus that they would be sent back down to the minors.

And he was just like, you shouldn't be deferential, like what is going on in this country.

And he he would speak to the sporting press about this stuff in the sporting press. Either would just ignore his comments about that or actually, yes, they would ignore his comments about that and they would just talk about whatever he said about the game. But then to kind of keep the sense that he was an outsider and an outsider there wasn't respected because he was looked down upon because of his race and his origin. They would quote him phonetically in the press.

So when he said, you know, he said there was a headline that famously said, like, I get a hit, I feel good. But they spelled it out like I get heat. Heat is how they spell hit. I feel good. That was a headline in the Pittsburgh newspapers after a really big game. And he found that extremely demeaning. And it actually really kind of framed the way that he felt about America. Yeah, he framed how he felt about America.

And don't forget, like Puerto Rico was, you know, by this time it was an American territory have been for quite a while. So people in Puerto Rico had long considered themselves American people in America didn't consider Puerto Ricans. They considered them ethnic. And they Roberto Clemente was treated just like any other person from Puerto Rico, which was not very well back then.

Yeah.

So his reputation started to develop as a loner. That's very moody player. The pirates were a really bad team.

I don't think we mentioned that at the time. Just terrible. Like one of the worst teams in baseball. He didn't catch on in his first few years there either. I think in his first five seasons he only hit over 300 one time. And a lot of this was due to injury. He had a car accident that hurt his back. So his back was all jacked up for a while. He had other injuries along the way. And he would he wasn't shy about talking about it.

He would complain to the manager. He complained to the press about his injuries. And this baseball still kind of this way or most sports are actually is you kind of don't take that stuff public. You don't want to be seen as someone who either fakes injury because I don't want to play or who just who complains about it too much. Right. So he didn't have the best reputation early on because a lot of this stuff.

Yeah, I know he was thought to be a complainer, a hypochondriac, moody, abrasive, egotistical. And that was something that like that's indisputable is the egotistical part, because he was he knew that he was playing better than he was getting credit for it. And it ticked him off because he knew the reason he wasn't getting credit for it was because he didn't act the way that the white sporting press expected him to act. And they they didn't like him for it.

So they didn't really give him any any credit. They actually withheld credit. That was definitely do him for the way he was playing. But like you said, I mean, it took a few years for him to start to catch on. But even after he did, which first began in the 1960 World Series, when the pirates went from I don't know if they went from worst to first, but it was pretty close to something like that. He was he was passed over as the World Series MVP.

I think, like a lefty relief pitcher got more votes than he did despite him being one of the clear heroes of that series. And he really was not happy about that. And it really kind of created this this lifelong animosity with the sporting press that had already been brewing. But that one to him showed that they were basically working against him at that point.

Yeah. And I think 1960 was a pretty bittersweet year because it was his breakout year, if this status. Right. Dave says his average never dropped below three hundred. Yeah. Then that means he that means he was hitting 300 in game one, which is pretty remarkable. Yeah. To start out that hard and to maintain it over the course of a year. Right.

But if you're playing winter ball in the Caribbean just a couple of weeks before that, it would make sense, you know. Yeah.

And he you know, they won the World Series, which is a big, big deal in. Pittsburgh, but he didn't feel like he was getting his due, like you said, so he didn't go off and celebrate with his fans. He kind of went off to himself. He was happy, but it said the quote was, I'm happy, but not but unconcerned with all the fanfare is what a reporter said.

And he just wanted to get back home to Puerto Rico so he could use his World Series bonus money to buy a house for his mother. Yeah, and he was loved there. So, you know, he wanted to get back to where he was cherished. And and he did. When he went back to Puerto Rico, he was a national hero. And the press followed him everywhere he went. And the kids loved him and he bought a big Cadillac and mentored all the kids.

So it's not like he went back like like Elvis and just sort of lived high on the hog, like he did go back a hero. But he really, really got involved with the community right away.

Yeah, he kept playing. He would mentor little kids who were learning to play sports. And that actually became one of his dreams as he wanted to make enough money and get big enough to build the sports complex. A sports city or Ciudad Deportes. Not bad if I can pat myself on the back for that one where kids could learn to play. But also, you know, like you didn't have much of a role model kind of place. You could find a role model, too, and not just play baseball, but also play maybe basketball or whatever sports you wanted to play.

And that I think that that was at the very least on his mind back then, if not like one of his stated goals in his life. By the time 1960 rolled around, he went back home. Yeah, absolutely. He got married in 64 to Vera Zabala and she was from his hometown there in Puerto Rico, they had three kids and he was very insistent that all his kids be born in Puerto Rico, which they were.

And I think one of his sons, I think Junior, even played baseball and ended up being an announcer.

I don't think I mean, obviously, he was he never achieved what his father did. But it's pretty immagine tough to grow up. The child of Roberto Clemente, it's going to be in Michael Jordan, son, or whatever, you know.

Yeah, his his so he had Roberto Jr. There's also Luis Roberto and Roberto Enrique. Those are his three sons names, only George Foreman.

So so by the time so 1960s, like you said, that was his breakout year. He got married in 1964. And when he was down there in Puerto Rico went one thing I wouldn't say that I saw a lot of people kind of overlook is he played winter ball almost every year. But there was one year, I believe, in 1958, where he he didn't play winter ball and instead he enlisted in the U.S. Marines Reserves.

And that's how he spent the winter. And he ended up spending the next six years as a Marine reserve, which is something that very frequently gets overlooked, especially from Americans who really don't think of Puerto Rico as a territory or fifty first state, like he became a U.S. Marine while he was in upper income and baseball star. And then even after he was a baseball star, he remained a Marine until apparently one time the I think the 1964 World Series coincided with a training exercise.

And the Marines were like, you're you're dishonorably discharged. Go play the World Series. Yeah, but he's in the Marine Sport's Hall of Fame, which I didn't even know was a thing. Oh, no, I didn't either, but it makes sense.

I think he's the only player in there right now. That's not true. Surely there's all but the rock was in there.

Should we take a break? Probably all right, we'll take a break and talk a little bit more about the game of Roberto Clemente right after this.

Ever wondered why there are two ways to spell doughnut's or why some people think you can find water underground just by wandering around with a stick? Believe it or not, this is stuff you should know. You know the podcast with over a billion listeners. It's now for your eyes so you can read it. Stuff you should know. An incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things covers everything from the origin of the Murphy bed to why people get lost preorder at stuff you should know dotcom or wherever books are sold when Law and Order is the headline.

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Listen to hold in court with Eboni K. Williams on the I Heart radio app, on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. OK, Chuck, so we haven't already said that he was a five tool player, a complete player, and I mean, you you, I think, have an understanding of what made his place so amazing. So what made his place so amazing? I'm laying on my baseball resource.

Well, I mean, he was he was built for the game. He was he never, never lifted weights in his life. But he was sort of a perfectly chiseled specimen of a baseball player, very, very handsome, which has nothing to do with being a good baseball player but doesn't hurt a lot. I thought I'd throw that in. It moves those Cracker Jacks. It sure does. So he was just very fluid. And aside from his base running, like you mentioned earlier, it was kind of crazy.

I think one sports reporter said it looked more like he was fleeing than running because you'd have to see him run. He just all of his limbs were kind of just swinging. And it wasn't the most graceful run, which is weird because he was a very fluid and graceful player. Yeah. And those five tools, you know, he had he was known most for his outfield arm. And I think he led the league in outfield assists five or six years in a row or maybe not in a row, but five or six seasons.

And he was fearless. He would. He would he was sort of like Willie Mays and he would go after these outfield hits with reckless abandon, like just run right into the wall to try and get a home run ball yelling over or like I said, throwing out those players from right field to third base, which is just a very, very tough thing to do.

And this was like before padded walls or at the very least they didn't have them in a lot of the places he played because he would get like stitches or, you know, really mess up his shoulder or something like that. And don't forget, he's also playing through a spinal injury from that that car wreck. And yet this guy is throwing like people out at third base from right field or running for infield grand slam. I mean, just doing crazy stuff despite these these chronic injuries that he's been accumulating.

And I've read somewhere that he credits his mother with his arm. He threw he was a really. Yeah. He was a javelin thrower in high school. And that really kind of helps you develop all of the same muscles that you need to throw something like a baseball from right field, the third base or home. But he still said, yeah, I threw the javelin. That definitely surely helped. But I got my arm from my mom. She can throw from second base to home plate with something on it still when it gets there.

So he said he got his arm from his mom, which I thought was pretty sweet. Nice. I love it.

And, you know, off the field is why he got the award named after him. He would mentor, you know, because he was one of the first Latin American stars. He would mentor anybody that came through, especially through the Pirates organization, but he would reach out to players on other teams that were from the Caribbean to try and pave their way a little more smoothly. When he would go to different cities, he would go to visit kids in the hospital, basically every city they visited.

He would mentor these players. He would this great, great story about the friendship he developed. This is a good find by Dave about Carol Borisovich, Urrbrae Civic. I'm not sure how you pronounce it, but she was a Phillies fan and a teenager and was hanging out after a game looking for autographs and saw a little crowd around Clemente but didn't really know who he was because he was playing for the pirates and she was taking Spanish in high school.

So after she got her signature, she kind of let out a very shy mooches gracious. And he just lit up and started talking to her in Spanish. And she was she's like, oh, I don't understand. So he switched to English and they ended up talking and talking and talking in the parking lot such that he and his fellow teammate that were there missed the the bus back to the airport. And so her dad had to drive them. And he was a big time Phillies fan.

And if you know anything about Phillies fans, he was probably not happy about this. But he had to drive to Pittsburgh Pirates, to the airport, and he and his daughter struck up a real, genuine, lifelong friendship.

Right. And like like like she was a little sister figure to him. So was her mom as well. He kind of adopted them both as sisters because he had had a sister. He had one sister out of his siblings and she had died in an accident when he was young. And so this girl just kind of struck him in just the right way and her mom as well. And so he adopted basically her whole family. He had them out to, I think, the next away game in New York that they played.

He invited the whole family out, put him up in the Pirates Hotel, took him out to dinner afterward. And then as their friendship continued, he and his wife had little carrel down for Christmas in Puerto Rico one one year. So, yeah, this is like just this this random girl wasn't even a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. And he became basically lifelong friends with her and her family. Yeah, and I think it's really speaks to the man he was because it was a time in America where just to hear an American girl say muchas gracias.

It seems very throwaway today because so many people have learned Spanish and it's taught in other schools. But back then, it was a big deal that this little girl said two words of Spanish to him, and that was all it took. Right. Just really, really very pure, sweet story. I love it. Yeah.

And the fact that he was, you know, out there signing autographs is apparently pretty standard for him to is known to be like the kind of guy who he stuck around to sign every autograph that was asked of them, of all the kids. So he was a pretty, pretty good guy. And so, like, that's what makes it kind of rewarding then that he finally started to get the recognition that he had long sought, that he felt like he definitely deserved.

And one of the other things, too, is it's easy to point to Roberto Clemente and be like like a testicle. The guy was he knew he was a great player and he wanted respect for it to him. He represented Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people. And he wanted respect not just for himself, but for them as well. Like if he could gain respect, other Puerto Rican people would gain respect by proxy. And so I think that's why that was one of the reasons why it was so important to him, not just because he wanted adulation and and respect.

He wanted it for all Puerto Ricans as well. And he was like a vessel for that kind of thing. So finally, when it when it finally came around in 1966, he he actually started to loosen up. He became known as less moody. He bonded with his players a little more because he played all 18 seasons in the Pirates. He was a pirate through and through. But he he became he was voted as the National League MVP in 1966.

And apparently that was a huge turning point for him and his relationship with America and baseball. Yeah, it was a big deal and, you know, in 1971 is when he went to a second World Series great, great World Series, the year I was born, I remember it well.

He was they were the underdog against the Orioles, who are really, really good team at the time. And it went to a seventh game just like that Yankees game did. And he got one. He hit an all seven game six safely in all seven games, which is a really huge accomplishment, and hit a fourth inning home run and gave in game seven. That gave them the lead, basically the go ahead home run. And they ended up winning that World Series.

He was named MVP, like I said earlier, after batting for 14 in the series and batting 341 for the season. And this time he was really, really involved in the celebration. And like you said, since 66 had warmed to to baseball, to the writers a little bit more and definitely to his teammates. Right.

So it was like a really great way to end the career. And that wasn't the end of his career. He played another season in the 1972 season and the Pirates got all the way to the NL East Conference. I think they made it past.

They made it I don't remember who they made it past, but they face the Reds and lost to the Reds for the NL title to move on to the World Series. But they got pretty far is pretty respectable season. And in that season, he got his last hit. He had 3000 hits on the nose. He was only the 11th player in baseball history to reach that milestone. And he was the first Latin American player to reach that milestone, which was a huge accomplishment for him as well.

But there's also something really great about just such an even number, 3000 hits. And he got that 3000 hit in the in the regular season. They didn't make it to the World Series that year, but he he went back down to Puerto Rico basically immediately after the season to go play winter ball again. That's right. You know, he had the distinction of managing an all star team down there in the amateur baseball World Series tournament, which was held in Nicaragua that year.

And he really, really fell for the people of Nicaragua. And very tragically, in December of that year, a big earthquake struck, killed seven thousand people and left about a quarter of a million homeless. And he really wanted to get involved. His heart was broken. He had met so many great people in Nicaragua and wanted to get involved and help them out and organized, personally, organized, organized, a relief mission there raising one hundred and fifty thousand dollars by going door to door to purchase food.

Twenty six tons of food and clothing and medicine. And he gets the word that their president there who was corrupt was like so often happens in those situations, commandeering the supplies and they weren't getting to the people. So he said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get a plane and I'm going to fly a shipment of supplies down there myself. And so he boarded a DC seven on December 31st, New Year's Eve, 1972 to do just that, right?

Yeah, he did.

And it turned out, unfortunately, that that highly successful campaign, the drive that he he spearheaded, that produced 26 tons of supplies, well, 26 tons was way too much for the DC seven that he charted and the engines were taxed from the outset. He took off from Puerto Rico and started flying out over the ocean in the engines actually blew up and they tried to turn the plane around while it was on fire and fly back. And they made it, I think, a mile from the coast before the plane broke up and fell into the ocean.

And all five people on board were killed, including Roberto Clemente, who again was overseeing personally humanitarian mission to Nicaragua to help people who were victims of an earthquake. And that's how he lost his life at age thirty eight. Yeah, just brutal, brutal end to a story. People search for his body, you know, people on the beach held daily vigils hoping that he would somehow be found alive and rescued. But, you know, obviously nobody survived that crash.

His body was never even recovered. And a few months after the crash, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, one of only two times it's happened. The other was Lou Gehrig, where you don't have to wait that mandatory five year period after the end of your career. And in fact, I think has set the precedent now that if you had been deceased for six months, you were eligible for a Hall of Fame induction and he was just the second one.

Then they created that award in his honor. Yeah.

Clemente Award, which is for humanitarian baseball players. So that's a huge honor in and of itself. I think you said that he got like 12 Golden Glove or Gold Glove Awards for fielding his last or maybe his 13th. His wife accepted on his behalf the following April after he died. And Veera dedicated herself to seeing through his dreams and actually organized and got that sports city in Puerto Rico built. And it's still there today as a matter.

She's amazing. Yes. I mean, she she really continued his work. And, you know, I hate that phrase. Behind every great man is a great woman because it's really beside every great man is a great woman. And that was definitely the case with Vera. And she was a lifetime humanitarian and philanthropist as well, which is amazing.

Yeah, one of the great things about Roberto Clemente is he's the kind of guy you can name a school after and feel pretty good about it. And as a result, there's in the round the world, there's 40 public schools, two hospitals and more than 200 parks and ball fields named after him. And I think now there's at least forty one public schools, because this past September in Orange County, Florida, Stonewall Jackson Middle School was renamed Roberto Clemente Middle School.

Yeah, well, that's about appropriate for our times. Yeah, it's pretty great.

So now there's 41 schools named after Roberto Clemente. So if you have a school and you're like, who can we name this after class, you could do a lot worse than Roberto Clemente. And people still probably complained about that. Who cares, who cares eventually, Chuck. You just have to say, I don't care that you're complaining. Yeah, because you're in the wrong. That's right. So you got anything else about Roberto Clemente?

Nothing else to watch YouTube videos of him. It's amazing. Yeah, there's. Yeah, just just say just type in like Roberto Clemente. Throw from right field or home run. He's had some amazing home runs. Yeah. It's just fun to watch. Plus, you're right, he, he was he was pretty easy on the eyes, especially as far as baseball players go. You know, a lot of them are horribly ugly. It's right by VaVoom since I said that.

It's time for listener mail, don't you think? I think so. This is called Eddie Van Halen. And, you know, we lost Eddie Van Halen recently and it was very tough for me. But we got an email here from Australia says I jinxed it. Hey, guys, I'm writing in because I was just listening to the political polling episode and Chuck mentioned he was having a break from Internet news and he was only looking at something that brings me joy, like old Led Zeppelin and Van Halen YouTube videos cut to a couple of weeks later.

And the tragic news of Eddie Van Halen passing like in some weird, twisted way, the universe saying, oh, you found something that brings you joy in 2020.

I'll fix that. I don't believe in that stuff. But it was fairly ironic. But truth be told, I can usually be found watching old Van Halen video. So, uh, I know I'm making light of the death of someone. Oh, I don't think you really are, Matt. That would have been a massive influences in a lot of lives. But in these times, we need to find a laugh wherever we can. Anyway, I love the podcast.

Can't wait for you to touch on some Australian topics.

Hint, hint, all the best. And that is Matt from Melbourne. Oh, and you even said it right, Chuck? Thank God I tried to. Matt Yeah, I'm sure Jimmy Page is like, Chuck, stop watching videos of me.

OK, well, if you want to be like Matt from Melbourne, who is awesome just for being from Melbourne, because we've been to Melbourne and Melbourne is a pretty great place. Wonderful. You can send us an email, send it off to Stuff podcast that I heart. Radio Dotcom.

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