Boricua Lounge

The first Puerto Rican member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Roberto Clemente broke down many of the barriers against Latinos in baseball. Puerto Rican broadcaster and journalist Luis Mayoral was quoted in Sports Illustrated as saying, "Clemente was our Jackie Robinson.

He was on a crusade to show the American public what a Hispanic man, a black Hispanic man, was capable of." Clemente was a right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates for 18 years, and had a lifetime batting average of .317, hitting 240 home runs.

Clemente was born in 1934, the youngest of Melchor, a sugarcane worker, and Luisa Clemente's seven children. He grew up in Carolina, Puerto Rico, near the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan. As a boy he played softball in neighborhood lots, and also participated in other sports.

He won medals for the javelin throw and short distance races, and was was so skilled at javelin throwing that some observers felt he might make the 1952 Puerto Rican Olympic team. However, baseball was his real focus. He played with the amateur Juncos Double A Club and then played in the Puerto Rican Winter League with the Santurce Crabbers.

His talent was soon noticed. Brooklyn Dodger scout Alex Campanis first saw Clemente at a try-out. "He was the greatest natural athlete I'd ever seen," Campanis once said, according to Sports Illustrated.
Just after graduating from high school in 1954, Clemente was signed with the Dodgers' and sent to play with the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' minor-league affiliate in Montreal, Canada.

He received a $5,000 salary and a $10,000 bonus. In the following year, however, a loophole in baseball signing rules allowed the Pittsburgh Pirates to draft him for $4,000. Clemente chose the number 21, the number of letters in his full name, for his jersey.

When he made his major league debut on April 17, 1955, he was called "Bob Clemente" because management felt that "Roberto" was too foreign a name to appeal to American fans. That first season he batted .255, hitting five home runs and 47 RBIs. For his second season, Clemente batted .311.

According to the Latino Sports Legends website, "In the 1960s no other player dominated the entire decade like Roberto Clemente." There were four years—1961, 1964, 1966, and 1967—in which had over 200 hits. In 1961 and 1967, he batted over .350. Also during this decade, he was a four-time league leader in batting. It has been said, according to the Latino Sports Legends website, that his play was "something close to the level of absolute perfection."

Awards: Twelve Gold Glove Awards for defensive ability,1961-72; four Silver Bats for four National League batting titles; two World Series Championships, 1960, 1971; Most Valuable Player Award, World Series, 1971.