Sports Author Discusses Biography on Latino Baseball Great, Roberto Clemente

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds made baseball history this weekend when he broke Babe Ruth's homerun record. But Bonds still labors under a cloud of controversy over allegations of illegal steroid use.

Not so for another baseball star of another era, Roberto Clemente, the Jackie Robinson of the Spanish-speaking world. Clemente joined the Pittsburgh Pirates as a first-round draft pick in 1954. His 18-year career there included two World Series and four National League batting championships.

Now, David Maraniss, an associate editor at the Washington Post, has written "Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero." Maraniss sat down recently with Ray Suarez at RFK Stadium before a Washington Nationals game.

RAY SUAREZ: David Maraniss, welcome.

DAVID MARANISS, Associate Editor, Washington Post: Thanks, Ray. Great to be at the ballpark with you.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, there are bigger stars from that era, better-known names. What attracted you to Roberto Clemente?

DAVID MARANISS: Two things. You know, I grew up in Wisconsin with the Milwaukee Braves of Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn. But from age 11, Clemente was my guy, my favorite player. I thought he was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

There was some aura about Clemente, the way he looked in his Pirates uniform, the way he looped the ball back to second base after the catch, his incredible arm from deep right field. All of his idiosyncrasies just appealed to me; I loved him.

And that's not enough to write a book about. But when I became an author I realize that Clemente represented so much more. Clemente wasn't the greatest by the numbers, but he was art, not science. And he was the patron saint of Latino ball players, who now comprise 30 percent of baseball.

And he was that rare athlete who was maturing and growing in character as he got older. So many diminish, you know, as their talents do. And Clemente was moving the other direction and died a noble death, so I thought it was a great story.

RAY SUAREZ: Remind people just how that happened?

DAVID MARANISS: Well, it was 1972. He had finished his 18th season in the major leagues, was in Managua, Nicaragua, managing an amateur baseball team, came home back to San Juan after that. An earthquake leveled Managua, 5,000 killed, hundreds of thousands left homeless.

Clemente started organizing aid from San Juan to go back to Nicaragua, heard that the aid was being diverted at the airport by Anastasio Somoza's military, and he said, "If I go, it will get to the people."

And he boarded a plane that never should have been allowed to take off. Of all the research I've done in 30 years as a journalist, getting the internal documents from the FAA of that plane crash, were just devastating.

It was a rickety DC-7, purchased at a part of Miami International Airport they called "Cockroach Corner," not a good sign. The owner didn't know how to fly it. He'd taken it out once and taxied into a ditch.

He got a pilot at the last minute who was about to have his license revoked and hadn't had any sleep. They didn't have a flight engineer. They recruited a mechanic off the ramp to be the flight engineer, and it was overloaded by 5,000 pounds.

And the FAA was supposed to be conducting surveillance on exactly that kind of tramp airline, but it was New Year's Eve; they weren't watching. Clemente was on a death trap trying to help the people of Nicaragua.

RAY SUAREZ: At the time of his death, I think it was widely understood that he died in the cause of something noble and terrific, but maybe people didn't know the man behind that ennobling story. Did you?

DAVID MARANISS: Not entirely, no. I always try to start from scratch when I'm doing a book, in any case; even if I think I know something, I try to start from the beginning.

Clemente was very much misunderstood. He had troubles with sportswriters for much of his career. He had a temper. He was incredibly proud, dignified man who was often quoted in broken English, phonetic spellings in the paper, in his first 10 years of his career. He hated that, so that started the tension with sportswriters.

But, in his final years, he would give a speech saying: If you can help others and fail to do so, you're wasting your time on this Earth. How many actually say something like that? He didn't have a speechwriter, and he lived it. And that's what he was living out when he died.

RAY SUAREZ: Why call him baseball's last hero? Is it because of the current troubles and questions that hang over some of the great stars of the game?

DAVID MARANISS: That might be an undercurrent. And, to be honest, I have some qualms about using the word "hero." I think it's a cliche, and particularly when it applies to sports. You know, you can have an idol or a favorite player, but is that a hero?

But the classic definition of a hero is someone who gives their life in the service of others, and that's exactly what Roberto Clemente did.

RAY SUAREZ: It was interesting to read of the deep dissatisfaction of a man who had splendid gifts, was gorgeous physically, admired and loved in his homeland, and yet there was this nagging dissatisfaction to him.

DAVID MARANISS: Well, he had what I call -- he's kind of like Jackie Robinson, a beautiful fury. It was a nagging, but he transferred most of it onto the ball field. And that was the fury that he played with and that surrounded him before and after games.

Part of it was being in Pittsburgh. He felt that if he'd been in New York where he wanted to play - he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, a bonus, but they didn't keep him. Had he been in New York, L.A. or Chicago, he would have been better recognized.

If he hadn't had the language problems, of no sportswriters knowing Spanish, him speaking English but being misquoted, that led to some misunderstandings. So Clemente burned with pride that he was better than people realized and that he wanted that recognition.

RAY SUAREZ: And it made you, as you're reading it, think of what might have been. I mean, today there's a Spanish-speaking sportswriters corps, Spanish-language sports networks, entire big markets that would have gone gaga for this man.

DAVID MARANISS: Well, Clemente, even now, I think is the patron saint of Latino baseball. All of the Latino players of today know this Clemente story. But if he were playing today, he would be enormous; you're absolutely right.

He had everything. You know, he was intelligent. He was a graceful player. There was this magic to him, and the market is there now. And the rise of Latinos in American life was made for Clemente, but he's gone.

RAY SUAREZ: For all that mismatch in the '50s and '60s, though, Pittsburgh in your story did come to love him?

DAVID MARANISS: Yes. You know, I once did a book on Vince Lombardi. And if you believed everybody who said it, two million people were at the Ice Bowl. Where similarly, you know, everybody in Pittsburgh now loves Clemente.

They didn't all love him then. But the fans, the real fans did. They were the sanctuary for Clemente.

He was, 99 percent of the time, incredibly gracious with kids, with old people, with minorities, with poor people, with anybody who he saw as vulnerable, like he was. He was kind of an outsider, a black Latino in the quintessential blue-collar steel town. And he won them over by just being what he was.

RAY SUAREZ: And what he was, was a strongly self-identified Puerto Rican at a time when Puerto Ricans were still strangers to many Americans.

DAVID MARANISS: That's true. I think the most powerful moment in Clemente's career was after the 1971 World Series.

He had struggled for 17 seasons to get recognition, played brilliantly in that series when they beat the Orioles four games to three. He batted .414, was great in the field, dominated everything, finally got the national spotlight, was the MVP. The cameras and microphones were on him after the last game.

And before he was interviewed, he said, "Before I answer any questions, I'd like to give blessings to my parents back home in Puerto Rico in Spanish." And then he said, "On the greatest day of my life," in Spanish, "I want to ask for my parents blessings and give blessings to my brothers and to my sons."

Very simple statement. I can't tell you how many hundreds of Puerto Ricans have come to me and said, "My dad was listening to that and started crying," because of the strong self-identity that Clemente had. He was proud of who he was and where he was from.

RAY SUAREZ: And today his dream of teaching kids to play ball on the island has come true, hasn't it?

DAVID MARANISS: Not as much as he would have hoped. There is a sports city. His son, Luis, is now trying to revive it to what it would have been, had Clemente lived. Puerto Rico, ironically, is an urban place that's moved a little more toward basketball than baseball. You know, Venezuela and Dominican Republic are now the big baseball places, but Clemente's vision is very powerful and lives on.

RAY SUAREZ: "Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero," David Maraniss, thank you.

DAVID MARANISS: Thank you, Ray.