American Experience

Vera Clemente, wife [in Spanish, subtitled]: My father said to him, “I don’t know why you are here. We are a humble family and you are a famous man. You must know many pretty women, some even with money. We don’t have any money, so I don’t know why you are here. Roberto said, “Other women don’t interest me. The one that I love is here.”

Narrator: November 14, 1964, the couple married and settled down in Carolina. The next year, Vera gave birth to a son. Two more boys would follow. Vera soon discovered that her husband had some eccentricities.

David Maraniss, biographer: Clemente was kind of new age before there was new age. He was an incredible masseuse, he was constantly taking different proteins and odd concoctions of shakes to try to stay healthy. He believed in sort of mystical connections between life and death and people who were no longer around.

Narrator: His connection to the dead centered on a childhood tragedy, the loss of his sister, Anairis, burned to death in a kitchen accident when Roberto was just an infant. For the rest of his life, he would be haunted by fire, and by thoughts of his own mortality.

David Maraniss, biographer: He had talked for the rest of his life about feeling his sister at his side. He had a certain melancholy to him. You see it in his eyes.

Vera Clemente, wife [in Spanish, subtitled]: He had special “timing.” For instance, he was in a hurry to get married. Because he always thought he would die young.

Narrator: In the mid-1960s, Clemente found himself engaged by events beyond the ballpark, as America entered a time of unprecedented change. As Clemente watched and read about the protesters pouring into the nation’s streets, he identified closely with the widening movement for civil rights.

David Maraniss, biographer: Clemente was interested in more than sports. He was very political. And one of the people he admired most in the world was Martin Luther King. The one time we know that Dr. King went down to Puerto Rico, Clemente uh sought him out and spent most of a day with him, took him to his farm.

Robert Ruck, historian: Because he’s in the black community and because he’s traveling around it’s clear at that time that this is a guy that’s interested in what’s going on around him and has opinions about that. He’s not only an observer, he’s somebody who’s passionately connected to what’s going on. He’s talking about those things. He’s arguing about those things.

David Maraniss, biographer: It goes back to the way they were treated in spring training when they were on those buses going from one town to another and the white guys would go into a restaurant and bring back sandwiches to the, Clemente and a few blacks and Latinos. That was not going to fly with Clemente.

Roberto Clemente (archival): Now we are in Florida, not too far from Puerto Rico and you see the white players go to the restaurant and they say, “Fellas, do you want anything to eat?” Now we are sitting in the back of the … we’re sitting in the bus, we weren’t sitting in the back of the bus but we were sitting inside the bus, and I remember I said, “Look if you’re going to accept anything from anybody from that restaurant then you and me are gonna have it. We will have a fight because I think it’s not fair if this is the way it’s going to be, if this is the way we’re going to suffer. And so now, I don’t want you — none of the fellas to eat anything.”

Narrator: Celebrity did little to dull his sensitivity to injustice; if anything, it only sharpened it. Once, out shopping with Vera in a New York department store, the couple was ignored until someone recognized the famous ballplayer. When the salespeople suddenly lavished them with attention, Clemente would have none of it.

Vera Clemente, Wife [in Spanish, subtitled]: Roberto told the clerk, “I asked you to show us the best furniture. Why did you take so long? We’re not going to buy anything now.”

Narrator: By the end of the decade, increased Latino immigration and a galvanized civil rights movement was transforming the country. Baseball was changing too, with the Pirates leading the way. In 1971, Clemente found himself leader of a team unlike any in baseball history.

Steve Blass, teammate: It’s almost Latin, black and white. ... It sounds so trite and so contrived, but we had a bunch of guys who could play.

Manny Sanguillén, teammate [Spanish, subtitled]:We were like a family back then. We weren’t thinking about color. We just wanted to win.

David Maraniss, biographer: It was a time of change and transformation that scared a lot of people and one of the manifestations of that was that the Pirates as they became more black and Latino became less popular in the city.

Robert Ruck, historian: Roberto is the guy they look up to, white, black and Latin. They look up to him because he delivers on the field, but he’s the guy that holds them together off the field. And he’s much more of a leader, much more of a clubhouse presence by 1971, which in many ways is his coming out party to the world.

Narrator: In 1971, Pittsburgh managed to reach the World Series once again. At 37, the oldest player in the Series, Clemente had battled injuries all season. But his intensity hadn’t diminished, nor his competitive drive.

Les Banos, friend: He pulled me aside, he said, I guarantee you, we going to win. And I told him, Roberto, you cannot say anything like it because if it don’t turn out to be, you’ll be a laughing stock, everybody make a joke out of it.

Matino Clemente, brother [in Spanish, subtitled]: He liked to play under pressure. Other players don’t. Because if you fail, they’ll eat you alive.

David Maraniss, biographer: He came up to Jose Pagan, one of his teammates, and said you guys just get on my back and I’ll carry you.

Narrator: The Baltimore Orioles had four 20 game winners on their pitching staff, and were hands down favorites in the series. That didn’t faze #21.

David Maraniss, biographer: There was one moment that overwhelmed everything else and it wasn’t a throw or a great hit. It was a dribbler that Clemente hit back to the Baltimore pitcher Mike Cuellar.

Robert Ruck, historian: That caused the pitcher to throw wildly. He wasn’t just going to assume that the pitcher was going to throw him out. And it was his hustle that did it.

David Maraniss, biographer: Everybody I’ve talked to on both teams said that they could just feel Clemente’s overwhelming will to win dominating that series.

Narrator: After the two teams traded wins, forcing a seventh game, Clemente reassured his nervous teammates. In the fourth inning, he blasted a towering home run, breaking a scoreless tie; five innings later, the Pirates were World Champions.

David Maraniss, biographer: Clemente was brilliant in that World Series. He batted .414, he got a hit in every game, he was terrific in right field, but it was more than any of that.

George Will, writer: His performance was a jewel — one of the greatest performances, five or six or seven, in World Series history.

Narrator: In the jubilant Pirate locker room, Clemente took the opportunity to speak directly to those who mattered most to him.

[Clemente interview in Spanish]

Juan Gonzales, writer: Roberto was breaking the mold in saying, “Yes, I Will talk to you. But first let me talk to my family and, and my community.” I think that was enormously important certainly for those Latino fans here in the United States as well as those in Puerto Rico and Latin America who were also listening to that.

Osvaldo Gil, friend [in Spanish, subtitled]: It is the greatest day of his life, what is his first thought? Family and country. I think that’s why he spoke Spanish.