How Roberto Clemente Harnessed Celebrity To Change America

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1433482

Wow: Of course, I knew of Mr. Clemente, but this article has shown me that I really didn’t know much about him. An amazing man.

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A truly outstanding person.

Clemente once observed: “If you have a chance to help others and fail to do so, you are wasting your time on this earth.”

And this is the attitude more of humanity needs to embrace.

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OT: Repost

Another great person…

OT: anyone who has ever heard him perform live knows he was a pure spirit. I saw him when he was about 70 years old but his power was all there to blow his horn. His most recent collaboration was with British electronic music wizard, Floating Points and the London Symphony. He always moved forward.

the Guardian – 24 Sep 22

Jazz legend Pharoah Sanders dead at 81

Revered spiritual jazz saxophonist was known for his unique playing style and collaborations with John Coltrane

Excerpt

“He died peacefully surrounded by loving family and friends in Los Angeles earlier this morning. Always and forever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace.”

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completely OT, but I am out of my mind upset about this

A Ducey appointed judge and our completely unlikable and asinine AG Brnovich have managed to make a law written in 1864 current law regarding abortion in AZ. Any healthcare provider who provides abortion or otherwise aids is subject to 2-5 years in jail. There are zero exceptions except for the life of the mother. As any medical person knows, that is a huge and easily disputed condition that will simply make sure most providers will do nothing even when the mother’s health is being threatened.

Excerpts
The basic provisions of the law were first codified by the first territorial Legislature of Arizona in 1864: It mandates two to five years in prison for anyone who provides an abortion or the means for an abortion. The state adopted the law with streamlined language in 1901; it remains on the books today as ARS 13-3603.

"We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue," Brnovich said in a statement Friday. "I have and will continue to protect the most vulnerable Arizonans."

Fun fact - when Brnovich talks about our most vulnerable Arizonans, he is not talking about poor women or people of color or undocumented aliens - he is talking about fetuses.

The 1864 law was in effect for much of Arizona’s history, and numerous doctors and amateur abortionists went to prison after convictions for violating it.

A companion law also adopted in the 19th century said a woman could face at least one year in prison for obtaining an abortion. That was repealed only last year, though it’s unclear if any woman served time for it. Congress granted statehood to Arizona in 1912.

As I have noted here before, my wife worked part time in an abortion clinic for a decade and a half (80s and 90s) through all of the craziness and violence of Operation Rescue. Many times I guided her through hostile and scary crowds of zealots to her job. To see what has just happened, I can only keep hoping that this will put some Democrats over the top here. It is discouraging right down to our souls, but maybe something positive will come of it.

The AZ Republicans are completely nuts here and unbelievably cruel in their piety.

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OK. Clemente. Hero. Example.

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Roberto Clemente was not only one of the best ball players of his period, he was one of the all time best. A true five skills star. Nobody ran on Roberto Clemente.

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As an avid baseball fan and player-- I followed Roberto Clemente. Along with Al Kaline (Detroit Tigers) another HOF rightfielder of the same era-- the pair had parallel careers. These two players were my models as a teen baseball player. While I was a fan of the Tigers (born in Pontiac MI) and the American League-- I was also a bit of a fan of the Pirates (and Clemente) as they beat the vaunted Baltimore Orioles in the '71 World Series.

The Orioles had a four-man pitching rotation that boasted four 20-game winners-- which has happened maybe twice in MLB history–
image
–winning the AL East by 12 games over my beloved Tigers (~sigh~). But-- mostly because my best friend was a fan of the Orioles.

These were the ‘We Are Family’ ♫♪ Pirates of lore. Clemente hit .414 with 5 extra base hits (The O’s as a team managed only 5) in the seven game series-- with the Pirates winning game 7 by 2-1.

Just a little over a year later-- Roberto Clemente perished.

Makes me smile still-- 50 years on, to hear Roberto Clemente’s name, and story-- and his principles living on.

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Had a strong arm as a kid-- something I mimicked from Clemente’s game-- the pivot and throw.

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Uh, the runner in that clip did run on Clemente, since the ump called him safe.

I remember a driving trip to the West Coast when I was a kid when I brought a biography of Clemente I bought at a scholastic book fair in my elementary school. It was the first full length book I read, and I was fascinated by it. Clemente was such a larger than life figure, and the book introduced me to so many things about the adult world I knew nothing about. A hero who dies valiantly — dang, just reading this brings back such memories.

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Great piece! Some inspiration is very helpful today

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Your pain is ours @birdford! And NOT off topic because the malicious, racist, fascist idiocy we see before us IS who many USAers ARE. The sameness between what Latino players faced, Blacks, poor folks, anyone different from white people face today, could not be more blatant than killing suffering women because of some 1864 ‘law’ in Arizona resurrected to punish and ‘shame’ to death, today. And in the name of life itself! How hateful, ignorant, disgusting is this current and apparently worsening disaster.

I too love baseball, and thankfully, my Dad took me to many MLB games in Cleveland. We revered the ‘underdogs’ who were Black, Latino AND white, because baseball was a great leveler then. We had to sit in the nosebleed section because we couldn’t afford anything more expensive, but by God we had fun and at one point got to meet many players when one of the players moved in behind us for the summer.

On to medicine, and that plus music was my career. I am so eternally grateful to the real sportsmen among us, to the true heroes who toil away in our hospitals, cliniics and ICU’s, caring for people day and night, regardless of their status in a racist nation, or their distrust of the miraculous care they are getting in spite of their hopeless brainwashing at the hands of these ruthless, SHAMELESS politicians.

We must not lose this battle!

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Got to see him - a father- son little league game …Pirates vs Houston Colt 45s (renamed- Astros)
at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.
He was my hero - I also played right field … but for an entirely different reason!

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My family were huge Pirates fans back in the day, and we routinely listened to Pirates games on the back porch of my grandfather’s house. I remember a play Clemente made from right field which was one of the greatest plays I had ever heard. Ironically, Clemente was charged with an error on it.

A sharp hit by a SF Giants batter went to right field, and Clemente muffed the ball, and it ran all the to the fence. Clemente runs back, and in one motion, grabs the ball, turns and throws to home plate. He threw out a stunned Orlando Cepeda (at least that is my memory, who at the time was one of the most feared hitters) by 3 feet.

One of the greatest throw-outs ever, and Clemente was charged with an error!

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PBS had a good doc on him.

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@jacksonhts

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One of Clemente’s very few errors and he corrected for it. Cepeda was a great hitter but I don’t think he was a speedster.

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For sure. My recollection was that Cepeda was on first base. I remember seeing replays of the throw…Clemente never even looked. He threw from the wall (I think it happened at old Forbes Field, which had the ‘moon deck’ down the right field line and a shorter field on that side. Center was over 450 feet), and threw a perfect strike to home plate, from 300 feet.

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This reason, amirite?

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100% … and …
Geez, if only I could have taken my strikes & applied them to bowling!
How great I could have been!

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