Along with Jackie Robinson Day on April 15, Roberto Clemente Day on September 15 is a bookend to the Major League Baseball (MLB) season. When all teams take the field on September 15, there’s a crispness to the air, the geese honk overhead, and the post-season fates of many teams (for better or for worse) are already sealed.
Roberto Clemente Day honors the day the Pittsburgh Pirates star recorded his 3,000th Major League hit – and, as fate would have it, his final game. It was the end of the 1972 regular season, and the Pirates had not reached the playoffs. Clemente’s hit made the game matter anyway. The crowd cheered, and the beloved Clemente raised his cap in recognition.
A little over three months later, an earthquake devastated Nicaragua. Clemente, renowned for his philanthropy, organized three relief flights, all of which were confiscated by the country’s government. Determined to get aid to those in need, he arranged a fourth flight which he would personally accompany.
The plane crashed, and Clemente was dead at age 38. His legacies were not only of baseball greatness, but of philanthropy and of advocacy for Hispanic Americans.
“Roberto Clemente was to Latinos what Jackie Robinson was to Black baseball players. He spoke up for Latinos; he was the first one to speak out,” his close friend Spanish-language sportscaster Luis Mayoral once said.
Clemente was a 12-time Gold Glove award winner, the 1966 National League MVP, the 1971 World Series MVP, and a two-time World Series champion. He was so revered as a player and a person that the Baseball Hall of Fame waived its five-year waiting period and inducted him in 1973, making him the first Latin-American Hall of Famer.
A less-verifiable but often-repeated honor attributed to Clemente is that he has more places named in his honor than any other professional athlete. One of those places is Roberto Clemente State Park in the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium.
Originally called Harlem River State Park, it was renamed almost immediately in honor of the star and was the first New York State Park in New York City. And it’s keeping Clemente’s legacy alive in many ways.
“It was meant to be that I ended up at a park named after such a famous player,” said Acting Park Director John Doherty. “It’s an absolute honor.” A former Major Leaguer himself whose pitching career with the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox ended with a 1994 injury, Doherty is passionate about serving the community through his park.
“[Roberto Clemente] would have a smile on his face if he knew about all the programming here,” Doherty said. A hidden gem off the Deegan Expressway, it hosts everything: adaptive physical education programs, t-ball, soccer, track, bocce, debate clubs, capoeira, and even a chess program.
Monroe Community College and several adult leagues use their baseball fields, and the park participates in MLB’s Global Play Ball Weekend. Display cases inside the athletic complex display memorabilia from Clemente’s career, and his children have visited the Park in the past.
“Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth,” Clemente once said. Doherty is determined not to waste a second of his, or of the Park’s.
“It’s a safe haven for people in the summertime. People bring their kids, and they know they’ll be safe,” he said. “You are welcome at the park. We bend over backwards for you. We want you to leave with a smile on your face.”
Read more about baseball history in New York State.
A version of this essay by Kate Jenkins, State Parks Digital Content Specialist in the Saratoga-Capital State Parks Regional Office, first appeared in the New York State Parks and Historic Sites Blog.
Illustrations, from above: A statue of Clemente at Roberto Clemente State Park; one of the ball fields at Roberto Clemente State Park; and the plaza at Roberto Clemente State Park, with Clemente’s famous quote emblazoned overhead.
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