Sports History and Roberto Clemente
A Morality Tale and a Way Forward
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5705506 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel A Nathan (Skidmore College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 101 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 184-187 |
| Publication date | 2014-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jau277 |
| OpenAlex | W2319910188 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
While flying to San Juan, Puerto Rico, for the 2012 American Studies Association (asa) meeting, I often thought about Roberto Clemente. Born and raised in rural Puerto Rico, a man of tremendous talent, accomplishment, and pride, Clemente was major league baseball's “first Latino superstar, before America's pastime became truly international.” As my flight neared the island, I looked out the window and imagined the vast distance between where I was going (to an academic conference, held in an air-conditioned convention center, to talk about sport, its history and place “within the Empire of American Studies”) and the obviously much more arduous journey that Clemente had taken in the 1950s, from the sugarcane fields where he and his father worked, to Pittsburgh, where Clemente played his entire eighteen-year, National Baseball Hall of Fame career. Below me was Clemente's final resting place, the Atlantic Ocean; he died in a plane crash on December 31, 1972, less than two miles from the shore. He was thirty-eight years old, a husband, and a father. The plane he had chartered was transporting emergency supplies to Nicaragua, the site of a recent devastating earthquake. Clemente was a baseball superstar when he died; he has become legendary since then. To many Puerto Ricans, among others, Clemente remains an icon of the highest order—a nearly mythic figure. The majestic statue of him outside of pnc Park in Pittsburgh is larger than life.1
Art history · League · Political science · Pride · Superstar · American Sports and Literature · History · Law · Sports Analytics and Performance · Sports, Gender, and Society
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2016 - 2023 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |