Roberto Clemente was my hero. There, I said it, and any illusion of impartiality is now out of the picture.

When I was a teenager in southeastern Ohio, Pittsburgh was our closest city with a major league baseball team. We traveled to Pirates games on occasion, but it was a bus trip organized by the local AAA office to Cincinnati that gave me another chance to watch Clemente in action. I boarded the bus, playing hooky from school with my parents’ knowledge, for a deciding game five of the National League Championship Series. It looked like the Pirates would again advance, but Cincinnati scored twice in the bottom of the ninth, the winning run on a wild pitch. Clemente and the Pirates were eliminated.

A little over two months later, Roberto Clemente would die in a plane crash, as detailed in Paul Gilkes’ story. I remember where I was when I heard the news. My hero was gone and I had watched him play his last major league game.

Admittedly, I knew little about Clemente’s benevolence, only learning about it after his passing. All too often, the athletic prowess gets the attention and admiration, when in reality, the talent on the playing field is but a small aspect of a person’s total picture. Life off the field is often overshadowed by the statistics on the field.

Whether Roberto Clemente becomes the subject of a commemorative coin program or not in 2027 is up to someone else to decide. My impartiality was gone in the second sentence, but I still wonder — does a program focused on one individual taint the overall intent of the commemorative program? I’m sure we’ll hear about it, both good and bad, if the bill gains traction. I’m just going to have to wait and see.

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