Roberto Clemente was among the first Hispanic players in major league baseball. His legendary performances helped to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series win at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the way he live his life – both on and off the field – changed the culture of the sport.
The life of the Puerto Rican ballplayer is the subject of the 2024 documentary “Clemente,” which is being screened this week by Murray State University’s Cinema International. MSU Cinema International co-director Ben Post said the film fits perfectly within this semester’s theme for the program – America and its interaction with the international community – considering how popular Baseball has become around the world.
“There's few sports that have been so important culturally in the United States… and there's few American sports that are quite so international as baseball, it's a really good fit,” Post said. “We haven't done a movie quite this sports focused in a very long time, but it seemed like a really good fit.”
Another passion for Clemente was the desire to help children and impoverished communities. As a humanitarian and philanthropist, Clemente worked to bring aid to communities in need in the United States and Latin America.
Murray State University professor of history James Humphreys said – though Clemente would go on to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown – his early pro years outside of the United States would color the way he interacted with the world.
“They would have winter leagues like in Nicaragua and other places where he would play, and most are descendants of slaves or they're Hispanic,” he said. “There were some white major leaguers who would play in these winter leagues, but there just wasn't racism that there was in the mainland part of the United States.”
Post said that, while Clemente was not the first Hispanic player, he was a trailblazer. He’d go one to be the first player from the Caribbean and Latin America to start on a World Series-winning roster – doing so twice – and rack up numerous accolades. Over a six-year stretch, Clemente led the National League in batting four times. He’d also prove to be great defensively, earning 12 straight Gold Glove Awards between 1961 and 1972. In 1966, he didn’t lead the league in batting, but he was voted the Most Valuable Player of the National League.
“One of the things that this documentary does is it talks to some current and recent Hispanic stars, including some people that Cardinals fans will be very happy to see on the screen, some of whom are also Puerto Rican and [it] talks about what he meant for them,” Post said.
Humphreys said that Clemente’s record spoke for itself and he was one of the best performing players of all time.
“He had a lifetime batting average of .317 which is, for a lifetime batting average, extremely high,” he said. “Hank Aaron, who played longer, had a lifetime batting average of .305, Mickey Mantle, .298.”
While Clemente was a winning athlete, he was also a dedicated humanitarian. Over the course of his career, he worked to help disadvantaged communities struggling in both the U.S. and Latin America. Humphreys said that he visited children in hospitals and helped raise funds for children with disabilities.
“He said he didn't want press there, and he would visit sick children. One time he met a boy who had two damaged legs, and he said, ‘You're going to be the bat boy for the Pirates.’ And he raised money and provided some funds to get the boy a prosthesis,” said Humphreys. “He loved the common people. In 1960 when the Pirates won the World Series, there were only a few black players on the team, he got dressed in the locker room, and he went out and celebrated with the people out in the streets.”
Post said he hoped viewers of the documentary would come away with an understanding of what baseball means to the rest of the world and the key roleClemente played in helping to popularize the pastime outside the U.S.
“Seeing how this sports, and this sport in particular, is really interconnected to international issues, geopolitics. And also thinking about this character, not just as a great baseball player, but also as a very proud Puerto Rican,” he said.
Murray State University Cinema International is screening “Clemente,” Thursday, March 26th, and Saturday, March 28th, at 7 p.m. in Faculty Hall, Room 208. The event is free and open to the public.
