Set a Purpose

Find out what happened when Roberto Clemente joined the Pittsburgh Pirates.

On an island called Puerto Rico, where baseball players are as plentiful as tropical flowers in a rain forest, there was a boy who had very little but a fever to play and win at baseball.

He had no money for a baseball bat, so he made one from a guava tree branch. His first glove he also made, from the cloth of a coffee-bean sack. His first baseball field was muddy and crowded with palm trees.

For batting practice he used empty soup cans and hit them farther than anyone else. Soup cans turned into softballs. Softballs turned into baseballs.

Little League turned into minor league turned into winter league: professional baseball in Puerto Rico. He played so well he received an invitation to play in the major leagues in America!

What an honor!

But the young man was sent to a steel-mill town called Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his new team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, was in last place.

Now this was something very strange, being on a losing team. For the young Puerto Rican, everything was strange. Instead of palm trees, he saw smokestacks. Instead of Spanish, he heard English.

Instead of being somebody, he was nobody.

His first time at bat, he heard the announcer stumble through his Spanish name:

“ROB, uh, ROE … BURRT, um let’s see, TOE CLUH-MAINT?” It echoed in the near-empty stands. Roberto Clemente was his name, and this is pronounced “Roe-BEAR-toe Cleh-MEN-tay.”

As if to introduce himself, Roberto smacked the very first pitch. But it went right up the infield and into the shortstop’s glove. Still, Roberto ran like lightning—and beat the throw to first base.

The Pittsburgh fans checked their scorecards. Who was this guy, “Roberto Clemente?”