Roberto Clemente Mr. Baseball Baseball player, good citizen, humble are three words that describe Roberto Clemente. Many people knew that Roberto Clemente was an amazing baseball player but he was so much more. As a well known baseball player, Roberto Clemente showed the world that they can do anything if you work hard for it no matter what your race. He left a legacy as a great baseball player and a good citizen. The early life of Roberto Clemente was very hard. Clemente learned to work hard at a very young age, he worked in sugar plantations and only got paid one dollar a day. Encyclopedia.com (1) This helped Clemente learn that hard work can pay off. There was a lot of problems when Clemente moved to America. When Clemente moved to America everyone didn’t respect him because he was Puerto Rican. He would get called awful racist names because of the way he talked and the color of his skin. Clemente overcame these hardships and strived to be the good ball player and the good guy he was. It all started on August 18, 1934 when Roberto Clemente started playing …show more content…
One problem that Clemente had with having a very thick Puerto Rican accent. Reporters would write words down on their notepads the way they sounded instead of what he was saying. One example is when he said you, they would write it down as “ju.” Clemente said he didn’t like when reporters did that because it made him sound like he wasn’t educated. Another problem that Clemente had with being hispanic was, the reporters coming up to him to talk if he had a really good game. The reporters automatically were scared of him for some reason because he wasn’t from America and talked different. Clemente also had to put up with the names the public and other players called him, like chocolate colored islander and dusky flyer. Roberto Clemente, Lew Freedman (25) Nobody respected him until he played like a superstar and showed everybody what he could