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Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357092
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: April 25, 2006
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: April 25, 2006
Studio: Simon & Schuster
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Editorial Review:
On New Year's Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero's death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, a book destined to become a modern classic. Much like his acclaimed biography of Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss uses his narrative sweep and meticulous detail to capture the myth and a real man.
Anyone who saw Clemente, as he played with a beautiful fury, will never forget him. He was a work of art in a game too often defined by statistics. During his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he won four batting titles and led his team to championships in 1960 and 1971, getting a hit in all fourteen World Series games in which he played. His career ended with three-thousand hits, the magical three-thousandth coming in his final at-bat, and he and the immortal Lou Gehrig are the only players to have the five-year waiting period waived so they could be enshrined in the Hall of Fame immediately after their deaths.
There is delightful baseball here, including thrilling accounts of the two World Series victories of Clemente's underdog Pittsburgh Pirates, but this is far more than just another baseball book. Roberto Clemente was that rare athlete who rose above sports to become a symbol of larger themes. Born near the canebrakes of rural Carolina, Puerto Rico, on August 18, 1934, at a time when there were no blacks or Puerto Ricans playing organized ball in the United States, Clemente went on to become the greatest Latino player in the major leagues. He was, in a sense, the Jackie Robinson of the Spanish-speaking world, a ballplayer of determination, grace, and dignity who paved the way and set the highest standard for waves of Latino players who followed in later generations and who now dominate the game.
The Clemente that Maraniss evokes was an idiosyncratic character who, unlike so many modern athletes, insisted that his responsibilities extended beyond the playing field. In his final years, his motto was that if you have a chance to help others and fail to do so, you are wasting your time on this earth. Here, in the final chapters, after capturing Clemente's life and times, Maraniss retraces his final days, from the earthquake to the accident, using newly uncovered documents to reveal the corruption and negligence that led the unwitting hero on a mission of mercy toward his untimely death as an uninspected, overloaded plane plunged into the sea.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Off the field excellence, too
As with David Maraniss' excellent bio of Vince Lombardi, the most appealing parts are that which cover off the field, hitting the life and times and getting into the character of the athlete. And in Lombardi and Clemente, we learn about two intense men. Maraniss gets into baseball to a satisfactory degree, with occasional game details and pennant races, without turning this into a "baseball book". It is more of bio of an admirable, highly accomplished man who played baseball.
The look ... Read More
Rating: - His passion and pride make him more human; his priorities make him a saint
Biography of Clemente that spends most of its time off the field revealing the unique and sometimes odd character of the first great Latin American player, certainly the best fielding right fielder of all time, and one of baseballs all time greats.
Most impressive of his on-field stats are his 14-game World Series hitting streak (every World Series game he played in) and his 166 career triples that leave him 27th on the all time list that is dominated by players from 100 years ago when ... Read More
Rating: - Excellent Biography: 4.5 Stars
A lot of baseball biographies start off with a lot of solid information and stories, but then taper off as the subject's life goes on and they move out of the spotlight. With Roberto Clemente there is no tapering as his life was tragically cut short. This is a biography that soars above most similar kinds of books, and reveals a baseball player who wasn't all about himself, but who cared about other people with a depth of passion that isn't usually seen among today's entitled athletes.
My ... Read More
Rating:  - Awful
This is the worst book i have ever read, right behind A Concise History of China. There is no plot and the book sucks.
Rating:  - baseball fanatic
i have been a roberto clemente fan since before his heroic efforts in the 1971 world series. the book clearly highlighted his humanitarian efforts, and his love and devotion to his family and his homeland. i guess i was looking for more "pure baseball" info on this. such as what he did to improve in the years from his youth to hall of fame player. any particular advice, exercises, strategy , etc. there just wasn't any of that in here. this is my personal disappointment with the book.
the ... Read More
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