ROBERTO CLEMENTE JR. : Newest Padre Isn’t Trying to Be Another Baseball Legend, He’s Just Trying to Do the Legend Proud

YUMA, Ariz. —  Every time Roberto Clemente Jr. looks at the pictures, he laughs.

There he was, in diapers no less, swinging a baseball bat and sliding into imaginary bases.

And here he is, a Padre minor leaguer.

The story of his father is well-documented. Roberto Clemente Sr. was a Hall of Fame outfielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He had 3,000 career hits, but it was not just statistics that made him special, especially to the people of Puerto Rico. He died Dec. 31, 1972, near San Juan Airport in Puerto Rico in a crash of a cargo plane that had $150,000 in relief supplies for victims of the earthquake in Managua, Nicaragua.

Roberto Jr. was 6 years old when his father died. Now 20, Robert Jr. is playing baseball, because that is what would have made his father proud.

At 18, Roberto Jr. was signed by Philadelphia out of high school in Puerto Rico. An outfielder, he batted .167 and .186 in two minor league seasons and was released by the Phillies after last season.

Sandy Alomar, a first-year Padre coach, saw Roberto Jr. play in a Puerto Rican winter league game during the off-season. His advice to the Padres: Sign the kid.

“He runs like his father and he goes after the ball like his father,” Alomar said. “The funny thing is, his father was released once after he signed. His father was a late-bloomer. I’m looking for him to be a late-bloomer, too. But his father never felt the pressure he’s feeling now.”

Pressure has long been Roberto JR.’s mIddlE naMe. From childhood, everybody has expected him to be another, well, Roberto Clemente.

Perhaps the most pressure Roberto Jr. experienced was in his first spring training with the Phillies in 1984.

“My first year with the Phillies, the media was over me all the time in spring training,” he said. “It was hard, but I got used to it. I just put it into the back of my mind.”

However, Roberto Jr. couldn’t escape the comparisons, which begin with the fact he bears a facial resemblance to his father.

On the field, he has a long way to go to achieve what his father did. So do countless other ballplayers, but their last names aren’t Clemente.

“I know there is no way that I can be like my father,” Roberto Jr. said. “People will tell me: ‘Your father used to hit to right field like this and left field like that.’ It bothers me a little bit because we’re two different people.”

The comparisons began early.

“I used to put my fingers in my ears when I’d go play,” Roberto Jr. said. “When I was a little kid people used to say, ‘You’re nothing compared to your father.’ What could I say? I was just a kid. I learned to deal with it.”

Roberto Jr. was not told of his father’s fate the day of the crash. He remembers that night he and his two younger brothers were taken to stay with the godfather of one of his brothers. The boys did not see their mother, Vera, for two or three weeks after the plane crash, Roberto Jr. said.

“My mother got real sick,” Roberto Jr. said. “She couldn’t do anything. She was hysterical for a whole month. When my brothers and I went home, I knew there was something wrong. When I went in the house, everyone was hugging and kissing me and crying. Manny Sanguillen and Willie Stargell (of the Pirates) pulled me aside and asked if everything was OK. They told me that my father had disappeared and they would try to find him.”

Fourteen years later, Roberto Jr. has vivid memories of his father.

He remembers how his father used to watch late-night scary movies and sleep during the day while Vera Clemente told her children to be quiet. He recalls how his father never spanked him.

“All he had to do was look at me and I wouldn’t breathe,” Roberto Jr. said. “I would stop right there, which showed the respect I had for him. My mom used to have to shake me to get me to move.”

The Clementes moved from their home in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, to Pittsburgh each baseball season. Vera Clemente bought a home in Pittsburgh three years after her husband died, and she still owns the homes in Rio Piedras and Pittsburgh.

When Roberto, Jr., was young, his father always made him at home in the locker room. He remembers how his father would play with him and his brothers in the Pirate clubhouse after games.

Then there was the time that Roberto Jr. hit two home runs (over the fielder’s head) and a single in a Pirates’ father-son game in the summer of 1971.

Already, his father saw promise in his eldest son. He offered advice--don’t be a catcher.

“He even told my mom if I was a baseball player, good or bad, not to let me be a catcher,” Roberto Jr. said. “He said it was a very hard position to play. My parents were very good friends with Manny Sanguillen (a catcher), and his legs were not too good after several years.”

Shortly after Roberto Sr. died, Victor Enriquez became a surrogate father of the Clemente children. Enriquez’s mother-in-law had grown up with Roberto Sr.

Enriquez made certain that Roberto Jr. had an opportunity to follow in his father’s footsteps. He took him to baseball practices and games.

Away from the field, Roberto Jr. also was reminded of his father. He remembers the time that a bus load of people stopped in front of his house and started walking toward him.

“I started crying because I got scared,” he said. “I said, ‘Mom, these people want to get me.’ She told me that they had come to see my father’s trophies.”

In the family’s Puerto Rican home, two rooms still showcase the elder Clemente’s trophies. According to his son, tourists often come by to see the trophies.

When Roberto Jr. was 15, he was visited by Luis Peraza, a scout for the Philadelphia Phillies. Three years later, he signed with the Phillies.

“Everywhere he went, people compared him with his father,” Alomar said. “People were very unfair in that matter. He signed when he was 18, and people were comparing him to a superstar. That’s a bad comparison.”

Clemente felt the pressure at the plate. He struck out 27 times in 96 at-bats his first pro season and 28 times in 97 at-bats his second season.

Said Jim Baumer, Philadelphia’s minor league director: “Part of our agreement was that we’d keep him for two years. Otherwise, we might have released him after one. He wasn’t a prospect for us. He’s a good kid, and he didn’t cause any problems. He’s a little bit fancy. I won’t say he’s a hot dog, but you get the idea.”

After the Phillies had released Roberto Jr., Alomar had a long talk with him. Among other things, Alomar said Roberto Jr. was not “forcing himself to work a little harder.” Roberto Jr. paid attention. He knew Alomar was giving him a second chance.

Tom Romenesko, the Padres’ minor-league director, said Clemente was not signed because of his last name.

“That doesn’t matter here,” Romenesko said. “There are some things you can’t control in life. One thing is your parental heritage.”

Romenesko, conceding Clemente has contact problems at the plate, said the Padres signed Clemente because of his speed, arm and the fact he hits line drives when he makes contact. Roberto Jr., a natural right-hander, is working on switch-hitting.

In an intrasquad game last weekend, he made an impression by throwing out Tim Flannery at the plate from left field. It was reminiscent of what his father used to do from right field for the Pirates.

“I think of the situation like being part of my father and what he did,” Roberto Jr. said. “He gave the best of what he had. I’ll try to make hIm proud by doing the same.”