Baseball Unites Familes On Father's Day

Roberto Clemente was, and still is, my dad’s favorite player in baseball history. He still explains in full detail the plethora of talent he would bring to the ballpark day in and day out to me.

His uniform was always dirty. He would hit like Derek Jeter, run like Jose Reyes, throw from the outfield like Vladimir Guerrero and carry himself like a true professional. There’s not one aspect about the daily baseball clinic he performed from 1955 to 1972 that could be considered somewhat skeptical or lackluster.

In time where today’s game seems to lack that perfect sketch of the ideal ballplayer, it becomes quite lucid why he’s one to be celebrated.

But for my dad, his cheers of appreciation that transpired into astonishment—and quickly developed into an obsession—were silenced. The rising uproar of witnessing a miracle on the baseball diamond spiraled down faster than the plane that Clemente was killed in during the summer of 1972.

The man who won four National League batting titles, twelve gold gloves (in a row, no less), and earned 3,000 career hits along with a 1971 World Series MVP award, was dead at age 38.

Righteously, he was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973.

His Hall of Fame teammate, Willie Stargell, joined him in the glorious corridors of Cooperstown that same year. Both of the player’s figurines still rest on the top shelf meant for important sports memorabilia in my house and I remember when my dad explained who they were.

Luckily, his son, Roberto Jr., who was seven at the time, was able to see our nation honor his father. But at such a young age, it’s crushing to think that maybe he needed the same speech I received.

I’m sure he has learned all the great things, the astonishing things, and the accomplished things. I’m sure he knows his dad was killed in an accident on the way to bringing relief supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims. I’m sure he enjoys hearing how talented of a player his dad was too.

“Some right fielders have rifles for arms, but he had a howitzer,” said Tim McCarver.

But that’s only one of many praises.

So begins the oral tradition of baseball and how it unites families, builds emotion and more importantly, strengthens the bond between a father and son, in particular.

''Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth,” Clemente once said.

What an appropriate quote to sum up what Father’s Day is all about. One of the greatest players of all-time reminds us that all fathers who make a difference to theirs sons, such as mine, should be celebrated as much as he was and still is.

The great thing about baseball is the game keeps that father and son playing-catch-in-the-yard-feeling in the present. It catapults a tremendous memory of the past into the present and travels its way through the future.

Baseball enables great memories between a father and son to live on forever. It is always positive, always persistent and always seems to give a boost when needed the most.

Sort of like Clemente.

Exactly like dad.