Roberto Clemente, Jr.

Roberto Clemente Zabala (born August 17, 1965), better known as Roberto Clemente Jr., is a Puerto Rican baseball broadcaster and former professional baseball player.

His father and namesake Roberto Clemente was the first Latin American player to compile 3,000 hits in Major League Baseball history. His mother Vera Clemente hosted a telethon in Puerto Rico in order to raise funds for the Ciudad Roberto Clemente, a sporting complex located in Carolina, Puerto Rico.

Biography

Despite playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates and being established in Pittsburgh for many years, Roberto Clemente insisted his wife Vera return to Puerto Rico so Roberto Jr. could be born there a day before his own birthday. The first seven years of Clemente's life were spent between Puerto Rico and Pittsburgh. His father died in a plane crash on December 31, 1972, while taking relief supplies to Nicaragua earthquake victims. After his father’s death, Roberto Jr. became the spokesperson for the family when his mother Vera was not available.

In 1978, he was chosen to carry the torch and light the Pavilion for the Pan Am Games. Clemente excelled in sports at the junior high and high school levels. He was captain of the volleyball team and participated in track and field and basketball, and was offered a spot on a professional basketball team. After high school, Clemente moved to Bradenton, Florida to attend a community college.

In 1984, he was spotted by a Philadelphia Phillies scout, and signed by the organization, joining their division-A team in 1985, the same year in which he made his debut in the Puerto Rican winter baseball league, with the Arecibo Wolves. A series of injuries prevented Clemente from making it to the major leagues. After playing two seasons with the Phillies, he joined the San Diego Padres after Sandy Alomar Sr. arranged it with the organization in 1986, but he had a knee injury during spring training and was not able to make the team. Clemente insisted on making the major leagues and after three knee surgeries in three years he traveled to Venezuela in 1989, where he homered on the first pitch thrown to him in over three years. He became a well-known player in Venezuela, but after signing a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles before the 1989 season, he suffered a career-ending injury to his back and had to retire from professional baseball.

Clemente returned to Puerto Rico and helped his mother make his father's dream a reality, the Roberto Clemente Sports City. In 1992, he brought Major League Baseball's RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) program to Puerto Rico, which has won 10 RBI World Series championships. Clemente moved to Pittsburgh to establish the Roberto Clemente Foundation in 1993 to help bring to the RBI program where there was none. When Kevin McClatchy became the Pirates' new owner in 1995, the major league team embraced and promoted RBI Baseball.

In 1997 Clemente accepted an offer to broadcast New York Yankees games but the tsunami in southeast Asia forced them to reschedule after Clemente decided to send the aid to where it was needed. In 2005, Clemente hosted a Saturday afternoon show on WFAN in New York City called The Latin Beat. This was his first English-language radio job,