By Mike Kahn
CBS SportsLine Executive Editor
Sept. 17, 1998

When Sammy Sosa was a 4-year-old in the small Dominican Republic town of San Pedro de Macoris in 1972, he was too young to understand the significance of the final day of that year.

A

Once again, Latino fans have extra reason to be proud. (AP)

prop airplane carrying 16,000 pounds of relief supplies for earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua never made it to its destination. Among the victims on the poorly equipped plane with grand intentions was the best Latin baseball player who ever lived -- Roberto Clemente.

AS SOSA CONTINUES HIS GALLANT JAUNT toward history at an astonishing rate -- with 63 home runs and 154 RBI -- watching him wearing Clemente's No. 21, he bears resemblance to Clemente, dealing with all the attention wearing an affable, yet sneaky smile. It isn't so much the skill, or looks, as the character that serves as a reminder of how Latin players will continue to assault the record books.

Clemente, a native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, is their godfather for many reasons.

During his 18 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Clemente won four National League batting titles, 12 gold gloves in right field, the Most Valuable Player Award in 1966 and he hit .414 to earn the World Series MVP in 1971. A lifetime .317 hitter, he died at the age of 38 with exactly 3,000 hits -- personifying the best all-around hitter of the era -- the last one a double off Jon Matlack.

That said, we'll get to his defense later.

A man beset with horrid back and neck problems and considered by many an inveterate hypochondriac, Clemente was a portrait of twitches at the plate. "If I could sleep, I could hit .400," Clemente was quoted as saying, considering he hit at least .300 during 14 of the 18 seasons before his death prematurely ended his baseball career.

More horrid to baseball purists was the way he always "stepped in the bucket" before swinging. But that also allowed him to hit vicious drives to right field and up the middle, or rip an inside pitch down the left-field line. At 5-11, 185 pounds, he was an inch shorter and 15 pounds lighter than Sosa. And yet, he swung the bat like Zorro, leaving his mark on a victim with a whip.

Even Bob Gibson, considered by many as the most intimidating pitcher of the modern era, had terror on his face on a shot Clemente hit right at him, shattering the bone in his lower leg. In a come-from-behind victory in Cincinnati one game, Clemente hit three home runs, one to each field.

WHEREAS MANY FOUND HIM TO BE A nervous wreck at the plate, he was an artist in the outfield. Clemente was Michelangelo in baseball knickers. His right arm should have been registered as a deadly weapon. He mastered the physics of the ricochet off the right-field wall, and more often than not created plays at second base unfathomable to any normal outfielder.

As Dodgers announcer Vin Scully once said, "Clemente could field a ball in New York and throw out a guy in Pennsylvania."

He crashed into walls and dove all over the field to make catches. Often, Clemente dared runners to make a wide turn at first base on a single, and would throw to beefy Willie Stargell just aching to make the tag at first. It didn't always work, of course, particularly against players of his comparable skill and instincts for the game. Once in Cincinnati, Clemente threw behind Frank Robinson after a single to right, only Robinson kept right on going to second base. Moments later, Robinson turned to Clemente with a big grin on his face, and Clemente doffed his cap in gamesmanship.

"He was a special challenge to play against," Robinson said years later of his fellow Hall-of-Famer. "That whole hypochondriac thing was something he didn't argue, but we all knew he just used it as a distraction. There was so much genius to his game."

A testimony to his arm is the record five years of leading the National League in assists. No outfielder since Clemente has come close to the 266 assists he accumulated in his career. He had average speed, but compensated for it with an aggressive style on the bases and in the outfield.

MORE IMPORTANT, HE WAS A LOYAL, loving man. He separated his professional life from his family. Clemente never stopped being involved in public service and consistently served as a father figure to young Latino players and underprivileged children.

It was just devotion that coerced him into taking a plane despite a 16-hour delay due to mechanical difficulties. He was at his New Year's Eve party to ring in 1973 -- giving to those who were suffering. He had already been to Nicaragua since the earthquake to help and went on a return trip to be sure supplies came to everyone in need.

To say Roberto Clemente died in vain would be erroneous, because he set such an example as a humanitarian who just happened to be a superstar athlete. How many more years beyond that still-productive age of 38 he would have played is purely speculative, as well as irrelevant. His game and persona opened doors for an entire generation that brought us Sammy Sosa, his record-setting season and wonderful personality.

And to this day, the staccato, melodramatic commentary of the late Howard Cosell on Wide World of Sports still sends chills up and down my spine, "Sadly, Roberto Clemente, at the age of 38, is dead."

So the next home run Sosa hits, remember No. 21 from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Without him, we may not have had the opportunity to see what makes Sammy run.