{"id":4974,"date":"2012-12-31T09:48:19","date_gmt":"2012-12-31T14:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=4974"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:16","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:16","slug":"roberto-clemente-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2012\/12\/roberto-clemente-day\/","title":{"rendered":"December 31: Roberto Clemente Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Forty years ago, on December 31, 1972, Pittsburgh Pirates rightfielder Roberto Clemente <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/learning\/general\/onthisday\/bday\/0818.html\">perished in an airplane crash<\/a>, on a fateful mission to deliver relief supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims.\u00a0 Why was Clemente on the plane?\u00a0 Author <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/closeread\/2010\/01\/close-read-clemente-and-the-earthquake.html\">David Maraniss<\/a> wrote that\u00a0 Clemente wanted to ensure the supplies were not stolen by the Somoza dictatorship.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/1960-Autographs.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4979\" style=\"margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 15px; margin-top: 10px;\" title=\"1960 Pirate Autographs\" src=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/1960-Autographs.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"314\" height=\"290\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/1960-Autographs.jpg 314w, https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/1960-Autographs-300x277.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 314px) 100vw, 314px\" \/><\/a>Roberto Clemente had been my hero long before this final humanitarian effort of his.\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t his clutch hitting or rifle arm that inspired me &#8212; though like thousands of other boys, I always had Roberto in mind when I threw the ball in from the outfield. Rather it was Clemente&#8217;s heart, pride and sense of purpose I admired most.\u00a0 He set an example not how to achieve greatness but how to <em>be<\/em> great.\u00a0 &#8221;Any time you have an opportunity to make things better and you don&#8217;t, then you are wasting your time on this Earth,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popularpittsburgh.com\/pittsburgh-info\/pittsburgh-history\/famous-pittsburghers\/roberto-clemente.aspx\">Clemente sa<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.popularpittsburgh.com\/pittsburgh-info\/pittsburgh-history\/famous-pittsburghers\/roberto-clemente.aspx\">id<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>December 31 should be known as Roberto Clemente Day, a day we remember to challenge ourselves to do something great, like Roberto, for those in great need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forty years ago, on December 31, 1972, Pittsburgh Pirates rightfielder Roberto Clemente perished in an airplane crash, on a fateful mission to deliver relief supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims.\u00a0 Why was Clemente on the plane?\u00a0 Author David Maraniss wrote that\u00a0 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2012\/12\/roberto-clemente-day\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4974"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28362,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974\/revisions\/28362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}