Wreath-laying ceremony caps year of Clemente tributes

Fifty years in the past, Carolina, Puerto Rico, was the positioning of tragedy. On Dec. 31, 1972, Roberto Clemente misplaced his life in a aircraft crash whereas on a humanitarian mission. He was en path to ship help in Nicaragua after an earthquake, when his aircraft went down simply offshore from the Isla Verde International Airport (now the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport).

This yr, Clemente’s life and legacy had been honored in a wreath-laying ceremony on the website of the accident 50 years to the day since his loss of life, finishing a yr of touching tributes to “The Great One.”

Many family members and native luminaries had been on the ceremony program. Julia M. Nazario, the mayor of close by Loíza, gave opening remarks, and a number of other of Clemente’s relations spoke. The Puerto Rican nationwide anthem, “La Borinqueña,” was carried out by a Clemente household pal. Representatives from Wreaths Across America and Crowley — who sponsored two different ceremonies honoring Clemente earlier in December — had been additionally current.

For Luis Clemente — the second of Roberto Clemente’s three sons — and his household, this wreath-laying ceremony was removed from the primary time they’ve stepped foot on these somber grounds. They have been visiting the positioning yearly because the accident to pay respects. According to Luis, for the primary a number of years after his father’s loss of life, 1000’s of followers joined them on the website in Carolina. This quantity dwindled through the years to ultimately encompass simply the Clemente household.

However, that could be altering quickly. The crash website was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in August 2022, and there are plans to construct an official memorial on the accident website to Roberto Clemente and the 4 others who perished within the aircraft crash. This memorial received’t open till someday in 2023 on the earliest with many particulars nonetheless to work out, together with design, safety, tips on how to acquire choices and making ready for doubtlessly massive crowds.

“We want to open up that area for the millions of fans, to have a place for them to be able to pay their respects,” Luis Clemente stated in a telephone interview with MLB.com. “[Roberto Clemente is] not in a cemetery [because his body was never recovered], so this place will be that place where people can officially and formally pay their respects. That’s what we want to do for all the people that have shown their love.”

Before the commemorative wreath laying on the thirty first, different occasions honoring Roberto Clemente befell all through December. 

On Dec. 12, there was a wreath-laying ceremony exterior the Roberto Clemente Complex in Carolina in entrance of a big bronze cenotaph devoted to Clemente, which stretches over 30 toes lengthy and depicts main occasions in his life. Such a tribute is generally reserved for army heroes, however Clemente’s humanitarian work mixed together with his army service — he served within the U.S. Marine Corps as a reserve infantryman from 1958-64 — impressed the opening of this show in 1999.

Luis Clemente has continuously spoken about Roberto through the years, however at this ceremony, in entrance of the cenotaph proper earlier than the fiftieth anniversary of his father’s loss of life, there was an additional factor of marvel.

“I received a picture of when I was speaking at the podium. … I saw this light, this aura, around my head,” Clemente stated. “That day, I cannot explain what I was feeling as I was speaking. But everyone told me that the message, words, everything that I said, ‘I’ve never ever heard you speak that way. But you did that day.’”

Clemente added that shortly earlier than the Dec. 12 ceremony, his affiliate Victor Rivera — a member of the Roberto Clemente Foundation board of administrators — dreamt that Luis and others on the town for the ceremony had been in the midst of a volunteer undertaking and had related auras round their heads, as if Roberto Clemente’s spirit was watching over all of them.

“So the dream [Rivera] had, it was like everyone that was there with us was glowing, and [then] they sent me this picture [of me with the aura],” Luis Clemente stated. “I didn’t connect his dream to this, but I was amazed by the picture. I call [him back] and I say, ‘Look at the picture you sent me.’ And he said, ‘Oh my God, remember the dream I told you?’ I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

After the ceremony on the twelfth, Luis and his household volunteered at one other occasion on Dec. 17 for National Wreaths Across America Day, throughout which army veterans laid to relaxation on the Puerto Rico National Cemetery had wreaths laid throughout their graves.

These three December occasions rounded out a yr of tributes to Roberto Clemente throughout the baseball world. Major League Baseball celebrated the twenty first annual Roberto Clemente Day on Sept. 15, which included a ceremony earlier than the Pirates-Mets sport at Citi Field (with greater than a dozen former Roberto Clemente Award winners in attendance), gamers throughout the league sporting No. 21 and the Rays — purely by coincidence — fielding the primary all-Latino lineup in MLB historical past.

Additionally, the Roberto Clemente Award, thought-about MLB’s most prestigious off-field honor, was given to Justin Turner. The award has been given out yearly since 1971, was named for Clemente in ‘73 and honors players who contribute in significant, meaningful ways to their community, as Clemente did throughout his life. The Clemente family has always been actively involved in selecting the winner. That included Vera Clemente, Roberto’s spouse, till her passing in 2019. Mrs. Clemente served because the chairwoman of the Roberto Clemente Foundation and was a goodwill ambassador for MLB.

Luis Clemente was current in any respect three December ceremonies and a number of other of MLB’s commemorative occasions in 2022. His life’s work is to “continue the Clemente mission” as authentically as potential. On Dec. 31, as is custom when speaking about his father, Luis spoke not from notecards, however straight from the center.

“To be a Clemente, you need to understand the greatness of it, but you have to handle it with a great amount of humbleness,” he stated. “Day in and day out, all that [I do] revolves around that. So for me it’s a way of living. … Make sure that anything you touch, you touch in a positive way. That’s what we want to do.”