Retire #21

Roberto Clemente Walker

Pittsburg Pirates

Aug. 18th, 1934 - Dec. 31st, 1972

A friend put a thought into my head, and it truly got me thinking. The number 42 is retired and is not to be used in professional baseball. He asked about retiring the number of Roberto Clemente, #21.

He is right, Clemente's number should be retired from professional baseball. He is a Hall of Famer, that also broke racial barriers, like Jackie Robinson, being the first Latino inducted into the Hall of Fame. His career statistics are great, with a .317 batting average, 3,000 hits, 240 home runs, and 1,305 runs batted in, playing his entire career of 18 years with the same team, winning two World Series, a MVP, a World series MVP, 15 All-Star nods, 12 Golden Gloves, and 4 NL Batting titles. Clemente's career was cut short and these numbers would probably have been much larger, along with the awards.

I know that everyone has been hagiographic over Jeter and how he has earned so much respect, but Clemente laid a lot of the foundation and set the example for players like Jeter. Clemente's off the field life is what makes him much more respectable then Jeter could ever be. Clement played the game right, both on the field and off, early in his career, Clemente even spent his off season in the military as a Marine Reservist, and of course his charity work.

Clemente's philanthropy and his work established the Roberto Clemente Award, which is awarded to a player each each with great skill and involved in community work, this award has been given out since 1973 (back dated to 1971). A wide range of players have been awarded this prestigious honor, from Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Cal Ripken Jr., Kirby Puckett, Tony Gwynn, to David Ortiz and Clayton Kershaw. Even Derek Jeter was honored in 2009.

I support the movement to honor one of the greatest individuals to play the sport of baseball by retiring his number 21. So I have included the link www.retire21.org Go to the website and sign the petition to move this forward.