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Roberto Clemente

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

Roberto Clemente is one of the former baseball players who hold the honor of being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Clemente was born on August 18, 1934 in the Carolina suburb of Puerto Rico. He was 20 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 17, 1955, with the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. He was nicknamed as Arriba and batted with right hand. A 5 feet 11 inches contender with a weight of 175 pounds, Clemente played his first game on 17 April, 1955 and last game on October 3, 1972. Unfortunately, he died on December 31, 1972 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Clemente came to a club that had suffered through three straight 100 loss seasons and was the weakest team in baseball. He was not an immediate superstar, although his brilliant fielding ability and rifle arm were apparent from the beginning. He went on to earn 12 Gold Gloves as a right fielder and set a Major League record by leading the National League in assists for five times.

Clemente also won two or more batting titles in 1964 and 1965 with impressive 0.339 and 0.329 mark respectively. Clemente did not lead the league in any major offensive category but his career high 29 home runs and 119 runs batted in record helped him win the MVP, Most Valuable Player award. In 1967, he captured his fourth batting crown with a 0.357 average, his best ever. By then, he became the elder statesman on a young Pittsburgh team. However, he did not receive a great deal of national media attention until 1971, when Pittsburgh met Baltimore in the World Series.

Clemente played, chasing down fly balls, unleashing great throws at every opportunity. He batted with impressive 0.414 average, 12 hits and two home runs which led in Pittsburgh's game seven victory, and winning the series MVP award. Clemente never had any equal as a fielder, base runner and batsman, combined with heady work of a quality.

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