Roberto & Me (14 page)

I HATE MONDAYS. ESPECIALLY MONDAYS LIKE THIS MONDAY
, when we get our report cards. Most schools send out report cards by mail, so you don't see the bad news until you get home. At my school, they hand them out first thing in the morning, during homeroom. That way you have the whole day to figure out how you're going to explain things to your parents.

“…Morrisey…Peters…Ralston…”

My homeroom teacher, Mr. Meyer, was calling out our names in alphabetical order.

“…Soriano…Stoshack…”

I marched up to the front of the class, and Mr. Meyer handed me my envelope. Why do they even bother putting them in envelopes? I started ripping it open before I got back to my seat.

What?!

I had to look at it twice. Maybe the name was
wrong and they gave me somebody else's report card by mistake, I figured. No, that's me. Maybe somebody was goofing on me and they changed my grade.

I got an A in Spanish!
Nina Wallace

Nope, there were no signs of tampering.

I, Joe Stoshack, aced Spanish!

Still, it had to be a mistake, I figured. Just a few days ago I got that progress report saying I was flunking Spanish. How could I bring my grade up to an A so fast?

For once, I was glad I had Spanish first period on Mondays. The bell rang, and everybody bolted out of homeroom like it was the Olympics or something. We only have three minutes between classes, and you get detention if you're one second late.

I got to Señorita Molina's room before any of the other kids. There was a candle burning on her desk,
as usual, and she was standing at the whiteboard.

Wait a minute.

Standing?!

I stopped in the doorway. Where was her wheelchair? Not only was Señorita Molina standing on her own two feet, but the whiteboard was three feet higher than it used to be. For a moment, I thought I had walked into the wrong class.

“Buenos dias, Tito,”
Señorita Molina said. “Did you do anything interesting over the weekend?”

Well, yeah! It looked like I changed Señorita Molina's whole life over the weekend! But at first I really couldn't comprehend that it was true.

“Señorita, where is your wheelchair?” I asked her.

“Wheelchair?” she said. “What wheelchair?”

“You know,” I said, “the one you sit in all the time?”

A couple of kids who came in behind me started giggling.

“Stoshack
es loco
,” somebody said.

“Don't you remember?” I said to Señorita Molina. “When you were very young, you had an infection in your spine and you needed antibiotics, but your family didn't have the money and…”

“I really don't know what you're talking about, Tito,” Señorita Molina said. “Take your seat, please.”

“But you told me…”

“Estas bien?”
she said, putting her hand on my forehead just like my mother does when she thinks
I have a fever. “Do you need to go see the nurse, Tito?”

“Uh, no.”

I just stood there for a minute, dazed. Everybody was laughing at me, but I didn't care.

I did it!

Señorita Molina must have received the envelope I'd mailed to her in 1972. Her parents used the hundred dollars to buy the antibiotics she needed. It cured her infection, and she didn't need the wheelchair!

She has no memory that it even happened, I realized. She was so young. The medicine took care of the infection, and it wasn't a significant event in her life. She has no idea I was responsible.

Maybe I didn't save Roberto Clemente's life, but I
did
change history.

“Is there anything else, Tito?” Señorita Molina asked. “We need to start class now.”

“Oh, I just wanted to thank you for the A you gave me on my report card,” I said.

“Don't thank me,” she said. “It was your extra credit project. Very imaginative.”

Extra credit project? I didn't remember doing any extra credit project.

Confused, I went to my seat. I was still thinking about what had just happened.

Just to make sure I wasn't completely out of my mind, I looked up at Señorita Molina again.

And I can't be completely sure, but I think she threw me a wink.

Everything in this book is true, except for the stuff I made up. It's only fair to tell you which is which.

It is definitely true that Roberto Clemente was one of baseball's greatest players. But more importantly, he was one of baseball's greatest
people
. After a short lifetime filled with humanitarian efforts, on New Year's Eve 1972 he died in a plane crash while attempting to deliver food and medicine to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. His body was never found.

Major League Baseball's highest honor for community service is the Roberto Clemente Man of the Year Award, which is given each year to a player who combines outstanding skills on the field with devoted work in the community.

There are at least forty schools called Roberto Clemente School worldwide. Two hundred parks and
baseball fields have been named in his memory, as well as two hospitals in Puerto Rico.

National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY

Clemente loved working with children, and in 1959 he first dreamed of building a sports city where poor kids could learn not just how to play, but also how to be good citizens. That dream was finally realized when Roberto's wife, Vera, and their sons opened Roberto Clemente Sports City in Carolina, Puerto Rico, the town where he grew up. It has turned out stars such as Ivan Rodriguez, Benito Santiago, Ruben Sierra, and Roberto and Sandy Alomar Jr.

Clemente was the first Hispanic player to win a batting title and also the first to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Much like Jackie Robinson a generation earlier, Roberto Clemente paved the way and inspired hundreds of Latin American players. Today, about a quarter of all major-league players are
Latino. Some of them, such as Jose Guillen, Ruben Sierra, and Sammy Sosa, wore number 21 in honor of Roberto Clemente.

Roberto was also well-known for his physical ailments. It is true that he needed to have his neck “booped” to move the disks back into place. He was also an amateur chiropractor and would use his healing touch to help teammates and sometimes strangers. And he loved fruit milk shakes.

Most of the information about Roberto came from David Maraniss's biography
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
. I also got a lot of good material from
Roberto Clemente: The Great One,
by Bruce Markusen.

I wish I was there, but I did not attend the Woodstock Festival in 1969. With the help of books and videos, I tried to capture the look and feel of the event. Peter, Wendy, and Sunrise are fictional characters, but lots of hippies drove Volkswagen vans to and from Woodstock. Other fictional characters in this story include Stosh, his parents, Bernard and his family, Flip, and Señorita Molina.

The Pittsburgh Pirates did play at Crosley Field in Cincinnati on the night Woodstock ended, but Bob Moose was not the pitcher, and the play-by-play described here is not identical to the actual game. Clemente's heroics described in that game were actually condensed from plays he made over the course of his career. Crosley Field was torn down in 1972. And the Mets did make a dramatic come-from-behind
charge in 1969, winning 38 of their last 49 games—and the World Series.

 

Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to predict the future, and usually failing. We will probably
never
have flying cars or personal jet packs.

Nobody today knows what life will be like in the year 2080. But many scientists believe that unless we stop burning fossil fuels and switch to solar, wind, and other clean sources of energy, we are heading toward an environmental disaster. You can do something about it. If you want your great-grandchildren to have a different life than Joe Stoshack's great-grandson, here are some websites I urge you to visit:

EPA Climate Change Kids Site

(www.epa.gov/globalwarming/kids) Learn about the greenhouse effect, how humans change the climate, and what we can do about it.

What's Up with the Weather?

(www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming) This PBS site helps you find out how much fossil fuel you use.

The Green Squad

(www.nrdc.org/greensquad) Kids taking action to make greener, healthier schools.

Environmental Kids Club

(www.epa.gov/kids) A
club for kids interested in learning more about the environment and in getting involved in environmental activities.

Tree Musketeers

(www.treemusketeers.org) An organization dedicated to empowering young people to lead environmental improvement movements.

It's Getting Hot In Here

(http://itsgettinghotinhere.org) A growing movement of student and youth leaders who aim to stop global warming and to build a more just and sustainable future.

Natural Resources Defense Council

(www.nrdc.org) They work to protect the planet—its people, plants, and animals—and to help create a new way of life for humankind, without fouling or depleting the resources that support all life on Earth.

Sierra Club

(www.sierraclub.org) This is America's oldest, largest, and most influential environmental organization. More than a million members work to protect the planet.

Greenpeace

(www.greenpeaceusa.org) Since 1971, they have been fighting to protect the environment through education and activism.

Stop Global Warming

(www.stopglobalwarming.org) A movement to demand that our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

 

As you go about helping others, remember Roberto Clemente's words:
“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth.”

Roberto Clemente's Career Statistics

Year: 1954

Team: Montreal

Games: 87

At Bats: 148

Hits: 38

Doubles: 5

Triples: 3

Home Runs: 2

Runs Batted In: 12

Batting Average: .257

 

Year: 1955

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 124

At Bats: 474

Hits: 121

Doubles: 23

Triples: 11

Home Runs: 5

Runs Batted In: 47

Batting Average: .255

 

Year: 1956

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 147

At Bats: 543

Hits: 169

Doubles: 30

Triples: 7

Home Runs: 7

Runs Batted In: 60

Batting Average: .311

 

Year: 1957

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 111

At Bats: 451

Hits: 114

Doubles: 17

Triples: 7

Home Runs: 4

Runs Batted In: 30

Batting Average: .253

 

Year: 1958

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 140

At Bats: 519

Hits: 150

Doubles: 24

Triples: 10

Home Runs: 6

Runs Batted In: 50

Batting Average: .289

 

Year: 1959

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 105

At Bats: 432

Hits: 128

Doubles: 17

Triples: 7

Home Runs: 4

Runs Batted In: 50

Batting Average: .296

 

Year: 1960

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 144

At Bats: 570

Hits: 179

Doubles: 22

Triples: 6

Home Runs: 16

Runs Batted In: 94

Batting Average: .314

 

Year: 1961

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 146

At Bats: 572

Hits: 201

Doubles: 30

Triples: 10

Home Runs: 23

Runs Batted In: 89

Batting Average: .351

 

Year: 1962

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 144

At Bats: 538

Hits: 168

Doubles: 28

Triples: 9

Home Runs: 10

Runs Batted In: 74

Batting Average: .312

 

Year: 1963

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 152

At Bats: 600

Hits: 192

Doubles: 23

Triples: 8

Home Runs: 17

Runs Batted In: 76

Batting Average: .320

 

Year: 1964

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 155

At Bats: 622

Hits: 211

Doubles: 40

Triples: 7

Home Runs: 12

Runs Batted In: 87

Batting Average: .339

 

Year: 1965

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 152

At Bats: 589

Hits: 194

Doubles: 21

Triples: 14

Home Runs: 10

Runs Batted In: 65

Batting Average: .329

 

Year: 1966

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 154

At Bats: 638

Hits: 202

Doubles: 31

Triples: 11

Home Runs: 29

Runs Batted In: 119

Batting Average: .317

 

Year: 1967

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 147

At Bats: 585

Hits: 209

Doubles: 26

Triples: 10

Home Runs: 23

Runs Batted In: 110

Batting Average: .357

 

Year: 1968

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 132

At Bats: 502

Hits: 146

Doubles: 18

Triples: 12

Home Runs: 18

Runs Batted In: 57

Batting Average: .291

 

Year: 1969

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 138

At Bats: 507

Hits: 175

Doubles: 20

Triples: 12

Home Runs: 19

Runs Batted In: 91

Batting Average: .345

 

Year: 1970

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 108

At Bats: 412

Hits: 145

Doubles: 22

Triples: 10

Home Runs: 14

Runs Batted In: 60

Batting Average: .352

 

Year: 1971

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 132

At Bats: 522

Hits: 178

Doubles: 29

Triples: 8

Home Runs: 13

Runs Batted In: 86

Batting Average: .341

 

Year: 1972

Team: Pittsburgh

Games: 102

At Bats: 378

Hits: 118

Doubles: 19

Triples: 7

Home Runs: 10

Runs Batted In: 60

Batting Average: .312

 

Total

Games: 2433

At Bats: 9454

Hits: 3000

Doubles: 440

Triples: 166

Home Runs: 240

Runs Batted In: 1305

Batting Average: .317