Reflections on Roberto Clemente -- The Musical

Roberto Clemente's Plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame

Our friend Phil Dorsey, one of TheBocx.com's partners, suggested my wife and I join him to see a musical based on the life of the late, great baseball player and Puerto Rican icon Roberto Clemente. Phil has a personal connection to Clemente's life; Dorsey's father, a Pittsburgh postal worker, knew Clemente quite well. How well? The Pittsburgh Pirate right fielder entrusted Dorsey, Sr., with the keys to Roberto's Cadillac when Clemente was on the road. The musical -- DC7, The Roberto Clemente Story -- included a character based on Phil's father, and that piqued our interest in the play.

I thought Phil was pulling our legs (he is an excellent practical joker), but the press release about the play confirmed that someone indeed had made the stuff of Clemente's life into a musical. At first, the concept seemed an unlikely one. I had a hard time imagining a singer/dancer wearing a Pirate baseball uniform using Bob Fosse-styled technique and not looking ridiculous in the process. I had not factored an essential part of the musical, and a core concept of Puerto Rican culture: how music, dancing, and the dialogue between musicians and the audience informs the musical event. Once I heard and saw the performance's first number, I grasped the validity and necessity of treating Clemente's life in a musical form.

Today, the majority of major league baseball players are Latin. Few have significant commercial endorsements. It's tough for Latin players, even in the post-Clemente era, to feel local fans' and media respect.  For every Big Papi getting love from Red Sox Nation, there are many more, equally or more talented Latin players wondering why fans never fully embrace them. (Carlos Beltran, formerly of the New York Mets, quickly comes to mind.) The dialogue between baseball fans and players, just as alive and vital as that between musicians and audience, has a different dynamic for Latin baseball players playing in front of predominantly Anglo audiences.

It has been nearly a half-century since Roberto Clemente died during a humanitarian mission to Nicaragua. He was a leader for, among other things, respect for Latin ballplayers and the greater Latin diaspora in the United States. If Clemente were alive now, he would say there's a great deal of unfinished business to be done.