Roberto Clemente - Posthumous Honors

Posthumous Honors

On March 20, 1973, the Baseball Writers' Association of America held a special election for the Baseball Hall of Fame. They voted to waive the waiting period for Clemente, due to the circumstances of his death, and posthumously elected him for induction into the Hall of Fame, giving him 393 of the 420 available votes, or 92% of the vote. Clemente's Hall of Fame plaque had originally read "Roberto Walker Clemente". In 2000, the plaque was recast to express his name in the proper Hispanic format, "Roberto Clemente Walker".

MLB presents the Roberto Clemente Award every year to the player who best follows Clemente's example with humanitarian work.

In 1973, Clemente was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the first Presidential Citizens Medal.

In 2002, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 2003, he was inducted into the United States Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame.

In 2005, Clemente was named a member of Major League Baseball's Latino Legends Team.

At the Major League Baseball All-Star game in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 11, 2006, many of the players on both teams wore yellow wristbands with the initials "RCW" in honor of Clemente. At the end of the fourth inning, Clemente was awarded the Commissioner's Historical Achievement Award by the Commissioner of Baseball; the award was accepted by his widow. During the award presentation, the Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig stated that "Roberto was a hero in every sense of the term".

PNC Park, the home ballpark of the Pirates which opened in 2001, includes a right field wall 21 feet (6.4 m) high, in reference to Clemente's uniform number and his normal fielding position during his years with the Pirates. The Pirates originally erected a statue in memory of Clemente at Three Rivers Stadium, an honor previously awarded to Honus Wagner. The statue was moved to PNC Park when it opened, and stands at the corner near the Roberto Clemente Bridge. An identical smaller statue was unveiled in Newark, New Jersey's Branch Brook Park in 2012. The team considered naming PNC Park after Clemente, but despite popular sentiment the team chose instead to sell the naming rights to locally-based PNC Financial Services, with the bridge being renamed after him considered a compromise.

Puerto Rico has honored Clemente's memory by naming the coliseum in San Juan the Roberto Clemente Coliseum; two baseball parks are in Carolina, the professional one, Roberto Clemente Stadium, and the Double-A. There is also the Escuela de los Deportes (School of Sports) that has the Double-A baseball park. Today, this sports complex is called Ciudad Deportiva Roberto Clemente.

In Pittsburgh, the 6th Street Bridge was renamed in his memory, and the Pirates retired his number 21 at the start of the 1973 season. The City of Pittsburgh maintains Roberto Clemente Memorial Park along North Shore Drive in the city's North Side which includes a bronze relief by sculptor Eleanor Milleville. In 2007, the Roberto Clemente Museum opened in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh. Near the old Forbes Field where he began his pro career the city of Pittsburgh has renamed a street in his honor.

Champion thoroughbred horse Roberto, bred in 1968 and owned by then-Pirates owner John W. Galbreath, was named for Clemente. The horse would go on to become a champion in Britain and Ireland, and in June 1973, following Clemente's passing, won the Group I Coronation Stakes at Epsom.

In 1973, the state of New York opened Roberto Clemente State Park in The Bronx. Some schools, such as Roberto Clemente High School in Chicago the Roberto Clemente Charter School in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Roberto Clemente Academy in Detroit, Michigan, were named in his honor. Clemente was inducted into the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame. There's also a Roberto Clemente Stadium in Masaya, Nicaragua. There's also a middle school in Germantown, Maryland called Roberto W. Clemente Middle School

On August 17, 1984, the day before what would have been his 50th birthday, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp honoring Clemente. Designed by Juan Lopez-Bonilla, the spare clean design shows Clemente wearing his Pirates cap, with the Puerto Rican flag in the background.

In 1999, Clmente ranked Number 20 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, the highest-ranking Latino player on the list. Later that year, Clemente was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. As part of the Golden Anniversary of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award, Clemente was selected to the All-Time Rawlings Gold Glove Team.

Clemente's #21 remains active in Major League Baseball, and is worn by multiple players. Sammy Sosa wore #21 throughout his career as a tribute to his childhood hero. The number is unofficially retired in the Puerto Rico Baseball League. While the topic of retiring #21 throughout Major League Baseball like Jackie Robinson's #42 has been broached, and supported by groups such as Hispanics Across America, Jackie Robinson's daughter disagrees, believing that Major League Baseball should honor him another way.