Rent Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

Synopsis

In this biography of baseball legend Roberto Clemente, David Maraniss recounts the life and career of Number 21, conveying why, more than three decades after his untimely death in a plane crash, Clemente is revered as both a player and a man. Born in Puerto Rico, Clemente was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers, but he played most of his major league career with the Pittsburgh Pirate as a right fielder and hitter whose amazing statistics alone place him in anyone’s top ten list. He was also a barrier-breaker--the first Latin-American player in the majors--and Maraniss recounts the shocking racism Clemente endured, from second-class accommodations on the road to demeaning representations in the press. Clemente's playing reached a height in the 1971 World Series; a year later, while flying supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, the plane he was in went down in the sea, and his body was never recovered. Maraniss captures the life and times of this baseball great, and recalls an era that is now past.

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