In Pittsburgh, Posada Takes in All Things Clemente

By TYLER KEPNER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Published: June 26, 2008

PITTSBURGH — Jorge Posada is a five-time All-Star, but this week he is an awestruck fan. The Yankees are playing in Pittsburgh, where Roberto Clemente starred for the Pirates, and Clemente is a hero to Posada.



Associated Press
Catcher Jorge Posada visited a museum honoring Roberto Clemente, above. Posada is from Puerto Rico, as was Clemente.

Posada grew up in Puerto Rico, as did Clemente, and he was a year old when Clemente died in a plane crash in 1972. Clemente is revered in his country, and Posada was eager to take a tour of the Clemente museum in Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

He went with another catcher from Puerto Rico, José Molina, and took cellphone pictures of classic Clemente photographs. One is a posed shot of a young Clemente leaping to make a catch, with clouds in the background seeming to form wings on his shoulders. Posada ordered an enlargement of the picture for his home.

Posada said he knows Clemente’s widow, Vera, and he owns a copy of David Maraniss’s acclaimed 2006 biography. But he learned a lot at his tour of the museum.

“Little things, not only baseball stuff,” Posada said. “They wanted him to be in ‘The Odd Couple,’ but he was going to have to hit into a triple play. He wouldn’t do it. He said, ‘I’m never going to hit into a triple play.’ ”

Posada has a sticker in his home locker supporting the movement to retire Clemente’s No. 21 throughout the majors. He would surely approve of the Clemente quotation that every Pirates player sees on his way from the clubhouse to the dugout at PNC Park: “Whenever I put on my uniform,” it says, “I am the proudest man on Earth.”