Photo Exhibit Preview: Class of Clemente

Photo exhibit shows 'The Great One' in all his grace and glory

Thursday, June 01, 2006
By Patricia Lowry, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


'Roberto Clemente -- Photographs by Les Banos'

Where: Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, Strip District.

When: Saturday through Dec. 31.
Information: 412-454-6000.

When, two days before Christmas in the winter of 1972, Franco Harris pulled a football out of the air and saved the Steelers' season -- if only for another game -- he also saved Les Banos' life.
If the Steelers hadn't played again on New Year's Eve, Banos would have been on a plane to Managua, Nicaragua, with Roberto Clemente, taking food and clothing to earthquake victims. Fearing his contributions would be diverted, as other U.S. aid had been, by official corruption, Clemente wanted to deliver the supplies himself.

"On the way home from the ball game on Dec. 31, I was on the Parkway and heard on the radio that his plane went down," said Banos, who's 82 now. "I had to stop the car, I was so shook up.
Not only because I was supposed to go with him, but because he was a very good friend."
Banos joined the Pirates in 1969 as a still and motion picture photographer, producing team portraits, candid shots and coaching films. During the off-season, he worked for the Steelers.

Along the way, he and Clemente developed a friendship that went beyond the playing fields and locker rooms, bonded in part, Banos thinks, by their immigrant backgrounds.
"Because as you can hear, I have a Hungarian-German accent. He said, 'Do they make fun out of you for the way you talk, too? The newspaper reporters not only make fun of me, but print it with an accent.' He respected me and I respected him."

More than 40 of Banos' black-and-white photographs of Clemente, freshly printed by Lawrenceville photographer Duane Rieder, go on view Saturday at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, part of its "Summer of Baseball" roster of activities surrounding the July 11 All-Star game. Some of the images have never been seen by the public.

"You really get a sense of Clemente's personality and grace and the dignity with which he carried himself," said Anne Madarasz, the center's museum division director and the exhibit's curator. "There's something special about him as a man beyond his athletic talent. When great men like Clemente die in a tragic way, there's a sense of wanting to be closer to them, and you can see some of his character in the photographs. There's a real thoughtfulness and beauty to them that you don't see in a lot of sports photography."

"They were taken when I had a chance to," Banos said, at Forbes Field, at Three Rivers Stadium and on the road. "My favorite picture is of Roberto with his wife and three boys on Fathers and Sons Day at Three Rivers. Roberto is kneeling, and right next to him are all three of his boys in uniform, with Number 21, and [his wife] Vera in the background.

"I have a picture from when we came back from the '71 World Series of Roberto and Vera sitting in the plane with satisfied smiles. And a picture of Roberto and Maz in training camp in 1972, and the 3,000th hit picture, which shows the swinging of the bat in Three Rivers Stadium."
At Clemente's invitation, Banos traveled to Puerto Rico with him in 1971 and told him of his dreams of opening a chiropractic resort there after he retired. He wanted Banos to join him in the venture.

"He knew chiropractic practices," Banos said. Once, after two long cross-country flights, Banos said he got off the plane looking like a hunchback. Clemente told him to lie down on a gurney.
"He took the fat part of a baseball bat and pushed it down real hard on my spine from neck to tail bone, and put half a jar of Vaseline on his right elbow and pressed down from my neck to my tail bone real hard. Then he got on the gurney and put his knee down on my back and with his two hands pulled back my shoulders and I heard a crack," Banos said. "I have never had any problem ever since. That's a true story, believe me."

Banos is a story in his own right. Born and raised in Budapest, he was an Allied intelligence officer during World War II, as the liaison between Hungarian Nazi groups and the German SS, the Schutzstaffel paramilitary organization headed by Heinrich Himmler. Last year, Banos received an award from the Hungarian government, principally for hiding people from the Nazis.
He has written about those days in a manuscript he calls "If They Catch You, You Will Die," the mantra of his Allied trainers. He has asked the University of Pittsburgh Press to consider publishing it. After the war, Banos went to Pitt on scholarship, studying radio and television and later working at WQED and WTAE.

Clemente also was a writer, poet and sculptor, Madarasz said, although he's far better known as a humanitarian and a barrier breaker for Latino athletes. The Smithsonian Institution had planned a traveling exhibit about Clemente, she said, but when it was unable to fully fund it, produced the online exhibit, "Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente." The bilingual exhibit is available online now (http://www.robertoclemente.si.edu/) and will be featured in a computer kiosk within the photography exhibition. It includes games and activities for children and a teacher's resource area with free downloadable curriculum guides.

Both exhibits coincide with the arrival of a new biography, David Maraniss' "Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero." In it, Banos describes Clemente with a photographer's eye: "He was a sculpture. He could have posed for Greek statues," he said.
"What you saw with him was archaeology. He was a perfect model. Not an ounce of extra fat. All the right muscle. A perfect figure for a man of any age."

(Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590. )