Clemente by The Clemente Family

Author:The Clemente Family [Family, The Clemente]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101616840
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

“WE BECAME FRIENDS very quickly,” Sanguillén says today. While telling the story, speaking of how he went to look for Clemente’s body in the Atlantic Ocean after the plane crash, Sanguillén becomes emotional. People who speak about Clemente often do this. That’s the effect he had on the lives of people who knew him well, and even some who did not.

After Clemente’s death, Sanguillén, though a catcher, was asked to replace his close friend in right field. What’s more, he was assigned to Clemente’s old locker. The emotional strangeness of it all was too surreal for Sanguillén—his friend was gone, and here he was, playing his position and using his old locker. “I missed him so badly,” Sanguillén said. “I still miss him.”

Sanguillén and teammate Willie Stargell were at the Clemente home in Puerto Rico almost immediately after news of the accident broke. Sanguillén pulled Roberto Jr. aside and told him everything would be okay. “Your father is lost,” Sanguillén told him, “and I’m going to try and find him.”

The crash happened at a place called Punta Maldonado. It’s a sliver of rock that juts out into the Atlantic from Piñones Beach (a visit there now shows there is no type of Clemente memorial at the scene). After the accident, the area was packed with hundreds of Puerto Rican people who waited for news as divers from the coast guard searched the waters for survivors and wreckage. On the first of eleven days, a rainbow hovered over the beach, and each day of those almost two weeks, hundreds came to the area, some hoping Clemente’s body would be found. Others came to offer prayers and well-wishes.

Another Clemente teammate came to the beach in the aftermath of the accident besides Sanguillén. Blass went to San Juan almost immediately after news of the crash became public. He was stunned by what he saw. It was those hundreds of people, initially waiting for Clemente to return, then realizing he wouldn’t, and then, paralyzed by this knowledge, waiting on the beach out of respect for as long as they could. “Those people didn’t know what to do, so they went to the beach,” he said. “Roberto was out there somewhere, so they went to the beach and waited.”

Vera waited with them.

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