MLB Network Special Goes In Depth With Clemente Award Winners

New Year’s Eve will mark the 50^th anniversary of Roberto Clemente’s tragic death.

The baseball great was killed in a plane crash off the coast of San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was part of a humanitarian effort carrying food and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua.

Though so much time has passed since the Hall of Fame right fielder and Pittsburgh Pirates legend died, his memory carries on within baseball. Each year, Major League Baseball presents the Roberto Clemente Award to the player who best represents the game through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions, both on and off the field.

September 15 is annually Roberto Clemente Day in MLB and this year’s award winner will be announced live on MLB Network’s “MLB Tonight” show that will air at 6 p.m. ET from Citi Field in New York before the Mets host the Pirates. The game will be televised by Fox beginning at 7 p.m.

Also, at 7 p.m., MLB Network will air a new “MLB Tonight: A Conversation” program. It will be hosted by Harold Reynolds and Pedro Martinez and include guest appearances from Clemente Award winners Albert Pujols, Derek Jeter, Jimmy Rollins, Ozzie Smith, Rod Carew, Curtis Granderson and Nelson Cruz.

It is revealing to hear what the Clemente Award means to those winners.

Hall of Fame shortstop Derek Jeter was a 14-time All-Star with the New York Yankees while winning five Gold Gloves, five Silver Sluggers and, most memorably, five World Series rings. However, he does not put any of those awards and accomplishments ahead of the Clemente Award.

“It sits right there up at the top because it’s not just about what you did on the field,” said Jeter, who won the award in 2009. “I think you go around and you ask everyone in the game about Roberto Clemente, the first thing that comes to mind is all the work he did in the community … then your mind goes to just what he stood for, not just his stats on the field and the fact that he’s a Hall of Fame baseball player but just how much giving back to the community meant to him.”

Another former star shortstop, Jimmy Rollins, echoed Jeter’s sentiments. Rollins was the award winner in 2014 in the latter stages of a 17-year career that included the 2007 National League MVP award with the Philadelphia Phillies, four Gold Gloves and three All-Star Game appearances.

“That is definitely at the top, and it’s for everything that you do out of a uniform,” Rollins said. “The uniform gives us a platform to have an impact in the communities that we play in, but also get respect in those communities in a different way. When they see us as, at times, superhuman and as superstars because we’re just on TV and we’ve reached the pinnacle of our dream.

“So, we have a chance to step outside of that, for me with bringing kids on the field and talking to them and meeting them on ‘their level’ to humanize myself, that’s what it meant. That yes, I’ve been successful, but before all of this I’m a human being first and I care about people.”

While many of the award winners never had the opportunity to meet Clemente, Hall of Famer Rod Carew did. Carew’s career overlapped with the last seasons of Clemente’s, and though they played in different leagues, had the chance to visit at All-Star Games.

His conversations with Clemente remain among the most cherished moments of Carew’s career, which was highlighted by seven American League batting titles.

Carew keeps the Clemente Award, which he won in 1977, front and center in his home.

“That’s the first thing that I would show people when they come into my home because it was about a great guy, a great humanitarian, and he cared about people,” Carew said.