BASEBALL Clemente, Robinson positive effects

The lives of baseball stars Roberto Clemente's and Jackie Robinson's transcended sports.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Their major league paths crossed only briefly. Jackie Robinson was ending a Hall of Fame career crammed with sociological ramifications about the same time that Roberto Clemente was starting one every bit as critical.
They shared one other similarity. Each of them believed there was more to life than runs, hits and errors.
Robinson's philosophy is etched on his tombstone: "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
Clemente put it this way: "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth."
Robinson's impact as modern baseball's first black player was enormous. Clemente, the most important Latin player, did not waste his time.
30 years ago
Thirty years ago Tuesday, as many of his friends and teammates were celebrating New Year's Eve, Clemente was at the airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, loading rescue supplies on a prop-driven DC-7 bound for earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
Three thousand people were dead. Thousands more were injured. Clemente already had flown there once to help the survivors. Now, disturbed by reports that the black market had dipped into rescue supplies, he was going back.
The flight had been delayed 16 hours. Clemente was impatient, eager to get on with the trip because he knew how desperately the people needed help. Waiting for a replacement plane would have been wasting time.
So they took off, five men in a plane with a history of problems, overloaded with 16,000 pounds of supplies.
Bound for eternity.
Humanitarian interests
Long before the doomed Nicaragua flight, Clemente had expressed humanitarian interests that stretched well beyond baseball. His dream was to establish a sports city in Puerto Rico and he dedicated himself to improving the lives of those from the island. He had a passion for his native land.
That same passion led him to the plight of the people of Nicaragua and the fateful New Year's Eve flight.
"At the time of the crash, my father was looking for land for the Sports City," said Roberto Clemente, Jr. "He had talked to friends and people. It was his dream. After the crash, the governor donated 600 acres of land to build the city."
Today, the Sports City stands 10 minutes from the airport, six baseball fields, a track, basketball and volleyball facilities.
"It is his legacy," Clemente said. "His dream lives there."
His father was an established star, equipped with a spotless resume that included 3,000 hits, a milestone achieved in the final game of the 1972 season. There were four batting championships, a career .317 average and grudging acknowledgment that he was probably the best right fielder of his time.3