It's how he played the game
Roberto Clemente gets the "American Experience" treatment next week, and there's no doubt he's a deserving subject for one of the rare sports profiles to grace the PBS series.
Yet would the notoriously proud, hypersensitive Clemente himself be satisfied by the hourlong documentary that results? On that, I'm not so sure.
"Roberto Clemente" debuts at 9 p.m. Monday on WTTW Channel 11, and it touches all the bases, even if Jimmy Smits' narration sometimes swings big and misses. "He was larger than the game he loved," Smits says, reading from the script by producer-director Bernardo Ruiz, "until his sudden tragic death made him larger still."
Geez, not even James Earl Jones' Terry Mann would lay it on that thick.
What's more, at an hour, it's a bit sketchy about the details of Clemente's life. It's impossible to do a wide-ranging biography in a mere 60 minutes, although it's worth noting that Walt Whitman got no more than that this week. (Whitman, however, at least merited an "American Experience" Web page, unlike Clemente; talk about unfair treatment.)
Yet what's here is quite good. Clemente is depicted as a proud Puerto Rican man caught by surprise by the Jim Crow racism he confronted at his first spring training in the mid-'50s with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and who never really fit in -- not in the blue-collar steel town, not even with fellow blacks, who considered him more of a foreigner.
Clemente also fell victim to the stereotype of the mercurial Latin athlete, a stereotype even he would have to admit he largely fit. "His feelings seemed to be right on the surface," says biographer David Maraniss, and George Will chimes in saying that ran counter to the postwar "stoicism" of white athletes of the era. Clemente too always seemed to be battling some nagging injury as a borderline hypochondriac and was famous for the way he'd stretch and bend his neck loosening up while coming to the plate.
Yet there's no denying he was a great baseball player, a 12-time Gold Glove winner as a right fielder with a rifle arm, a four-time batting champion and the 1966 Most Valuable Player -- although the documentary also insists he felt slighted by his eighth-place finish in the MVP voting in 1960, when he lost out to teammate Dick Groat.
Clemente was at his best under pressure, leading the Pirates to two World Series victories, both of which went the full seven games -- and in which he got a hit in every one. He became the 11th player in history to get 3,000 hits in 1972 -- only months before dying in a plane crash on a mission of mercy to Nicaragua following an earthquake.
That's the thing about Clemente that makes him more worthy of an "American Experience" special than other baseball greats. It wasn't just what he did on the field, but how he did it -- and what he did off the field -- that make him exceptional.
Clemente played with a uniquely Latin elan, a style beyond even the fiery determination that typified Jackie Robinson. "Clemente played with abandon," says one interview subject. "It was like a horse galloping around the bases." And again Will chimes in by calling him "a cauldron of energy."
He was also a person who gave much of himself off the field, as reflected in his untimely death. He was quick to organize Puerto Rican relief efforts after the 1972 Nicaraguan quake, and was prevailed upon to accompany the shipment of food and emergency supplies to make sure it wasn't simply confiscated by corrupt government officials on arrival. Yet the rickety old plane he chartered to make the flight on New Year's Eve never made it, and his body was never found.
Nevertheless, Clemente still embodies a uniquely Latin sense of black pride, and his life story, his struggle and demand for a respect that only really came with his death, reflect something of the "American Experience." If he doesn't get his own series Web page, at least his documentary isn't being buffeted around on the schedule only to be dumped out on a Sunday afternoon, the way Channel 11 treated Zora Neale Hurston earlier his month.
In the air
In search of 'Edisons'
PBS' "Everyday Edisons" -- "Project Runway" for the inventor set -- comes to Chicago looking for contestants at the McCormick Place South Building, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive, starting at 7 a.m. Saturday. Interested inventors should bring their prototypes and an application found at www.EverydayEdisons.com. Registration closes at 1 p.m.
Death and finales
James Marsters, better known as Spike from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," returns as Capt. John Hart for the second-season finale of the "Doctor Who" spin-off "Torchwood" at 8 p.m. Saturday on BBC America. … HBO's exquisite "John Adams" miniseries concludes at 8 p.m. Sunday with the inevitable for Laura Linney's Abigail and Paul Giamatti's John -- until they pick up their Emmys in the fall.
Nowak transplanted
Mike Nowak, who played host to "Let's Talk Gardening" for more than a decade on WGN 720-AM, debuts a new garden show at noon Sunday on WCPT 820-AM.
Waste Watcher's choice
Sleepless in Alaska
"Insomnia" is a U.S. remake of a Norwegian film about a guilt-ridden detective, and the American version features scenery-chewing performances by Al Pacino and Robin Williams. But look for Hilary Swank, more understated as Pacino's cop sidekick. It's at 10 p.m. Saturday on AMC.