A breath of fresh air

[stomperrob]

For those of you who are fed up with the steroid scandal (and bloated records) and spoiled athletes always demanding astronomical salaries and greedy owners and all the other negatives that seem to go with pro sports, check out this week's Sports Illustrated (April 10 edition). Great story on one of the most selfless individuals in the history of sports, Roberto Clemente.
Some of today's athletes, and probably a lot of us, could take a few lessons from this hero's example who died in a plane crash flying emergency relief to earthquake victims in Nicaragua (something I didn't know was that he had a lot of sleepless nights because he always had nightmares about dying in a plane crash). He had chartered planes to fly relief supplies to the victims but when he learned that armed soldiers of dictator General Somoza were stealing most of the supplies for themselves, Clemente decided to accompany the supplies to face the soldiers in person to make sure the supplies got to the people in need (he felt because of his celebrity status the soldiers would listen to him). The plane crashed into the ocean shortly after takeoff and there were no survivors.
Clemente lived his life by one simple credo: "If you have chance to make life better for others and fail to do so, you are wasting your time on earth".
Now that's my definition of a hero!

[baseball6791]

[bceagles04]

ya, i dont know too much about Clemente other than the fact that he dedicated his life to helping others. Too bad most players cant follow the example

[Madison]

I might have to pick up this issue. Thanks for the heads up!

[avsfan4ever33]

Haven't had the chance to read my issue of it yet but I defienetly will!

[chadlincoln]

Good story. Great guys.

Don't forget about guys like Latrell Spreewell who are trying to feed people too (his family).

[Rirruto]

For some reason, when I saw the title of this thread, I saw Fresh Prince of Bel Air lol

[AcidRock23]

That was a very engaging story. The only thing that bothered me a bit is that the parts about his baseball talked about his amazing performance but left out what I've read about his flawed plate discipline which, if anything, would serve to further humanize him and form an important part of his personality.

The whole thing was a truly senseless tragedy too, I had never known about the totally shady circumstances surrounding the crash.

[Omaha Red Sox]

That was a great article. Nice post stomp.

[stomperrob]

The whole thing was a truly senseless tragedy too, I had never known about the totally shady circumstances surrounding the crash.

Same here - I had always thought it was just a freak accident, never realized what a lowlife the owner of the plane was and what a piece of crap the plane was.