Colorado Rockies: Ian Desmond named Roberto Clemente Award nominee

Each of the 30 MLB teams has a nominee for what MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred says is “baseball’s most prestigious award.”

MLB announced that Colorado Rockies outfielder and first baseman Ian Desmond the team’s nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award yesterday afternoon. The award’s nominees are announced always announced in September and, eventually, the winner is announced.

Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred calls the award “baseball’s most prestigious award.”

Who was Roberto Clemente and what is the award for?

If you don’t know who Roberto Clemente is, he was an outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955-1972. His final regular season hit was just a few days before what would end up being his last. It was number 3,000.

Just before Christmas, on December 23, 1972, the country of Nicaragua was stricken with an earthquake. The first three planes that Clemente has sent to the area with supplies, according to El Nuevo Diario, a newspaper in Managua, Nicaragua, the country’s capital city, in this article (it’s in Spanish), never got to Nicaragua due to the corrupt government ruling the country stealing the supplies.

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As a result, Clemente decided to go on the plane itself and deliver the supplies personally. However, he never made it as the plane died to engine failure in the Atlantic Ocean. Nobody on the plane, including Clemente, survived. Clemente was just 38 years old.

As a result, the 12-time Gold Glove Award Winner, 12-time All-Star, 1966 MVP, and two-time World Champion was voted into the Baseball Hall-of-Fame in 1973 after they waived the five year waiting period for him. The Pirates retired his number and baseball created the Roberto Clemente Award, which, per Mark Bowman of MLB.com, “goes to a player from each club who best represents the game of baseball through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions, both on and off the field.”

Next: Venezuela and the country's influence on the Rockies

Final Thoughts

As alluded to by Commissioner Manfred, it’s a tremendous honor to be nominated for the award. If you win it, it is even more prestigious. The players don’t take it lightly. If you can be compared to Roberto Clemente for anything, you have done something right.