http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF049FyXIUs&hl=en
Spooky, huh?
I know its easy to make a claim that you never know when your time may be up in this world, but it sounds odd coming from a professional athlete. Nowadays, with so many players worried about contracts, injuries, playing well in contract years for bigger paydays down the road, endorsements, etc., its peculiar to think any of ’em might actually contemplate their own demise. Maybe this video shows how much the modern athlete has changed from his predecessor.
Or maybe Clemente was just that special of a guy.
We always hear of Clemente’s skill and his incredible sense of compassion for disaster victims. However, his time was before that of Youtube (damn you, Al Gore), so actually seeing him talk of his own mortality is entirely spooky.
Clemente’s head was in the right spot. He was a season away from his 3,000th hit, and knew it was still a distant possibility. He was injured throughout the ’72 season, and his hit came in September, well after the All-Star break. Still, with such a historic achievement within grasp, Clemente knew that the plateau was still out of his hands. His untimely death is foreshadowed in this video, a thought that sends chills up my spine.
Roberto Clemente. Baseball player, humanitarian, hero, All-Star…clairvoyant?
