On December 31, 1972 the world literally lost Roberto Clemente. His body was never found. A great ballplayer and humanitarian disappeared into a deep ocean when a plane overloaded with relief supplies failed to reach its final destination. A search began late that night off the coast of his native island and, in a way, we've been looking for him ever since. We look for him and we find him... in big cities and small towns, in schools and fields that bear his name, in quotes engraved upon plaques and memorials, in display cases in baseball's Hall of Fame. But it's never enough. Finding him in one place only makes us want to find him all over again somewhere else. Somewhere we least expect it. To stop looking for him would be to say goodbye. To admit he's gone. So we keep searching.
I remember the day that I first found Clemente. My third grade teacher emptied a large bag full of stamps onto a table and told us to each pick one to prepare a report on. Scanning the pile, I noticed a depiction of a man wearing a baseball cap. As a budding Mets fan on Long Island, I didn't recognize the name... but I knew I liked baseball. In the school library, his life story was revealed to me in simple language and colorful illustrations that made me an instant fan. For my following birthday, I asked my parents for a Clemente baseball card. They got me the 1967 Topps. I have it beside me on my desk right now as I type. 
As an adult, my search for Clemente has taken on new meaning. At times it's an active search. Whenever I visit Pittsburgh, I seek out sites and memorials where his spirit still lingers. As you can probably guess, they aren't hard to find in the Pirates home town. At other times, the search is more passive. The quote above the door at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park; the plaque in his honor at a field in Hartford, Connecticut; the aforementioned photo in the visitors' club house at Petco Park, and so on. These are my favorite sightings. The random stumbling upons of Clemente, far outside of Pittsburgh, that let me know I'm not alone in my search. All over the country, people are looking for him. They are bringing him into their own cities for others to find. His reach embraces us all.
In April of 2013, I found him again. I had been living in the Washington, DC area since 2001 and it had long since started feeling like home. When my friend informed me that a play about Clemente's life was coming to a nearby theater, I knew I would soon buy a ticket. What I didn't know until much later was that Clemente's oldest son, Roberto Jr., would also attend. I learned through a series of online articles that the theater would host a reception, and that it would be open to the ticket-holding public. That night, I proudly wore my number 21 Pirates t-shirt. Since it was a semi-formal event, I put it on over a button-down dress shirt and topped it off with a black sport coat. That's what I was wearing when I shook hands with a member of the Clemente family. I felt as if I had finally found something that I'd been looking for since the third grade.
Maybe that's why people called Roberto Clemente "The Great One" -- not The Great Hitter or the Great Right Fielder, or even The Great Humanitarian. A more all-encompassing word was required. His legacy is so far reaching, it makes us question our preconceived notions of the finality of death. His body was never found. Yet in his tragic disappearance we receive his greatest gift; the ability to find him... and keep finding him... in all of the places his story is remembered.
You will find more photos of my search for Clemente in the online album, Finding Clemente.
