Pirates to re-add Roberto Clemente sign, apologize to family

[ificandream]

Source: ESPN.com

The Pirates announced Sunday that they will be adding the No. 21 logo back to the right field wall to honor Roberto Clemente at PNC Park after the franchise icon's family expressed their unhappiness that the sign was removed for an advertisement.

"We did not intend to disrespect the legacy of Roberto Clemente by adding the advertisement to the pad in right field," Pirates president Travis Williams said in a statement. "When we added the advertisement to the pad, it was an oversight not to keep the No. 21 logo. This is ultimately on me, not anyone else in the organization. It was an honest mistake. We will be adding the No. 21 logo back to the pad."

Williams added: "We want to make sure that the Clemente family understands that we intended no disrespect to their father. We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Clemente family and apologize to them and our fans for our honest mistake."

The sign, which had been on the right-field wall since 2022, featured Clemente's name and his No. 21 but it was replaced with an advertisement for Surfside, an alcoholic drink.

Read more: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/44561616/family-unhappy-pirates-removed-sign-honoring-roberto-clemente

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How can a team whose legend is Roberto Clemente just call this an "oversight" or an "honest mistake"?

[wolfie001]

1. Disgusting rePUKES!!!

F6cking bastards!

[The Grand Illuminist]

6. Though it would be true...

This was the Pirates Organization's fault alone.

[wolfie001]

13. I'm sure some of their Pirates org. people are pals with the RW looneys......

.......that live/fester to the left of Philly all the way into Ohio and Indiana. Red sh7t country. Pretty sure they remembered to remove the Clemente tribute to push some random ad. Comfortable racists.

[Mysterian]

2. You goddamned sons of bitches

That motherfucking Nutting is a piece of garbage and needs to sell the team RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

ROBERTO CLEMENTE IS PITTSBURGH, MOTHERFUCKER.

[Botany]

3. That most likely was no mistake.... Clemente was black and Puerto Rician and was famous for his saying,

Mi llamo es Roberto no es Bobby. He said that in the 1960s when local Pittsburgh sports writers and
radio announcers called him Bobby thinking that was an improvement over his real name.

There is all out movement to erase so many things from our history and laws that stop discrimination
in Trump’s dystopian America.



Clemente was one of the greatest right fielders who ever played the game and he died trying to
help the people of Nicaragua after an earthquake.

[LudwigPastorius]

4. Yep, Trump has been trying to erase Puerto Rico from the U.S. for years now.

The Pirates' owner is just another billionaire bending the knee to him.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/512840-former-dhs-official-trump-called-puerto-rico-dirty-asked-to-trade-it/

(2020) A former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official said Wednesday President Trump called Puerto Rico “dirty” and asked if it could be swapped for Greenland.

Miles Taylor, a former DHS official who has endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, said Trump asked about trading Puerto Rico for the Danish territory amid trips officials took to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.

“The president’s talked before about wanting to purchase Greenland, but one time before we went down, he told us not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico. Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland,” Taylor said Wednesday on MSNBC. “Because in his words Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.”

[Deminpenn]

8. No, it was just Nutting trying to make an extra buck

that's all.

[Botany]

12. Mi llamo es Roberto, no es Bobby. Mi madre me puso ese nombre.

Last edited Mon Apr 7, 2025, 11:16 AM - Edit history (2)

That sign was in right field where Roberto played, it was 21 feet tall to match Clemente’s
uniform #, and it is a throwback to Clemente’s playing days where he was a proud Puertorrico
who wouldn’t allow a bunch of white sport’s reporters and broadcasters to call him Bobby
instead of Roberto in a racist insult because Bobby sounded better to white people. Clemente
caught all kinds of crap for that from being called n****r, to not knowing his place, uppity,
and so on.

I would give the owner a break if I hadn’t just witnessed the trying of whitewashing history of
Jackie Robertson, the Tuskegee Airman, Harriet Tubman, the Navajo Code Talkers, the firing
of the Senior Officers in the Pentagon because they were black or women, and all this anti DEI
crap and the all out attack on people of color’s voting rights. It is part of a racist sexist agenda
that is plan to see.

I hope real Pirates fans pick a day to boycott the team.

Williams added that the right-field wall is 21 feet tall, in honor of Clemente's number, named the Roberto Clemente Wall and has two No. 21 above the out-of-town scoreboard along the wall.

[Deminpenn]

14. Disabuse yourself of the notion this was in any way political

or attached to anything Trump said about PR. It's not. There's a statue of Clemente outside PNC Park. The Pirates celebrate Clemente Day when all the players wear his number 21, which of course has been retired by Pgh for 50+ years. The Pirates organization has also been lobbying to have Clemente's number 21 retired throughout off of MLB ala Jackie Robinson.

This was all about making a few extra $s for the team and thinking no one would notice. But Pirates fans have long memories, noticed the change and were pretty outraged and upset.

FTR, the sign isn't 21 ft tall, although it's very large, but the height of the RF wall is 21 ft.

[Botany]

15. Stuff

Link to tweet

Williams added that the right-field wall is 21 feet tall, in honor of Clemente's number, named the Roberto Clemente Wall and has two No. 21 above the out-of-town scoreboard along the wall.

[IzzaNuDay]

5. They got caught!

Pittsburgh Pirates: Just because the dotard wants to erase history doesn’t mean you have to follow his lead. Do better!

[Deminpenn]

7. How? Because Travis Williams is lying through his teeth

Here in Pittsburgh/western PA, fans noticed the detailed explanation offered by the Pirates seemed pre-written as if the Pirates were expecting blowback and prepared for it. I guess they didn't understand just how angry fans, and the Clemente family, would be.

Bob Nutting is the cheapest owner in all of professional sports. If replacing a sign honoring Clemente with an ad makes him a few more $s, he's all in.

[benfranklin1776]

9. It was an outrageous desecration 🤬

To willfully cover up with a tawdry booze ad a tribute to a man who was a legendary baseball superstar, but MORE IMPORTANTLY a true hero as a humanitarian who literally died bringing food relief to the poorest of the poor, his last greatest measure of devotion to his fellow human beings.

But that was a typical low class move that reflects the organizational ethos of its greed driven billionaire owner Bob Nutting, a man who single-handedly has run a once proud franchise into the ground through his legendary bad business decisions while taking public money to do it, but yet, finding a way to personally profit. 🤬

https://www.si.com/mlb/video/2010/08/26/losing-pirates-still-profiting

He’s a perfect example of the rancid billionaire mindset that squeezing every last dollar they can from exploiting and abusing we the people is the preeminent motivating objective for their miserable lives.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was also a deliberate decision to kiss demented Donald’s ass by showing he’s loyally following the doddering Don’s edict to rid our society of visible reminders of how towering trailblazers like Roberto Clemente overcame tremendous adversity and racism to achieve the height of success as human beings. Their obscene “antiDEI” obsession which is, stripped to its odious core, is nothing but a naked attempt to make racism great again, and memories of those who proudly defeated it are a repudiation of their perverted lies masquerading as a historical narrative. After all TSF and his neoNazi puppet master Heinrich Musk deliberately purged references to the Tuskegee Airmen and Jackie Robinson from military history, so by trying and now failing spectacularly to hide Roberto, Nutting is just aping his soulless money worshipping leaders. Unlike Roberto, who will be rightfully remembered and lauded long into the future as a truly great human being, these billionaire dregs of humanity will be rightfully reviled now and forever more.

[Bengus81]

10. What does the Judge always say? Your not sorry, your sorry you got caught.........

[Paladin]

11. Even by the current regime's white racist standards: A really stupid move.

Roberto Clemente continues to serve this country well.