When Roberto Clemente passed away so tragically on the last day of 1972, baseball and the world lost a truly great man. Roberto Clemente was a gifted ballplayer, but more importantly, he was an actively generous and principled man.

Offense
With the bat, Clemente was a powerful line-drive hitter who had four batting titles in the 1960s. Clemente was no slap hitter, pounding 240 home runs in his career, despite playing his career in a time of depressed offense. His power, speed and lightning quick start out of the batter's box helped him to hit 166 triples, 27th on the all-time list, behind a number of players who played in times when triples were more common.

	With exactly 3,000 hits, Roberto Clemente is the measure of greatness in baseball.

The one hole in Clemente's offensive game was impatience. Only once in his career did he draw as many as 40 unintentional walks in a season. While he hit his way into the top 10 in batting average 13 times, he managed "only" six seasons in which he was on the leaderboard for on-base percentage.

Clemente was a consistent offensive contributor who hit for a very high average with good power, but without the kind of walk totals that would move him into the stratosphere along with hitters like Babe Ruth, Ted Williams or Barry Bonds. Offensively, the recent player most like Clemente is probably Kirby Puckett.

Defense
Despite Clemente's impressive offensive numbers, the first thing his peers often mention when asked about his game is his defense -- and specifically his amazing arm. Clemente had 266 outfield assists in his career, topping out with a remarkable 27 assists during the 1961 season. To put that in some sort of perspective, here are a few other right fielders noted for having great arms, along with Clemente:

Stats that stick out
Player	Games	Assist	Assists*
Jesse Barfield	1387	162	17.52
Roberto Clemente	2370	266	16.84
Larry Walker	1310	128	14.66
Glenn Wilson	1131	109	14.46
Vladimir Guerrero	717	62	12.97
Raul Mondesi	1063	88	12.42
Dwight Evans	2146	157	10.97
Dave Winfield	2469	166	10.08
* Assists average based on 150-game season

Of this group of esteemed flamethrowers, only Jesse Barfield averaged more assists than Clemente, and Barfield was out of baseball by age 33.

Clemente won an unprecedented 12 consecutive Gold Gloves. Often, the fielding awards really don't tell you much about whether someone's really an asset with the leather. Evaluating defense is a very tricky proposition, and the voters are as likely to reward reputation as performance. But in Clemente's case, the statuettes were deserved. During his 18 seasons in the bigs, Clemente's range factor was above the league average for his position 16 out of 18 times, including every season of his career after age 28.

Think about the impact of that for a moment. Clemente's range factor for his career was 2.09, meaning he created outs, either through catching a ball or throwing someone out, an average of 2.09 times per game. During his 2,370 game career, the league range factor was 1.86. That means Clemente was responsible for an astonishing 500-550 outs over an average defender. As good as Clemente's defensive reputation is, the reality may have been even better.

Accolades and Milestones
Clemente's crowning on-field achievement was the 1971 World Series. The Pirates came back from a 2-0 deficit to beat Earl Weaver's Orioles in 7 games. "Clemente's the guy that put us over," the late Willie Stargell said then, "he pushed us over." True enough. Clemente hit .414 for the Series, including a Game 7 home run that was the difference in the pivotal 2-1 Pirate victory. For his efforts, he brought home the World Series MVP trophy in 1971, to go along with his 12 Gold Gloves and 12 All-Star appearances.

	If Clemente didn't beat you with his bat, he was able to do it with his glove.

Since his untimely death in 1972, Clemente has become Major League Baseball's symbol of public service, and the legend of his off-field and on-field exploits has grown. In many cases, our tendency to mythologize those who have passed away is misguided. Most deceased businessmen, politicians and even ballplayers weren't as wonderful as we'd like to think. Roberto Clemente is an exception to that rule.

Was Clemente one of the very best players to ever play the game? Probably not, if we're talking about the pantheon that includes only Ruth, Williams, Bonds and a select few others. But Clemente was clearly a great player, worthy of the praise his peers and fans are so quick to give. More importantly, he was what all of us should strive to be -- an individual who used his gifts to help those who needed it, even when such efforts were inconvenient, difficult or dangerous. Too often, people are defined by their professions. Roberta Harris is an attorney. John Smith is a salesman. In the case of Clemente, we can hope that the definition will get turned around, and that the profession of "ballplayer" will be defined by Roberto Clemente.