Serving the Widow of My Childhood Hero, Baseball Legend Roberto Clemente

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800-832-7597. For 10 years, Verizon has provided technology, curriculum and connectivity to over a million students, like Christopher. Christopher has always loved creating things. So we learn about the Verizon Innovative Learning Program.

We're making things move, like paper models move with engines and we're making like robots and stuff. I saw a difference in his confidence. He could just be himself. Like I couldn't have written a greater story.

Get the full story at verizoninnovativelearning.com. And we're back with our American stories. Roberto Clemente was a Puerto Rican professional baseball right fielder who played 18 seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates after his early death in a plane crash. He was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. Becoming both the first Caribbean and the first Latin American player to be enshrined. Duane Reeder runs the Clemente Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and not only has had the honor of commemorating a childhood hero, but also serving that hero's widow, Vera.

Here's Duane. I grew up a pirate fanatic and just loved Roberto Clemente. And I grew up looking at the Pittsburgh Press. And there was this little section in the middle called the roto section and it had color.

It had some color almost like newspaper kind of little magazine in the center of the paper. And I just remember this roto section, they did it on Roberto Clemente once and there's these photos of him looking as cool as you could get. And he's standing on a bridge that's over top of a moat going around his house. And in these fancy clothes, he's got a leash, and it's connected to a monkey. He had a pet monkey that he brought back from Nicaragua for his kids. That's like movie stuff. You know, as a kid, you're just like, wow, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. He's got a pet monkey. And who has a bridge to their house over a moat?

We're living in an apartment in the country and can barely pay rent, dirt, dirt poor. And there's this guy that's just the coolest. It's just burned in my brain. And then he dies on New Year's Eve of 1972. And he's gone like that like bang, no more Clemente.

So now roll the cameras to 1994. I'm walking across that bridge. And I get to do this calendar on Roberto Clemente with the Clemente family and go to the Clemente house. And I knock on the door to the house.

And it's a baseball bat with a 21 on it. And I go knock, knock, knock, and Vera opens the door. And she's like, Oh, la, do I know she's and I'm not a hugger. And she's a hugger. And she hugs me and squeezes me. And I'm like, I'm being hugged by an angel.

Just unbelievable. And I honestly felt this aura, something going up to heaven. I actually thought, Oh, my gosh, this is the coolest moment of my life. So I get to go inside the house. And she's showing me around and showing us all the stuff. And we sit down at a table and I brought the six photos that we had already completed back in our studio to get her approval. She had to sign off on these photos. And these were things that we were able to collect or borrow like Clemente's cleats or bats or balls, things like that.

You know, Roberto's gone. And so we have to do these still lifes. And we were spending weeks on each photograph. The cover photograph took three weeks. And if you tell, you know, you tell kids today that are photographers, they want to shoot a shot in three seconds.

It goes into the computer. Bang. They do some reading a little bit of Photoshop and boom.

Moving on. We set this shot up. We shot it with an eight by 10 view camera with the bellows with a black dark cloth.

You know, you put the dark cloth over so you can see the focus and we processed one sheet of eight by 10 inch film at a time in a processor that took about 40 minutes and overnight to dry. So we really put our heart and soul into these first six shots. Now I'm at the house and she loved them. She loved the six photos and she's pulling things out to show me and say, hey, what do you want to photograph next? And I'm sitting at this table in the center of her house and I said, do you have any rings? And she goes, oh, rings?

Yes, I have rings. I'll be right back. And it was the coolest thing that ever happened. She went up to this wall that was like a painted mural, probably 20 feet by 10 foot high. And she hits a little button and something slid to the side and boom, she disappeared. So she had like this secret door that just like opened up. She disappeared into it, came back out with this wooden box with a brass plaque on it. It was a quote from Danny Murtaugh from the 71 World Series about if you think that they're down and out of this series, you're crazy. And she opens the box and she goes, here, would these rings work?

I look in the box and there's the 60 World Series ring and the 71 World Series ring, each worth about $350,000 apiece. And I'm the biggest jerk in the world at this moment. I said, well, no, do you have any other rings? And she looks at me like, what?

And I was like, what? You know, other rings like all star rings and don't you have some of the other rings? And she goes, well, no, these are the only two rings I have. And I'm like, well, what about the 61 All Star ring?

See, I knew this story. He never wore either of those two rings. That's why they were in that box. That's why they were brand new. They were shiny.

They had never even been touched. He would wear the 61 All Star ring because that was his moment. 60, we win the 60 World Series.

But that's Bill Mazeroski's. Maz hits the homer in the ninth inning to walk it off. Roberto was great in that World Series, but it just he wasn't the MVP.

He wasn't the MVP of the league that year, even though his numbers were the best and he should have been. And he just felt slighted. And so he bowed never to wear that ring. 61, he comes out and he's a man on fire. And he's like, I'm going to show everybody. You're not going to keep me down.

I'll show you. And he wins everything at 61. He wins his first Silver Slugger Award. He wins his first Gold Glove. And he's the MVP of the All Star game, plays all 10 innings and drives in the winning run and just is like unbelievable in that All Star game.

And he gets this ring with like a blue stone in it. And I was born in 1961. And so I want that 61.

I want to do a photograph and theme it 1961. And so I tell her I want a 61 All Star ring. And she looks at me and she goes, well, in their houses, these big giant windows facing the ocean and she's nodding her head towards the glass. And she goes, you know, he was he was wearing it when he and I'm like, wait, I don't understand what.

And she goes, you know, he was wearing it when the plane crashed. And now I'm like, wow, I'm the biggest jerk in the world. And I look over and now she's crying and then I'm crying. But that's our moment. That's our moment right there that we have together. I made her cry, but she then knew that I had some passion or something in me to kind of push for that ring. I just didn't know that that made total sense.

Of course, he was wearing it when he died. That's the ringing war. So, you know, but you just don't think of those things. And so she said, here, you can take these two rings back to Pittsburgh. So we do. And we there's a whole photograph. One of the pages has the 71 All Star ring sitting on that box so that you could read Murtaugh's quote.

And that was the moment that I really you know, her and I kind of bonded. I spent the next two days in the house photographing all these things. The house was just filled to the ceiling with trophies. He won everything you could ever imagine.

He loved to play pool and they had a pool table in the middle of the house. And you couldn't see one piece of the green felt because it was completely filled with silver trophies, silver bowls and all these plaques. And it was literally like six feet high, just filled with trophies. There was all the 12 gold gloves were all together. I'm the first and only person to ever photograph all 12 of them. I lined them all up.

We went and got some new white bedsheets and we made like a little mini studio. So that was two incredible days. She barely knows me at that point, just as a photographer from Pittsburgh working on his calendar. She lets me leave the next day back to Pittsburgh with over a million dollars worth of memorabilia. And so to have that kind of trust. And then I guess the good part of the story is she got all those things back where for the last 20 years of her life, she would loan a piece of memorabilia to someone and they'd never bring it back. And then after we complete the calendar and I go, you know, she gets everything back that I brought over, I go back down in 1996 to do a story on Roberto.

And that's when I start asking some questions and I start telling her, listen, you have a lot of things that are missing. You shouldn't trust anybody. Don't give them originals. I can help you with your photographs. Don't get blown out any original photos. I'll take back the photos here that are in your house that have been getting wet and moldy and I'll start fixing those. You can have people call me and you can get out of the middle and then you can quit giving the originals up because people aren't giving them back to you.

And they're just keeping them. And so that's when we decided in 1996 to start this archive of photos that then led to the museum. And we're listening to Duane Reeder tell a heck of a love story about his own affection and passion for the life and legacy of Roberto Clemente.

When we come back, more of Roberto Clemente's story, Duane Reeder's story here on Our American Stories. Fall is just around the corner and home is the center of it all. At Ashley, seasonal decorating is a breeze with their range of designs and materials. Snuggle up on a family friendly sectional or an ultra modern sofa or gather outside and enjoy the crisp, cool air with a new fire pit or conversation set. From minor refreshes to total overhauls, Ashley has the essentials to make your home fall functional and fabulous.

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They have your back. Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. Hey, you guys, this is Tori and Jenny with the 9 0 2 1 OMG podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by nerd tech ODT. We recorded it at I heart radio's 10th pole event. Wango Tango. Did you know that nerd tech ODT remejipants 75 milligrams can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wango Tango?

It's true. I had one that night and I took my nerd tech ODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by nerd tech ODT remejipants 75 milligrams. Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.

But thankfully, nerd tech ODT remejipants 75 milligrams is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So lively events like Wango Tango don't have to be missed. And we're back with our American stories and the story of how Duane Reeder, the man who runs the Clemente Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, became the personal archivist for the Clemente family long before the museum came to be. Back to Duane. So then I start helping the family with an archive for 10 years until the all star game happens in 2006 here at PNC Park. And Vera came over here after meeting with the pirates and asked if I would host the Clemente family party. But that day that she asked me in June of 06, it was just my photography studio on the first floor and the archive room was up on the second floor.

I was like, Vera, there's nothing Clemente on the first floor. That's what most of the party's going to be. And I know your crowd is going to be a little bit older.

It's going to be all the Latin players like Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal and Manny Sangian and Cesar Cedeno and all those guys are coming to this party and they don't want to go up and down the steps. And she goes, oh, it's OK. We'll have the food and the wine and the dancing on this floor. And I went, wait a minute, there's going to be dancing?

She's like, oh, we're Puerto Rican. We dance. And I'm like, all right, I'm in.

Let's let's do this. So I tell her then it's about beginning of June, the party's going to be on July 9th. She flies back to Puerto Rico with her kids and I transformed what's pretty much the museum today all in 30 days just for her party. But they get in early. They get in on the morning of the 8th and they call me and said, hey, is there a way we could all come out there tonight and meet? Because everybody's flying in and most people haven't been there and will come out, you know, have a glass of wine and just to walk around before the party. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that'd be awesome.

I'd rather get you guys in here where we can talk. So they show up and there's 30 of them. And the three Clementes, Vera and her two sons, Luis and Roberto, had been there before that. They knew the empty space.

The other 27 have never been there and some of them have never been to Pittsburgh. So they come walking in and on the beginning of the building, we have a photograph of Roberto that was found in a dumpster when the Pittsburgh press was bought out by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. An image of Roberto jumping up in the air in 1960 in Fort Myers, Florida. And he lines up with these clouds.

The clouds make angel wings. You can look it up. It's out there now to the public. It's leaked out of here. The family wanted me to keep it for the movie poster, but it's been photographed by tens of thousands of people.

They put it out on the Internet. Some guys even sell it on eBay, which they're not allowed. But I can't quit my job and sit here and police eBay all day. But there's this big photograph and it's 82 inches by 82 inches.

So it's big. And the 30 Clementes, they all come walking in and I don't speak Spanish and I'm embarrassed by that. But I've never I'm just so busy here and I've just never had the time to just sit down and try to learn Spanish. And so they all come in and it gets really noisy and they're all talking and rumbling. And I'm pretty close with Luis at that point. I said to Luis Clemente, I said, Luis, are they what are they saying? What are they are they mad? And he goes, oh, no, they're not mad. They just want to know who are you.

Are you Puerto Rican? How did you do all this and where did that image come from? And it was like bees in a beehive. Right.

They were just buzzing. That was an awesome one, because the image is the greatest image. I'd say the greatest baseball photograph ever taken. But the magical moment was I had just acquired a wedding album for Roberto and Vera, and I knew for a fact that she didn't have her own wedding album. This was an album that was put together by Roberto's best friend, Phil Dorsey, who was really into photography. And he was Roberto's best friend. And so he spent a couple of days with Roberto leading up to the wedding and then the whole wedding day and then a day or two after.

He had taken one hundred and fifty photographs that no one in Puerto Rico had ever seen. And he had just passed away and his son broke into the house and stole a bunch of boxes of Clemente stuff during the memorial service. And Sol was putting all this stuff up on eBay for sale. And I knew for a fact that she didn't have her own wedding album because I was restoring the two wedding photos that she had in her house that got ruined by sunlight.

And I was working on those. And that's when she told me someone borrowed her wedding album from her house and never brought it back. And so I saw this on eBay and I'm like, I got to get this wedding album. And at the moment in time, my wife didn't have her wedding album because I was the photographer for my own wedding, pretty much. And so I had to make prints myself.

And so, you know how the cobbler's kids, they never have shoes, right? So the photographer's wife didn't have her wedding photos. And so I had an assistant at the time and I said, David, get in the darkroom and start making my wedding. I picked all the images I wanted to put in the book. I said, you got to get these done because I'm buying a wedding album off eBay for Roberto and Vera.

And I got to have mine done in case I get caught by my wife. So David's in the darkroom printing. I win the bid on eBay. I had to pay thirty five hundred dollars to get this wedding album, which now that would be cheap. But this was back in the 90s.

So the wedding album comes and it's way, way better than I ever thought. Just unbelievable photos. One cool thing is he played a baseball game the day before the wedding for a team in Ponce, Puerto Rico. And he wasn't on that team, so he didn't have their uniform. He plays in a full Pittsburgh pirate uniform with this Ponce team. And there's three or four or five photos of Phil Dorsey with the players and there's Roberto in the lineup with the pirate uniform on. And there's all these just incredible photographs. They go out on a boat and they're fishing the day before and they get some really cool shots.

They go to the beach. I have the only photograph in the world of Roberto in a bathing suit. And he's ripped. He was all his. He was always in really good shape. He had a scar on his arm and he wore the long sleeved wool undershirt that the pirates would give him. He wore them all the time.

He wore it in every baseball game he ever played in because he didn't want anybody to see this scar. So there he is out on the end of a dock. They're getting ready to go fishing and he's sitting there in his shorts and this wool undershirt. So I got these really cool, cool shots. So I have it all set up in the back of the museum, in the back of the firehouse with a light on this book, technically a wedding album. And I say, hey, Vera, I have a little something for you back here. And I walk them all in there and there's this album and they just go crazy. The tears just start flying out. They're all talking Spanish and crying and looking and saying, oh, there's Papito, Papito.

You know, a lot of the people in the photos have passed away and a lot of these kids, these are their parents and they're gone and they've never seen these photos. And it's just this, oh man, it's just this wonderful moment where they get to see all these photos that they'd never seen before, their family members. And it was just like, that was a win, win, win right there.

The Angel Wings was good, but the wedding album was the icing on the cake. And the next day is going to be the party. And we've got, it's a big success. And Vera makes a comment, you know, at that point, I'm Dwayne the archivist and I have an archive of photos, but most people don't even know what archive means. So Vera makes this comment. She goes, hey, Dwayne, you know, it's like a museum here now. And I was like, whoa, that's something. Archive, it's cool and all. And I'm glad, you know, we were so lucky that we were able to acquire all these photos and negatives and everything that we had. But no one knows what an archive is, you know, but museum, that's something you can sink your teeth into. So the very next day we made up a flyer and we called it Clemente Collection at that point because legally I wasn't allowed to say that Clemente Museum because I didn't have that in writing yet with the family.

But we started going around town with these flyers and dropping them off at hotels with concierges and stuff like that and started giving tours that day, the day after the party. Haven't stopped since. And a terrific job on the storytelling and production by Robbie Davis and Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to Dwayne Reader for sharing his story with us and his passion with us for the Clemente legacy. And what a story it is indeed. Dwayne's a fan and he wants to get to know the family and preserve that legacy. And he fights for it and he pays out of his own pocket for it. And ultimately gains the trust of this family, a white man from Pittsburgh, a Puerto Rican family coming together around a shared passion and love, Roberto Clemente and his legacy.

A classic American story here on Our American Stories. For ten years Verizon has provided technology, curriculum and connectivity to over a million students like Christopher. Christopher has always loved creating things so we learn about the Verizon Innovative Learning program.

We're making things move like paper models move with engines and we're making like robots and stuff. I saw a difference in his confidence. He could just be himself. Like I couldn't have written a greater story.

Get the full story at verizoninnovativelearning.com. Fall is just around the corner and home is the center of it all. At Ashley seasonal decorating is a breeze with their range of designs and materials. Snuggle up on a family friendly sectional or an ultra modern sofa. Or gather outside and enjoy the crisp, cool air with a new fire pit or conversation set. From minor refreshes to total overhauls, Ashley has the essentials to make your home fall functional and fabulous.

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