Clemente’s Overzealous Romp: Roberto Clemente and Baseball as Theater

This essay examines the erasure of Roberto Clemente’s 1956 walk-off, inside-the-park grand slam—the only one of its kind in baseball history—and argues that its disappearance is due to the racial prejudice of sports commentators and historians. Using period sports reporting and subsequent sports scholarship, Espada builds a case for Clemente’s marginalization based on racial resentment and stereotype.