Roberts was married with six children. When his baseball career ended, he worked as a security guard for the University of California, Berkeley. He died at the age of 40 in Oakland, California when he was hit by a drunk driver while changing a flat tire on his car. A major piece written by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette journalist Ed Bouchette discussed Roberts' career and struggles, calling him a "forgotten pioneer". Prior to the piece, most of Roberts' old teammates were unaware that he had died nearly 20 years earlier. His son Curt Roberts Jr. supposedly was working on a book about his father's life in 1987.
Despite Roberts' short major league career, he paved the way for other black players to debut for the Pirates, the most notable of whom was future Baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente. He befriended Clemente, teaching him how to handle the racial abuse and the huge pressure that Roberts had suffered with the Pirates. That helped Clemente ease his transition from the Dodgers minor league system, in which they had a decent number of black and Hispanic players, to the main roster of the Pittsburgh Pirates, in which only he, Roberts and third baseman Gene Baker were black. Journalist Tom Singer of MLB.com mentioned that Roberts' legacy arose mainly from his unsuccessful career with the Pirates. Singer claimed because Roberts was a "flop", it showed that the public perception of black players having to be a "superstar" to be a member of a Major League club was incorrect, thus making the integration process more "humanized" and easier for black players. With the eight previous players who broke the color barrier for their respective teams, four were later elected to the Hall of Fame, and the other four were stars in their own right.
In 1997, 28 years after his death, the Pittsburgh Pirates honored Roberts as part of the festivities for Jackie Robinson Day. Roberts was honored again in 2006 for the opening of the Pirates Highmark Legacy Square Negro League exhibit in PNC Park. The families of several Negro league players, including Roberts attended the ceremony. A park in his hometown of Pineland, Texas was dedicated in his honor in 2007.
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