Roberto Clemente Signature "Bob"

[G1911]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

There aren't a ton of Clemente interviews out there if you are looking for primary sources. But there are numerous articles describing his objection to being called "Bob."

For instance, this SABR article: "Prince was celebrating his 25th anniversary in broadcasting, and Clemente invited him to Puerto Rico, where he described him as “one of the best friends I have in the world” – indeed, Prince might have been the only person who could refer to Clemente as Bobby and not be upbraided for it – and bestowed on him one of his prized possessions: The silver bat he was presented in 1961 for the first of his four batting titles."

I'm aware of these much later articles stating this claim. Where they got this claim is the question, as nobody can seem to locate a primary source.

Let's use this SABR example here to illustrate the problem, and its claim that Clemente didn't like the name and would upbraid anyone but Bob Prince who called him Bobby. No citation is made directly for this claim, but the content of the Prince discussion here seems to come from citations 9 and 11 (10 is an endnote without a citation about something else). These citations are to Kal Waggenheim's 1973 biography of Clemente. I don't have a print copy, but I have a digital. I searched for every instance of "Prince" in the book and read every page it appears. Nowhere in this book, which does not have any footnote or endnote citations of its own sourcing, does the claim appear at all. So then I searched for "Bobby" and checked every time that word appears.

In fact, the book does quote Bob Friend referring to Clemente as Bobby. It also has a long section from Tony Bartirome, about his memories of "the good friend he called Bobby". Tony said "Everybody knows what kind of ball player Bobby was, but I'll miss him the most as a man. He was probably the best friend I ever had in this game", before recounting some anecdotes about Clemente through which he repeatedly calls his friend Bobby (Clemente called him "dago").

So where did SABR get this claim from? I don't know. Certainly not from this book that the rest of the Prince comments are taken from. This book, in fact, strongly suggests he had other friends who called him Bobby without any controversy.

I ask each time it comes up, I've never seen a real source for this story. Everything from the time seems to suggest the opposite, as far as I can find. When something is linked, it is a secondary source that, upon reading its citations, reveals the citations do not support what it says at all. It seems to be a story that people like, but that does not make such a story so. A claim to fact needs to have evidence, in all things. If I say Bismarck did this, or Frederick Douglas did that, or Babe Ruth did X or Roberto Clemente thought Y, I should be able to point to actual evidence.