Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth.”
— Roberto Clemente

The St. Louis Cardinals nominated Jordan Walker for Major League Baseball’s Roberto Clemente Award.

Every club nominates one player each season. The award recognizes the major leaguer who best represents the game through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions both on and off the field. It is widely regarded as the most meaningful individual honor in baseball — the one that measures a player by something other than a stat line.

Who Roberto Clemente Was

To understand the weight of the honor, it helps to understand the man behind it.

Roberto Clemente Walker was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, in 1934, the youngest of a large family. He spent all eighteen of his major league seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, from 1955 to 1972, and by the end of them he had built one of the most complete résumés in the sport’s history: exactly 3,000 hits, a .317 career batting average, four National League batting titles, twelve consecutive Gold Gloves, fifteen All-Star Game appearances, two World Series championships, the 1966 National League MVP Award and the 1971 World Series MVP.

He was the first player from Puerto Rico and Latin America to win a World Series as a starting position player, the first to be named National League MVP and the first to take home a World Series MVP. He did all of it while facing the prejudice of an era that often dismissed Latin American players. They misspelled his name in box scores and underestimated him until he made it impossible to ignore his greatness.

But the reason his name is on this award has less to do with any of that.

Clemente spent his offseasons doing relief work throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, personally delivering food, baseball equipment and supplies to communities that needed them. In December 1972, a catastrophic earthquake devastated Managua, Nicaragua. When Clemente learned that aid shipments were being diverted away from the people they were meant for, he decided to accompany the next one himself.

On December 31, 1972, the overloaded plane carrying him and those supplies went down near the coast of Puerto Rico shortly after take-off. He was 38 years old. His body was never recovered.

The Baseball Hall of Fame waived its five-year waiting period and inducted him in 1973 — the first Latin American and Caribbean player ever enshrined. That same year, MLB renamed its citizenship award in his honor. More than fifty years later, players across the league still wear number 21 to remember him.

Clemente once said that anyone who has the chance to make life better for others and fails to do so is wasting their time on earth. The award exists to find the players who take that seriously.

Why Jordan

Jordan’s community work began at home. He and his mother, Katrina, co-founded the Walker’s Winners Foundation to encourage young people to set ambitious educational goals and build genuine confidence through achieving them.

The foundation partners with area schools and summer programs to challenge students, kindergarten through 12th grade,  to set and get stretch goals in reading and mathematics — targets deliberately set just past what a student believes they can do. The point isn’t the grade. It’s the moment a child discovers that the ceiling they imagined for themselves wasn’t real.

Jordan stays personally involved. In June he welcomed more than 200 people – students and their families – to Busch Stadium for a reception and program to celebrate their accomplishments in one of three areas: High Achievement, Consistent & Purposeful Effort, or Most Improvement.  In August he hosted 200 more people. Goal Getters included not only those directly served by Walker’s Winners, i.e. Confluence Academy Old North (CAON) and LifeWise StL, but also Goal Getters from partner organizations: Preston Community Garden, Dream Builders for Equity, St. Louis ArtWorks, and East St. Louis Senior High School. 

At the beginning of the school year and summer, Jordan visited CAON and  LifeWise StL to introduce the program to students and staff. He illustrated through his own experience as a baseball player the importance of setting and getting stretch goals. He then moderated the Jeopardy game that had teams compete to show their reading and math knowledge. 

The foundation has also begun working with the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities in East St. Louis to help preserve an institution that has helped young people in the region thrive for decades.

His work extends beyond the foundation. Through Cardinals Care, Jordan supports the Caring for Kids Campaign, contributes his time and signed memorabilia to the annual Winter Warm-Up fundraiser, and donates autographed baseballs to the Cardinals Family Mystery Grab Bag, which raises money for Angels’ Arms, Covenant House Missouri, KEEN St. Louis and Lydia’s House.

On Jackie Robinson Day, he helped welcome Jackie Robinson Foundation scholars and alumni, celebrating a legacy of courage and educational opportunity that runs parallel to his own message. He has encouraged fans to register for the Cardinals Blood Drive with the American Red Cross, and supported the Cardinals Wives for Wishes fundraiser benefiting Make-A-Wish Missouri & Kansas.

Ask Jordan what his platform is for and he won’t start with home runs. He’ll talk about Black kids seeing themselves in this game, about what becomes possible with hard work and an open door, and about making sure the door stays open behind him.

What This Means

Clemente’s standard was never about how much a player gave. It was about whether he showed up himself — whether he got on the plane.

Jordan gets on the plane. He sits with the students. He leans in for their questions. He waits to hear their answers. He is in the room to show how to get goals and in the room to celebrate when they’re met. 

To every student, family, teacher, partner organization and volunteer who has been part of Walker’s Winners: this nomination belongs to you, too. You’re the reason this work exists.

Congratulations, Jordan. And thank you for showing us how we can all live Roberto Clemente’s legacy.