PITTSBURGH — On Thursday of this week, right around the time the Pirates were yanking rookie pitching savant Paul Skenes from a no-hitter in Milwaukee, the Clemente Museum made an announcement on X (formerly Twitter) that didn't exactly figure to convulse the news cycle.

"We will be recognized as the Pirates' Non-Profit of the Game on September 24 when the Pirates take on the Brewers," it said. "Join us for the first ever Clemente Museum Night at PNC Park. A proceed from each ticket will benefit the Clemente Museum."

I'm pointing this out here some 72 hours later mostly to say that if you haven't experienced the Clemente Museum on Penn Avenue in Lawrenceville, Pa., as a friend of mine used to say, 'shame on ya for six weeks,' but further to posit that this a particularly good time to welcome The Great One back to the stage of our collective baseball consciousness.

At the final approach to the 2024 All-Star Game, it's well worth pointing out that no Pirate was selected to more of them than No. 21, who was chosen 15 times. According to the obsessives at Baseball Reference, more than 23,000 men have played Major League Baseball as of this weekend, only 13 of whom (or .0056864% according to my cellphone calculator app) made more All-Star teams than Clemente.

Additionally, this is a good time to note that Clemente would have been 90 next month, and that today, more than half of a century after his relief plane plunged into the ocean off Puerto Rico, his legacy is still being felt throughout the Americas, both in places you'd fully expect and places you would not.

In the golfing paradise that is coastal South Carolina, there's a course called Legends, on Parris Island, where they say if you visit on the right day you can hear the sounds of future Marines training to become members of the world's most elite fighting force, legends in their own right.

So Hole No. 1 is named for Sergeant Major Henry H. Black, born in Imperial, Pa., on Feb. 9, 1929, who enlisted in the Marine Corps at 19 and won a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for heroic actions in Korea, then a second and third Bronze Star in Vietnam a generation later. Maybe that's what we ought to be calling a generational player.

Hole No. 2 is named for Sergeant Major Robert E. Cleary, a contemporary of Black's, himself highly decorated, and Holes 4-18 honor military heroes as well, which leaves Hole No. 3.

Hole No. 3 is named for Roberto Clemente, because ... Clemente.

OK, it's true, Clemente enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1958 and spent six offseasons in the Marine Corps Reserve, and yes, he did his basic training at Parris Island. And further, the Clemente Museum would remind you that said training actually refined his career because it fixed issues with his back that arose from a prior automobile accident, allowing him to swing a heavier bat with, as has been noted, indelible success.

"To me, the connection is more that Clemente spanned so much more than baseball, that he was such a humanitarian," said Gary Claus, a lifelong Pittsburgher and Pirates fan who alerted me to Hole No. 3 at Legends Golf Course in the past few weeks. "I've got something of a special connection to this because I've been on missions to Nicaragua, where he's revered."

Earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua was the destination of Clemente's doomed flight, of course, but it's plenty instructive that all these decades later, many of Clemente's most passionate fans are still taking his cues. Claus, who worked for Price Waterhouse in Pittsburgh for some 30 years, is 72, but has taken a leadership role in his church as it has helped drastically lower the newborn death rate in Nicaragua through education, prenatal care, and a variety of initiatives.

This kind of inspiration is rooted in singular baseball memories of a singular player, but they belong to all of us.

"Mine is of taking the bus from Lawrenceville, the 91A and then the 54C Negley to Forbes Field," Claus said, "and this one particular game the batter hit a ball down the line in right field. There was a runner on first, and from my seat I'd lost sight of Clemente as he chased the ball into the corner, and the runner was chugging around second, but all of a sudden here comes this missile straight to Don Hoak at third, and he slapped a tag on the guy. The runner was stunned. That's my favorite."

The first Puerto Rican and the first Latin American player in the Hall of Fame, the incandescent particulars of Clemente's career have long since become touchstones in Pittsburgh: the four batting titles, the 12 Gold Gloves, the 1971 World Series MVP.

When he got to his first All-Star Game in Kansas City, July 11, 1960, Clemente was not a starter, but the bench was pretty good: Stan Musial, Orlando Cepeda, Dick Groat, Vernon Law, The Great One.

By the time he'd finished playing his last one in 1972, he'd hit even better against the American League's best pitchers, whom he'd rarely if ever seen, than against the guys he regularly savaged.

A lifetime .317 hitter, he hit .323 in All-Star Games.

Because ... Clemente.

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