A Tribute to a National Hero

A statue of Roberto Clemente’s 3000th base hit outside the park, Dec-2022.

The expansive seating bowl as seen from beyond the left field foul pole.

The view from behind the plate.

Chronological Tour: Stop 428

• Location: PR 3 at interchange for PR 853, Carolina, P.R. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 2000
• Home team: Carolina Gigantes, Liga Roberto Clemente (2000-present)
• Capacity: 12,500

Rating: 4 baseballs

The park was built in 2000, finally, to accommodate a club that moved from San Juan. It was a rather obvious choice to name the park after Roberto Clemente, who grew up in Carolina and already had streets and sports complexes named for him. Clemente, as fans surely recognize, picked up his 3000th Major League Baseball base hit in the last weekend of the 1972 season, and then was tragically killed as a passenger aboard a flight delivering relief supplies to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. This was enough to make him a hero throughout Puerto Rico. (Indeed, the entire Puerto Rico winter league was renamed the Roberto Clemente League in 2011.) However, in a state where every town has a municipal stadium, it took 28 years for this quite suitable monument to be erected in his honor.

In 2007, Carolina played host to the Caribbean Series, featuring the champions of several winter leagues in a round-robin. (The event was hosted by Mayagüez in 2011.) Oddly, when Major League Baseball comes down to Puerto Rico to stage occasional games, such as the 43 that were played by the Montréal Expos in 2003-04, they always place them in San Juan, at an older facility. While both stadiums are about the same distance from the San Juan airport (which is actually in Carolina), I am sure that hotel accommodations are more prevalent in the capital city.

My only complaint about the ballpark on my 2022 visit was that the public address system was set so loud that the announcements could seemingly be heard in Bayamón, several towns to the west.