Teams to honor Clemente Award nominees

September 3, 2008 - Roberto Clemente Day.

Today, baseball will celebrate one of its greatest humanitarians, Roberto Clemente.

Excerpt from Press release (MLB.com):

The national celebration of Roberto Clemente Day will take place at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL prior to tomorrow night's game between the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. Roberto Clemente Jr., son of Roberto Clemente, and Carlos Peña, the Rays' recipient of the Roberto Clemente Award, are scheduled to participate in a pre-game ceremony. As part of the league-wide celebration, the Roberto Clemente Day logo will appear on the bases, commemorative home plates and the official dugout lineup cards.

Each MLB club has selected a recipient for the award. These are the players that best exemplify Clemente's humanitarian spirit by selflessly giving time and money to support their communities. These are:

Arizona Diamondbacks - Brandon Webb
Atlanta Braves - Tim Hudson
Baltimore Orioles - Melvin Mora
Boston Red Sox - Kevin Youkilis
Chicago Cubs - Ryan Dempster
Chicago White Sox - Jermaine Dye
Cincinnati Reds - Brandon Phillips
Cleveland Indians - Grady Sizemore
Colorado Rockies - Jeff Francis
Detroit Tigers - Magglio Ordoñez
Florida Marlins - Luis Gonzalez
Houston Astros - Lance Berkman
Kansas City Royals - Mark Teahen
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim - Justin Speier
Los Angeles Dodgers - James Loney
Milwaukee Brewers - Jeff Suppan
Minnesota Twins - Michael Cuddyer
New York Mets - David Wright
New York Yankees - Johnny Damon
Oakland Athletics - Mark Ellis
Philadelphia Phillies - Jimmy Rollins
Pittsburgh Pirates - Jack Wilson
St. Louis Cardinals - Albert Pujols
San Diego Padres - Trevor Hoffman
San Francisco Giants - Kevin Frandsen
Seattle Mariners - Raul Ibañez
Tampa Bay Rays - Carlos Peña
Texas Rangers - Kevin Millwood
Toronto Blue Jays - Vernon Wells
Washington Nationals - Joel Hanrahan

Fans can visit www.chevy.com/clemente from September 3rd through October 5th and vote for one of the 30 club nominees.

If you have been reading BCB long enough, you will probably notice that several of the players above are on my list of favorites. Those players' names have been highlighted. I don't want to, in any way, take away from Maggilo Ordonez's off-field work, but I am a bit surprised that Curtis Granderson was not the Detroit Tigers' nominee for the Clemente Award. He would certainly be deserving of the honor.

More about the Roberto Clemente Award (from MLB.com):

Since 1972, Major League Baseball annually has presented an award (originally known as The Commissioner's Award) which recognizes the player who best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual's contribution to his team. In 1973, following the tragic death of Roberto Clemente, the award was re-named to honor the man whose spirit and goodwill always will be remembered. The award recognizes those individuals who truly understand the value of helping others.