As a kid, I knew all of the names – Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Joe Dimaggio, Roberto Clemente -the list goes on. My knowledge of professional baseball came from the radio. In 2006, driving across South Dakota, I listened to an interview that epitomized the love of the game.
Edgard Clemente, of the Sioux Falls Canaries, was being interviewed – and he was happy to be able to make a living playing the game he loved. His uncle was Roberto – whose baseball career was much more successful than Edgard’s – but I didn’t know that when I listened to the radio. I was listening to a young man who was overjoyed to be playing baseball, for the Canaries, in Sioux Falls, and was willing to tell everyone in the listening audience just how great it was to have the opportunity to play professional baseball in Sioux Falls.
Over the years, I watched Clemente’s career. He’d started out playing 3 years for the Colorado Rockies, where he hit all of his 8 major league home runs in 1999. He had been a tenth round draft pick. From the Colorado Rockies, he moved to the Anaheim Angels in 2000. In 2005, he played for Puerto Rico in the World Cup – and performed well enough that when I listened to the happy young man, he was on his second year with the Canaries. From the Canaries, he went on to the Somerset Patriots – it was Atlantic League, but he was briefly back in league ball. I’m sure that he felt Sioux Falls was the place that gave him a chance to get back into league ball, even if it was the minors.
In 2010, he played for the Broncos de Reynosa in the Mexican league. The last mention I found as I followed his career was 2012, when he played first for the New Jersey Jackals and ended with the Puebla Pericos (parrots).
His professional baseball career ran from 1993 to 2012. It was rare for Edgard to spend two years with the same team, playing for 23 different teams over his 20 year career. I never saw Edgard Clemente play – but I listened to an interview with a once major league ball player who was happy to be able to continue his career in South Dakota.
Trego's Mountain Ear 