On the day when MLB wears 21: the mythic aspects of baseball draw on cliches of the innocent past, the nostalgia for how things were. Fields of green. Fathers and sons. But Clemente's myth arcs the other way, to the future, not the past, to what people hope they can become.

His memory is kept alive as a symbol of action and passion, not of reflection and longing. He broke racial and language barriers and achieved greatness and died a hero.

That word hero can be used indiscriminately int he world of sports, but the classic definition is of someone who gives his life in the service of others, and that is exactly what Clemente did.

He was young. He went down in a plane crash. His body was lost to the sea, never found. He was on a mission of mercy, leaving his family on New Year's Eve to come to the aid of strangers.

He was not a saint, and certainly not docile. He was agitated, beautiful, sentimental, unsettled, sweet, serious, selfless, haunted, sensitive, contradictory, and intensely proud of everything about his native Puerto Rico, including himself.