As Rob Ruck wrote in “Raceball” (2011), every player with Latino heritage who was in the majors before Jackie Robinson broke the color bar in 1947 “was either Caucasian or able to pass as such.” (An example of the latter was Ted Williams, who diverted public attention from the fact that his mother was born to Mexican parents.)

Like the Cuban-born Minnie Minoso, who started playing with the Cleveland Indians in 1949, Clemente was not only Latino but also black. Encountering mainland American culture after what he considered to be the more racially harmonious Puerto Rico, he later said he felt like a double outsider. Hank Aaron observed (as quoted by David C. Ogden in the 2008 book “Reconstructing Fame”) that early in Clemente’s career, when he had to improve his English and adjust to American society, “it was probably harder on him than it was on me.”

During one spring training in Florida, when Clemente had to stay on the bus while teammates dined in segregated restaurants, he warned the Pirates general manager Joe L. Brown that he and black teammates (who were also barred from residing in the team’s hotel) would refuse to take the bus “if we can’t eat where the white players eat.” (Brown tried to defuse the problem by finding his black players a station wagon.)

Nor did he feel very welcome in working-class Pittsburgh, where there were few Latinos, and white and black citizens lived largely apart. Unschooled in speaking for a public audience and with English as his second language, he accidentally offended some African-Americans by telling a reporter that after his upbringing in Puerto Rico, he had not been prepared to endure discrimination “like a Negro,” then later defended himself, explaining, “Look at my skin — I am not of the white people.”

After a stellar performance when the Pirates defeated the Yankees in the 1960 World Series, Clemente smoldered when he was denied the award for Series most valuable player. (The winner, Bobby Richardson, remains the only player to receive the award despite being on the losing team.)