Pittsburgh Pirates: Clemente's Legacy Lives on Through Neil Walker

It’s not a stretch to say that Neil Walker is the best second baseman in the National League, especially after the season he’s putting together in 2014.

Walker has hit 21 home runs this year, more than any other second baseman in the majors. What’s more is that his 21st home run came Wednesday, a towering shot over the Clemente Wall in right field.

How appropriate for Walker to hit his 21st dinger over the Clemente Wall, which is 21 feet high in honor of the man who wore No. 21 during his entire career in Pittsburgh.

Even more appropriate that Wednesday was Roberto Clemente Day in baseball and the Pirates had mowed a gigantic “21” into the grass in right field.

Those are all nice correlations, and it’s nice to see that Roberto Clemente’s legacy is still very much alive in Pittsburgh and around baseball in general.

But the most fascinating aspect of the story is the fact that Walker never would have hit his 21st home run Wednesday if it weren’t for Clemente. He wouldn’t have hit any home runs, ever, considering he never would have been alive in the first place.

Neil’s father, Tom, played six seasons in Major League Baseball, albeit none with the Pirates. The elder Walker absolutely idolized Clemente and got the chance to correspond with him during their simultaneous careers in baseball.

As told by Tom Singer of MLB.com, Walker jumped at the chance to help Clemente load a plane headed to Nicaragua on New Year’s Eve in 1972.

The country had been ravaged by an earthquake, and he was flying down in person to make sure relief supplies reached those who needed them, instead of being intercepted by corrupt government officials.

Clemente rightly assumed his presence would ensure the supplies were delivered in a timely fashion to those who needed it most. Walker begged his idol to let him tag along on the trip.

Clemente rejected that suggestion, however, and he told Walker to go home and spend the holiday with friends and family. Less than an hour later, Clemente would be dead at the age of 38 after the airplane exploded and disintegrated, cutting short the career of one of the best baseball players of all time.

It’s been more than four decades since that fateful flight, more than enough time for Tom Walker to digest what happened that dark night in 1972.

As Singer said on MLB.com, fate has an interesting way of bringing the story full-circle: "Forty years later," Walker said, "I think of a man that saved my life. I can't help but think about that now. I've had four wonderful children, and it turns out that one of them is the second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates."

Tom Walker had no good reason to settle in Pittsburgh after his career, being that he grew up in Florida and never played for the Pirates in his six-season career.

But here he came to the land of Clemente, and the rest is history.

So next time Walker blasts a home run over the Clemente Wall in right field, think of his idol, a man who literally saved his father’s life more than 40 years ago.

Think of Roberto Clemente Walker (his full name), and the lives he changed both on and off the diamond. Neil Walker certainly does.