Every since I was a little kid and learned that a couple months after his 3000 hit he died in a crash doing a good deed I've been a big fan.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/40th-anniversary-r.i.p.-roberto-clemente/
The reason Clemente went on the mission.
A great ballplayer and right fielder,

Looking back 40 years, it bothered me back then that Clemente was looked at as an oh so much better rightfielder than Kaline. Both had strong accurate arms, Clemente the higher ave and batting titles, Kaline better obp, power, and 3 second place finishes in ba.

but when it happened reading about it and on the tv it was numbing, here was this baseball great, going on a humanitarian mission of mercy to help out earthquake victims.

In the last 5/10 years some of the sabr crowd and baseball historians like Bill James have come out and said one is really as good as the other. I think a reason Clemente had many more assists was the national league was more of a running league, and first to add blacks and hispanics, better players where more of the American league teams lagged behind. Once Kaline threw out 23 in 1958 the league mostly stopped running on his arm.

That 1971 All-Star game was a who's who of future hall of famers.
The year before or the year after, there was an exhibition all-star game of players and Kaline and Clemente were on the same team and won. Roberto in right, and Al played center. It was the Martin Luther King game.

There was this aura about Clemente, the way he carried himself, and treated everyone with respect. He was the star but talked to the fans one on one like he knew them.