David Maraniss discusses Clemente, Obama, love for baseball

Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss visited the La Vida Baseball Live studio to talk baseball, Roberto Clemente, and his latest book “A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father.”

Baseball was a passion passed down within the Maraniss family. His father was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan who traveled from Detroit to Chicago to see Jackie Robinson play in 1947, according to family lore. Growing up in Cleveland turned a young Maraniss into an Indians fan where he rooted for early Latino stars Vic Power and Roberto “Bobby” Avila. That was also when he became captivated by Clemente as a player and as a person. Maraniss demonstrated his baseball expertise when he selected his All-Time Latino team.

“A Good American Family” allowed him to get to “know more intimately” his father’s story as someone who was blacklisted in the 1950s during the Red Scare. Whether doing research on Vince Lombardi, Bill Clinton or Roberto Clemente, Maraniss noted that one of the “four legs” of his research approach was “Go There.” Thus, for the Clemente biography, he traveled to Pittsburgh, Nicaragua and Puerto Rico, where spending time with the Clemente family and immersing himself in the Puerto Rican culture allowed him to craft the magnificent “Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero.”