King Felix: Chasing Clemente’s Ghost from Pittsburgh to Puerto Rico
by Adam Perry for Boulder Weekly 1/20/2022
I had dreamed for years—decades—of seeing a baseball game in the Caribbean. In April of 2017, I spent three unforgettable days in Havana, Cuba, and have been kicking myself ever since for not splurging on a taxi ride to an Industriales game. In January of 2020, just before COVID-19 made virtually all travel impossible for a while, I skipped an opportunity to see a Caribbean World Series game during a trip to San Juan because my partner and I fell in love with the city and its beaches and didn’t want to spend any of our red-eye weekend in Puerto Rico seated in an old, decrepit baseball stadium.
But I absolutely adore old, decrepit baseball stadiums. (READ THE REST AT BOULDERWEEKLY.COM HERE)
Adam Perry 
Hi! I would really like to connect with you via email if posdible but I upon searching I didn’t find contact information for you.
I read your piece in Pittsburgh Quarterly on Clemente, Puerto Rican Baseball, your new “King” Felix, the real King Felix, Forbes Field & that even expressed respect for Oakland fans & the Coliseum while expressing perfectly the superficial reality of what I refer to as the dark side of the Bay. What an incredible piece, I’ve never related to something more. Sounds cheesy AF but I’ve never been more serious.
My life story is oddly intwerwined with your piece. The Great One passed a decade before I was born but he’s always been my hero (#Retire21). He isnt just one of the greatest players in MLB history (crazy that his final hit in baseball was his 3000th. That alone was kismet). He is, IMO, by far the greatest humanitarian that will ever grace a baseball field, & arguably the the greatest humanitarian in human history. He has peers in that sense but making an argument that he was not wouldn’t be easy.
There are so many things I’d really like to ask you & stories that would resonate with you too. Heres a quick lil’ overview but I hope you will email me so we can discuss all this in further detail soon! 😊
From the mid 1950s until until my grandfather was transferred to Houston in the late 60s. My baseball obessed grandmother & my mom, now in her early 70s, spent their summers at Forbes Field to watch their favorite player who was of course The Great One. My mom still has some cool stories from Pittsburgh including the 1960 WS that I think you’d find amusing in any case.
Anyway, my grandma instilled a deep love of baseball in both my mom & me. We brought their tradition to California and the A’s. Being an East Bay fan in the Bay had never been easy. We’ve lived under the threat of relocation for a quarter of a century while knowing the team will develop players so talented they instantly capture our ❤ & once they get close to getting an arbitration raise they’re traded for propects – starubg the usual 3-4 yeaea of suvkinh & round & roundvm
the regular season tells the story of a talented team, not a month of 1, 5 or 7 game series over the course of a month. 30 yrs without a ring sounds bad but the A’s have made more playoff appearances this century than any team except LAD, STL, NYY, ATL & are tied with BOS with 11 – then the Angels are next with 7 postseason appearances since 00. And the difference in payroll? I can only see success there.
Please ignore the majority of my last comment & please don’t approve either of these on you blog. If be forever grateful. I wrote a couple drafts but accidentally somehow/ $/I hit send when it wasn’t finished & it is unreadable. Please don’t approve my last comment nor this one.
Bottom Line: Clemente is my hero. My mom my grandma is/was baseball fanatics. They spent summer at Forbes Field & I spent mine at the Coliseum.
Can we please chat? jenniferrhalligan21@gmail.com
Hope to hear from you (& pls don’t publish these comments!) 😂
Thanks!
~ Jen