Jamie Moyer of the Seattle Mariners has been named the 2003 winner of the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award.
The Roberto Clemente Award is presented each year to the major league baseball player who combines outstanding baseball skills with work in the community. Moyer was selected from a list of 30 nominees, one from each major league team. The winner is selected by a committee that includes commissioner Bud Selig and Vera Clemente, Roberto’s wife.
“What a great honor,” Moyer said before Game 3 of the World Series between the New York Yankees and Florida Marlins in Miami.
“Roberto Clemente may be the greatest humanitarian in the game of baseball. A great player, he set many great examples when I was a young boy on the field. I was living across the state in Pennsylvania, and realizing, hoping to realize, a dream come true.”
Clemente’s Hall of Fame career with the Pittsburgh Pirates ended suddenly and sadly when he died in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve, 1972, while trying to deliver relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
He finished his career with exactly 3,000 hits. The award was named in Clemente’s honor in 1973, and players are eligible to win only once.
Moyer and his wife, Karen, have contributed countless hours, funds and resources to the community through The Moyer Foundation, which was created to offer support to children and families who are enduring a time of profound distress. Since its inception, The Moyer Foundation has raised nearly $3 million in support of more than 100 different organizations.
This year, Moyer also teamed with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to create the Gregory Fund, a new initiative that raised nearly $250,000 in funds and awareness for early detection cancer research.
John Hancock Financial Services will present Moyer with a $25,000 check to The Moyer Foundation. John Hancock also will make a $30,000 contribution in Moyer’s name to Roberto Clemente Sports City, a multi-purpose sports and education center in Puerto Rico.
Moyer has been one of baseball’s best pitchers since joining the Mariners in the middle of the 1996 season. The soft-tossing left-hander went 21-7 with a 3.27 ERA this season. At age 40, he went to the All-Star game for the first time in his 17-year career.
Willie Mays was the first winner of the award in 1971, and others include Pete Rose, Cal Ripken Jr. and Sammy Sosa. Jim Thome was honored last year.
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