On September 30, 1972, at Three Rivers Stadium, Clemente doubled off Jon Matlack of the Mets for his 3,000th hit. It was his last regular-season hit. He finished the year at .312 in 102 games. In December an earthquake struck Managua, and he organized relief from San Juan. On December 31 he boarded a cargo plane carrying supplies to Nicaragua. It went down in the ocean shortly after takeoff, off Isla Verde. He was thirty-eight, and his body was never recovered.
On March 20, 1973, the baseball writers held a special election, waived the five-year wait, and voted him into the Hall of Fame with 92.7 percent of the vote. He was the first Latin American and Caribbean player elected.
His entry in the 1973 set, in the same design as everyone else's: a record of the next season that did not happen.
This card was printed in the same months. Topps issued its 1973 set in five series of 132 cards, the last year it released the annual set that way, and Clemente is number 50, in the first. The front is an action photograph from the plate, the catcher crouched in front of him and the bat coming through, inside a white border with a small silhouette in the lower corner to show his position. The name reads ROBERTO CLEMENTE. Topps had gone back to it in 1970, after thirteen years of Bob.
The card is simply his entry in the year's set, printed with the same design and the same kind of photograph as everyone else's. That is the reason collectors keep it: it records the ordinary next season that did not happen.
Like much of the 1973 set, the action photograph is not sharp, and the set is known for loose cropping. The white border shows edge wear and the centering wanders. It is the last regular Topps card of him, and it carries his own name.
