"[2] Though best known for playing with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Clemente was a hero for the large Puerto Rican community in New York City.

[3] After Clemente's death in a plane crash in 1972 and his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, the first Latin American ever to be elected, the Harlem River State Park in the Bronx, the center of the Nuyorican community in New York City, was renamed to Roberto Clemente State Park in his honor.

[5] Unveiled in 2013, forty years after his election to the Hall of Fame, it was sponsored by Goya Foods which had a connection with Clemente who had done Goya-sponsored baseball clinics in Puerto Rico.

Cristobal Colon, a close friend of Clemente's and the man who drove him to the airport the night he died, had been a Goya executive in Puerto Rico.

Bob Unanue, President of Goya Foods, was a baseball fan and agreed to sponsor the statue.