MLB WORLD SERIES: PHILLIES VS ASTROS

October 31, 2022

Rob Manfred

Luis Clemente

Roberto Clemente

Andy Navarrete

Justin Turner

Citizens Bank Park

Roberto Clemente Award Presentation

THE MODERATOR: Good evening, everyone. My name is Greg Amsinger, studio host MLB Network. Excited to see all of you at the World Series and this special occasion. It is my honor to welcome all of you to the official trophy presentation of Major League Baseball's most prestigious individual player honor, the Roberto Clemente Award presented by Capital One.

The Roberto Clemente Award pays tribute to the late Hall of Famer's legacy, his achievements, character by recognizing a Major League player who represents the game through these attributes: Extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy, and positive contributions on and off the field.

MLB has been recognizing Major League players for their philanthropic work since 1971. This special recognition was named the Roberto Clemente Award in 1973 to immortalize the 15-time All Star after he was lost in a plane crash on New Year's Eve in 1972 on his way to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

It's important to note that this December 31st will mark the 50th anniversary of Roberto's tragic passing. 50 years already. While it is certainly a somber reminder of how long our world and sport have been without Roberto's presence, we do have cause to celebrate. Roberto's humanitarian spirit and legacy continues to live on through the tremendous generosity and community work demonstrated by Major Leaguers all around our country and our world. Tonight is a manifestation of the sport's incredible philanthropic spirit through this celebration of the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award presented by Capital One.

The original name for this honor was the Commissioner's Award, so it is fitting that I now welcome our commissioner, Rob Manfred, who is about to present the trophy to this year's recipient.

Rob.

ROB MANFRED JR.: Thank you, Greg. I will say it was a good renaming, if you think about it. It really was.

THE MODERATOR: I would agree.

ROB MANFRED JR.: This is one of my favorite days in the baseball calendar, and it is baseball's highest honor to get the Roberto Clemente Award. I think it is because it demonstrates the bond that exists between our players and the communities where we play.

I think this year we really focused on the 50th anniversary. We worked very hard to make Clemente Day the kind of celebration it should be. I have to thank the New York Mets. They had a great ceremony in New York with a lot of the former winners of the award.

And I also want to thank the Clemente family. They worked really hard with us to make the day everything it should be.

I also want to thank Capital One for ongoing support of not only the award, but Roberto Clemente Day.

As Greg said, when you get a notebook with the candidates from each of the clubs, it really is unbelievable when you read through the great work that our players do in their various communities. I think it's a special honor when you see how much good work gets done out there, a special honor for this year's winner, Justin Turner.

Justin, from the very beginning, was always active in the community, going back to his days with the Mets. I think you would probably agree you stepped it up when you went home to L.A. Justin and his wife, Kourtney, who is here with us, through their work with the Justin Turner Foundation, have been involved with a variety of charities, the Dream Center, which helps homeless people, the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. I love these two numbers. Over 70,000 toys and 14,000 bicycles. How about that? Oh, man, that is really something.

If you have any doubt about Justin's impact in the community, Los Angeles in 2019 had Justin Turner Day in Los Angeles for his work in the community. Let me say on a personal note, during the All-Star Game, Kourtney and Justin had a charity event out at the Santa Monica pier. It was to benefit Transition House, which works with homeless veterans. It was great cause. I will have to say, not only did they do great work, it was a hell of a lot of fun. It was really a fun day, and it was great.

I have one last thing I want to do before I finish. Today is an important day for another reason. It is Kourtney's birthday, and Happy Birthday to you.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: Very nice.

ROB MANFRED JR.: Congratulations to you, Justin.

THE MODERATOR: Commissioner Manfred, thank you very much. Roberto Clemente's legendary humanitarian spirit has lived on thanks in part to our next speaker. It is my pleasure to introduce two of Roberto's three sons, Luis Clemente and Robert Clemente Jr.

Gentlemen.

LUIS CLEMENTE: Thank you.

Good evening. It is a great honor always to be present for Roberto Clemente Award presentation and to say congratulations this particular year to Justin. We're very proud and understand now what mom went through every time she was voting for the recipient of the award. And we get to vote now. She used to ask for our support and we'd say, It's all you. And now it's all us as well.

So it's great the goodwill that you and your wife have done for our family name, for the baseball players. Now you represent all of them, everyone who was nominated. You were the one that was chosen for the great reasons, and I feel that we definitely welcome you to the Clemente family and the Roberto Clemente Award.

We've been presenting a watch, Oris watch, to all the winners. Everyone who has won the award has received theirs. We're presenting you with yours, and yours has this special limited edition number. It's a 2022, the year you won it. Yes, of course you can open it. Sure.

So welcome to the family.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: Luis, Roberto, thank you for that.

I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge two members of this special fraternity of Roberto Clemente Award winners, my MLB Network colleague, Harold Reynold, and Hall of Famer, Craig Biggio. If you guys could stand up. I want to acknowledge you guys. Thank you for being here.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: In 2022 Capital One became the presenting sponsor of not only the Roberto Clemente Award, but also Roberto Clemente Day. To speak on their behalf, please welcome the executive vice president of external affairs for Capital One, Andy Navarrete.

ANDY NAVARRETE: Thank you so much.

Thank you, Commissioner, for giving us the opportunity to share the dais here with you and to acknowledge this incredibly special moment.

I grew up in a baseball-obsessed Cuban household, and Roberto Clemente was an absolute icon. He, in fact, I think was the same age as my father, so this was something that from a generational standpoint is something that really, really sticks with you. And while I was perhaps not old enough to remember his storied career, I certainly do remember the circumstances of his passing. My father was in Nicaragua right at the same time that your father was last there for the Amateur World Series and was so inspired by your father's trip that he decided to go back with my mother to do a humanitarian trip of his own in early 1973.

So it's a particular honor to be able to represent 50 years later Capital One, my own company, in providing Justin Turner with this award.

Justin, I'm going to echo the commissioner's comments. When you get to read all of the nominations, it is an incredibly impressive group. But even among those incredible achievements, the work that you and Kourtney are doing in the L.A. community really stood out, and in particular we applaud you for your efforts on behalf of homeless veterans.

Capital One is proud to be the largest community development lender in the country, and we have three affordable housing buildings that are dedicated solely to the needs of veterans, and so that is an issue and a cause that is near and dear to our hearts.

But thank you for your many, many contributions for the wonderful career, for carrying on the legacy of this incredibly important figure in our community, and congratulations again.

THE MODERATOR: Andy, thank you very much.

Justin, this is a tremendous honor and day for you. I'm sure you have a lot to say. The floor is yours.

JUSTIN TURNER: Yeah, this is a tremendous honor and a very special award. I think when you think about baseball and the history and all the great accolades that can be achieved on the field, this is one that stands out above all of 'em, for me. Because it's a way that my wife and I have the opportunity to give back in the community, to utilize our platform in a meaningful, positive way. To help lift people up who are in need and in times of pain, especially the last few years that we've been through with the pandemic as it hit the entire world very hard, but it was especially tough for Angelenos. And to be able to kind of have this foundation, this resource to go through to have an impact and dive into impacting people's lives and lifting them up and providing them with supplies, resources, anything that they need in tough times has been special to us.

So as a Los Angeles Dodger the bar was already set pretty high for Kort and I with guys like Steve Garvey and Clayton Kershaw who are obviously previous winners. To be able to follow in their footsteps and try to make the organization proud and make the Clemente family proud is something that we hold near and dear to our heart. I just want to say thank you guys for being here and for this opportunity.

And just because we are getting this award today, it doesn't mean we're done. There's still a ton of work to do and we can't wait to continue to impact the lives of others.

THE MODERATOR: Justin, thank you. Congratulations again.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: I'm now going to open the floor for questions. Just put your hand up in the air we'll get the mic phone to you. We respectfully ask that all line of questioning remains in recognition of Justin's philanthropic work. So let's keep it to that topic. If you have any questions for Justin raise your hand we'll get a microphone right to you.

Q. Justin, how much credit does your wife get for this achievement?

JUSTIN TURNER: Yeah, honestly I think that she should be the one sitting up here. She is the backbone behind the Justin Turner Foundation. We operate the entire thing together. We don't have any paid employees on our staff. She does it all. She runs the website, updates the website. She runs the social media. She reaches out and corresponds through e-mail, sets up events. And then also sets up all the stuff with our beneficiaries. And some of the kids and family, one who is actually here with us tonight in the back, the Lang family, one of the first kids we met on the field back when I was a Met. And it really kind of opened our doors to the impact we can have on people's lives. And our relationship remains as good as ever. And we're proud to have them here tonight to kind of share this award with us.

But, yes, all the credit goes to Kort. It is her birthday today. She flew out to Philadelphia on her birthday to accept it. And that's just, you know, I guess if you want to call it a sacrifice, that's one of the sacrifices of the thousands that she makes to pour her heart into our foundation.

Q. I would like to say that you are Latino adjacent. Having played in the Winter Leagues and played in communities with large Latino communities. How have they influenced and how have those experiences influenced the work that you do?

JUSTIN TURNER: Yeah, I think being in Los Angeles, growing up in Los Angeles, obviously there's a very heavy Latino presence. Getting out in the community, getting into schools, getting into hospitals and spending time with our community you realize that there's a burning desire and passion for Dodger baseball in our Latin community.

And if you ever come to Dodger Stadium and you show up, our Latinos show up in droves. The ties that we have through Fernando, through Julio is really special. And those are two guys that I particularly look up to and love making all the connections and building relationships with our Latino fan base.

Q. So you have been to All Star games, an NLCS MVP, won a World Series. Where do you put this? Where do you rank this in your accomplishments?

JUSTIN TURNER: Yeah, I've been fortunate enough to play for, play this game for awhile and receive some very nice awards on the field. But this one will be front and center. This is the most meaningful one to me.

I think I've said this a few times already in talking about this award. One of the things about Roberto Clemente I think, especially for our generation of baseball players, when you ask 'em about him, and this isn't a knock on him, this is actually what I think is most special is humanitarian is first.

And you don't, I don't think a lot of people realize how tremendous of a baseball player he was and all the accolades that came with his play on the field, because he did so much great work in the community in Puerto Rico and he lifted so many people up that I think his accomplishments on the field are kind of maybe overlooked a little bit.

I think that we kind of feel the same way. As much as there is to accomplish on the field and in this game, doing everything that we can and utilizing our platform to impact as many lives as we can is more important than anything. So this one right here will be front and center of all of 'em.

Q. Because you and Kourtney are so involved, do you have other projects on the drawing board? Do you have other areas you might like to get into as time passes that you haven't had the time to do yet?

JUSTIN TURNER: I think we're always open to situations that come up. I mean, when the pandemic hit, obviously our beneficiaries were homeless veterans and kids in hospitals. But when the L.A. Unified School District got shut down and there was a glaring need for families in Los Angeles to figure out how to provide lunches for their children who relied on the L.A. Unified School District to provide that for 'em, that was something that popped up and we jumped right in and started buying meals from local restaurants, family-owned restaurants and providing them to the Dream Center as they had their drive-through kind of COVID line, hot meal line. And I think we provided close to a million meals over an eight-month period.

So whenever there's a need in the city of Los Angeles we're open to jump into it. I don't think there's one particular thing that we're really aiming for. We did do an event at children's hospital in 2019 which was a winter wonderland. And because of COVID we haven't been able to get back to do that.

So we're hoping, as we keep continuing to get better and move through this a pandemic, we'll be able to get back and put that event on again and bring Santa Claus to the hospital.

THE MODERATOR: Well that concludes this press conference. Thank you very much.