Here is a very brief excerpt from the ESPN the Magazine article alluded to in my previous post. Author Kevin Guilfoile. who interned in the Pirates PR Department in the early days of Barry Bonds' career, made the following observation in the article. I hope that you take the time to read the entire article, but this part is too good not to highlight on it's own:
When you're as talented and famous as Barry Bonds or Roberto Clemente, too much is going to be expected of you. The demands on you will never end. And you can react to those demands in a number of different ways. Barry Bonds decided that he would just never give anybody anything, because he knew if he gave them one thing today, they would ask for three things tomorrow. And he was probably right about that, as wrong as it must have been for his soul.
Roberto decided to do the opposite. If you asked him for one thing, he gave you four. He worked hard to become one of the best who ever played the game, then he gave away the trophies that proved it.
He gave as much as he could. He gave more than he could.
On the day of one of his biggest triumphs, he might have told three different friends he was giving them the same historic baseball bat.
He never stopped giving.
He gave right up until the day that giving literally killed him.
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