Roberto Clemente Award returns to the Pittsburgh Pirates

Pittsburgh Pirates hall-of-famer Roberto Clemente was known as a great ambassador for the game of baseball.

Now, a modern-day Pirate has received Clemente’s namesake award for doing the same.

Andrew McCutchen was announced as the recipient of the 2015 Roberto Clemente award. The award is given annually to those who “best exemplifies the game of baseball and sportsmanship.”

McCutchen is no stranger to charitable causes and ambassadorship for the game. Since assuming his place as one of the faces of the game, Cutch has led many initiatives to live up to the comparisons. Whether it’s something as silly as cutting his trademark dreadlocks for charity, or even lending his name to fitness and charity initiatives such as Cutch’s Crew, McCutchen does what many athletes rarely do: accept the mantle of responsibility.

In a world that continues to become disillusioned with pro athletes, he also reminds us how fun the game can be:

The aspirations to live up to the Clemente name are nothing new for McCutchen. In a piece on MLB.com dated from 2012, Cutch had this to say about Clemente:

“Look at Roberto Clemente, at what he did: The majority of people that you ask about him, they don’t say that he was a great baseball player, they say he was a great guy,” McCutchen said earlier this month, between fans-pleasing appearances at PirateFest. “That’s the person that I admire, and that’s how I want to be.

Please join us in congratulating McCutchen not for winning an award for work on or off the field, but for being a sparkling human being.

UPDATE: MLB.com now has reaction from McCutchen on winning the award. From the MVP:

“It means a lot. I feel like it means a bit more to me, just because of it being Roberto Clemente and him playing for the Pirates, wearing the same uniform,” McCutchen said Friday. “It just shows that I’m moving in the right direction as far as being able to do the things that I want to do off the baseball field. Just getting a prestigious award like this is very humbling.”