MLB WORLD SERIES: RAYS VS BREWERS

October 26, 2026

Robert D. Manfred

Francisco Lindor

Katia Lindor

Luis Clemente

Tropicana Field

Roberto Clemente Award Presentation

SIERA SANTOS: Good evening, everyone. My name is Siera Santos from MLB Network. It's time to welcome you to the official trophy presentation of Major League Baseball's most prestigious honor, the Roberto Clemente award presented by Capital One.

The Roberto Clemente award pays tribute to the late Hall-of-Famer's legacy by recognizing a Major League player who represents the game through extraordinary character, community development, philanthropic excellence, 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 tragically lost in a plane crash on New Year's Eve 1972 on his way to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Roberto's humanitarian spirit continues through the tremendous generosity and community work demonstrated by Major Leaguers around our country and the world.

Tonight is a celebration of his philanthropic legacy that grows stronger among players year after year. To announce this year's winner, please welcome the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred.

ROBERT D. MANFRED JR.: Thank you, Siera.

Good afternoon, everyone. It really is a pleasure to be here to recognize the winner of baseball's highest award. We call it the highest award because it recognizes a unique combination of excellence on the field and community service.

There's two important thank yous that I have to do right off the bat. First of all, thank you to Capital One for once again sponsoring the award. I think Andy Navarrete, who's traditionally been their representative, is stuck on the causeway. Hopefully he'll join us at some point.

Then more important, the Clemente family for continuing to lend their father's great name to this great award.

I'm particularly excited for this year's winner, Francisco Lindor. He's our fifth winner from Puerto Rico, a nice record given the history of the award. I don't need to tell anyone here about what a great player he is, a five-time All-Star, four-time Silver Slugger, two-time Gold Glove winner -- you've got all of them, right? Pretty good.

He's also shined off the field throughout his career. I had a chance actually to observe this early in his career. We took the Twins and the then-Indians to Puerto Rico to play a game. Puerto Rico was really important to us because we have a ton of players there and it was right after a horrible hurricane. As a result, we scheduled a lot of community events.

My friend here, I think attended every single one of those events, and it really left an impression on me. He carried that passion over, along with his wife Katia, when he came to the Mets. They have a program at Bayside High School called Lindor's Leaders program. He partners with the Children's Miracle Network of hospitals in New York. He donated $1 million to Monteverde Academy, your alma mater, to build a middle school.

And not only was he involved in the disaster relief effort for Maria, but also for Fiona afterwards. Annually, there's a great Mets program giving backpacks to schoolchildren in Queens.

I think that it is so easy to congratulate you on the great career you've had on and off the field and this well-deserved award.

FRANCISCO LINDOR: Thank you.

(Applause.)

SIERA SANTOS: Thank you, Commissioner Manfred. You alluded to it right there. Francisco's selection carries special significance as a proud son of Puerto Rico, following in the footsteps of Roberto Clemente, whose impact extended far beyond the baseball diamond.

With this honor, Francisco becomes the fifth Clemente award winner since its inception, of Puerto Rican descent. You join previous honorees, Edgar Martinez, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, Yadier Molina. And like Clemente, Francisco exemplifies how the platform of baseball can be used to uplift others and make a lasting difference in communities.

With that, it is my pleasure to introduce one of Roberto's three sons, Luis Clemente.

LUIS CLEMENTE: Thank you, Siera.

Hello, everyone. It is a great honor representing the Clemente family to honor Francisco Lindor, Paquito, as the fifth Puerto Rican and this year's Clemente award recipient.

We had the opportunity to share time with him, his mother, our mother, and I remember when Mom told me that this young man is going to be someone very, very important in representing our country, and she was right. She was definitely right.

You, Katia, I congratulate you as well for living a life with purpose. In everything both of you do, there is a purpose. There's a meaning. To save many lives, to impact many others, and I feel that's what exemplifies this award. Those players that get it, that understand the opportunity that they were blessed with to play in the biggest platform Major League Baseball presents.

How you give back and how engaged you are, treating kids like they are someone now, not who will they become later. That, I think, is the best way to truly honor our father's memory. You both exemplify that.

With that, I want to present you with the Oris watch we present to every Clemente recipient. The number matches the year, 2026, that you actually won the award. Enjoy it and God bless both of you.

FRANCISCO LINDOR: Thank you. I appreciate it.

(Applause.)

SIERA SANTOS: Francisco, you can try it on later.

FRANCISCO LINDOR: I'm excited. I was ready for it.

SIERA SANTOS: Today you have the distinguished honor of joining a group of players who have received this distinguished award. Before we turn it over to you, we do have a special surprise. A few people wanted to take a moment to share their appreciation for you and recognize all that you do both on and off the field.

(Video played. )

That's a lot of thank yous, and we do want to thank you for all your fabulous work. It's your chance to take the floor.

FRANCISCO LINDOR: Thank you. I want to start by saying this is a huge honor and privilege to receive this award. I want to thank MLB, Rob, and the rest of the staff for putting something for the players. We don't really try to be recognized by the work we do in the communities, but there is something that we get out of it. So it's a huge honor.

I want to thank the Clemente family for fighting for your dad's legacy, fighting for the world to continue to find out what he did, how he carried himself. It's truly humbling to share a stage and share my name and be on the plaque with Clemente's iconic batting, running mechanics after he hit the ball.

I'm blessed. I'm honored. I want to thank the rock of the family, my wife, for everything that she does on a daily basis, holding it down for the family and making sure our daughters and our son are being raised the right way. There's no job harder than your job, and what you do doesn't go unnoticed.

Mami and Papi, gracias. (Speaking Spanish.)

My sister, my brother, Christian, just everybody in the family, my friends, I appreciate you guys. Hopefully the next generation -- which is my nieces, my kids -- hopefully you guys grow up and say I want to be somewhat like the (speaking Spanish) by helping and giving to others because ultimately that's what life is about, taking care of people that actually need guidance and help.

Yeah, I don't have words. This to me is very humbling. It's an honor and a privilege. So I appreciate you guys. Like I said, I'm just -- we've been doing work without trying to be recognized, and here we are.

To all of Puerto Rico, (speaking Spanish).

I'm glad there was people in life like Clemente, like Carlos Beltran, like Delgado, and a lot of the recipients that I look up to that set the path for me. I just following it. I'm just a little kid that just followed it and I said, whatever they did, I'm going for that.

Thank you, guys. And I'm truly honored and blessed. And thank you, Katia, for being the rock.

(Applause.)

SIERA SANTOS: Congratulations, Francisco, and you are living in their footsteps, and you're doing it so well.

We're going to open up the floor for questions.

Q. What does it mean to be just the fifth Puerto Rican to be nominated for this award? And in all of your career accolades, where does it stand? Where does this stand in your career?

FRANCISCO LINDOR: This award represents me, but also it represents my family. It represents my mom. It represents my sisters, my siblings, everybody that has anything to do with my success up here. It represents my entire family. It represents my Puerto Rican heritage and my Puerto Rican family.

To be also just amongst the group of all the Puerto Ricans that have won this -- Yadier Molina, Carlos Delgado and the others -- it's just a huge honor. I looked at them, and I was trying to follow in their footsteps. Now just being here, it's a complete honor to have a full-circle moment like this and, again, just to represent my country as a whole.

Q. Francisco, for you and Katia, with all the various proposals you get, how do you evaluate them and choose which ones you want to pursue?

FRANCISCO LINDOR: For me, I love education, and she loves the health side of things. Usually her stuff, it's more about health. I'm more about education, how can I help the -- whether it's a school or individual, or how can I bring knowledge to people? And she's on the other side.

Yeah, like I said, she's the rock. She gets a lot of stuff. It's a little harder to get stuff to me. But she's fantastic, and she gets everything that needs to come my way.

Yeah, we don't really like say this is the one thing we're going to stick to. Wherever we see a need, we're going to go and help.

SIERA SANTOS: Would you like to weigh in as well?

FRANCISCO LINDOR: Let her. She speaks much better than me.

SIERA SANTOS: That's a great question. It must be difficult with all the proposals you guys receive and all the people who do reach out who are looking for assistance.

KATIA LINDOR: Yeah, I think, as Francisco mentioned, we are big on education, and I think that's kind of a broad umbrella. Under that falls -- in my case, I talk a lot about mental health and maternal health. Along those lines, you connect with people, and you learn people's stories, and then you kind of just learn what's meaningful to you.

That doesn't mean it won't evolve and look like something else in five, ten years. But for right now, the things that we feel passionate about have to do with the people we meet along the way and how they impact our lives. It's kind of a two-way street.

We feel very blessed that we can impact other people's lives, but they also give so much to us.

SIERA SANTOS: Absolutely fulfilling.

We are going to check in with MLB's World Series correspondent, Ernie Clement.

Q. Francisco, congratulations. What a great honor. A little nervous, it's a little different being out here on this side. Again, congratulations. If you had some advice for a young player -- a young Major League player, a young Minor League player -- in handling the off-the-field stuff, how to get involved, just how to get started, and what to do to help the community, could you just give some advice for a younger player.

FRANCISCO LINDOR: I think it starts with staying true to yourself. Go for what you like and what you actually relate to. There's community leaders. Every community most of the time has a leader, has somebody that you can go to.

In my case, I've been in two organization that have been fantastic. Cleveland, they helped me a lot. And the Mets organization, starting with Alex Cohen and everybody else underneath, they do a really good job of setting up a platform so I can spread my tentacles in a way.

I would just say to Minor Leaguers, if you're not in a professional setting, go into the community leaders. Stay true to who you are, what you like, what you can relate to, because when you're not true to yourself, eventually you just get tired of it.

What you want to do in life is just make it a way of living. If you just like talking, go to schools and just share your knowledge. If you like working on a farm, find those things so you can go do those things. Always stay true to yourself. And there's always people around where you can reach out, whether it's the community leaders and being in a professional setting, the organization, MLB, has platforms for all of that.

Q. Why have you invested so much on the educational side of things? Not necessarily on the baseball, but focusing on the kids, on the educational side of the world?

FRANCISCO LINDOR: The more educated you are in this world, the more you can go out and do other great things. So I just like the educational side of it because I can also sit with the kids and kind of give them my pointers, give them my suggestions when I can because it sets them up for whatever they want to do outside in the world.

It just doesn't have to be sports or baseball in specific. It can be anything. Because the more educated you are, the more prepared you are to go out and do great things in the world.

Q. In the spirit of giving back, I know you recently spent some time with Ethan Wilson. Why is that important to you, and what have you guys as players been doing to support him in this time?

FRANCISCO LINDOR: We all love Ethan. Ethan, he's one of the core people in the organization, and I needed to go see him. I just felt like just hanging out with him. He was going through something -- a lot of people probably here don't know, but he was going through something, and he had surgery. I was like, you know what, I've got to go see him and just spend time with him.

I waited towards the end of the day -- towards the end of the visit day, and I just sat down with him. We actually talked a little bit about baseball. We were watching, at the time it was Cleveland and the White Sox.

That, to me, is giving back. He has helped me a lot, along with the PR department, to sit here and answer questions. As you guys know, I wasn't as good at the beginning. I appreciate him. It was like a five-minute car ride from my house. And just I love Ethan. Just wanted to go see him, sit down, have a conversation with him.

It was cool to see his sister. She said that she has a whole different family that she didn't know she had in the Mets organization, which I thought was beautiful. And just talking to him to -- what have we done? Just talk to him. I check up with him and how his rehab is going, and I tell him to hurry up and get out and that we need him next year.

Q. Back in 2013 Carlos was sitting in that seat, and Vera said to him, Roberto would be so proud of you right now. Now that you're sitting in that seat, what do you think Roberto and Vera are thinking of you at this moment?

FRANCISCO LINDOR: I hope they're saying that he deserves it and that -- I don't know. It's a great question. I just hope that they're proud. I hope that they're proud.

LUIS CLEMENTE: I'll chime in. I would say that they are extremely honored of who he has become, his actions. As many years ago that we met, I remember at the Roberto Clemente ballpark in Carolina. I have that picture, you were young.

You have stayed the same way; your humbleness, your approach is amazing. And I'm sure Mom and Dad are smiling at you right now because they know who you are and so deserving of this award. But beyond the award, they know you will forever stay the same.

I heard you this morning saying the most important thing for you was for your children to understand what life is about and about helping others always, and that's what matters to you the most. So with that being said, you're a true Clemente all the way.

FRANCISCO LINDOR: Thank you. Thank you.

Q. Francisco, just growing up in Puerto Rico, obviously Clemente is everywhere. Whether your parents or your grandparents, did you hear any stories of people who might have seen him play or met him or the interaction you had as a child? I know you were 12 because of Clemente. I was just wondering if there was any family connection or anything like that.

FRANCISCO LINDOR: My dad tried to tell me to hit in a similar stance like Roberto Clemente. I'm like, Pops, you ain't got it like that. Don't worry about it. I can't lunge at the ball like he did.

No, I've been telling everybody that in Puerto Rico, you know how it is. In Puerto Rico, you learn about the Taínos, pañuelo africano, y Roberto Clemente. It's just like from day one in school, you learn, you hear stories. The little videos that there is, you see them, see the plays, and stuff like that.

But I actually got to know more about the family through the great job that the Clemente sons are doing.