Roberto Clemente, Mr. 3,000

Baseball fans all over America were celebrating Saturday when Yankee great Derek Jeter got his 3,000th hit.

Not me. I love Jeter, but I was on the edge of my seat until he banged out hit no. 3,001.

The 3,000 hit club in Major League Baseball is one of the most grand achievements in all of sports. Only 28 men in baseball history have had that many hits.

That’s 28 out of -- who knows? -- maybe 1,000,000 athletes talented enough to play professional baseball.

It’s taken professional baseball 166 years for 28 batters to secure 3,000 hits (only two, the disgraced Pete Rose and the disgraceful Ty Cobb, have more than 4,000).

It could take another 100 years for the list to get to 50.

When that happens, anyone engaged enough to look will ponder at least two names: the first and the last.

We don’t know who the first will be, but we know who’ll be last.

It’ll be Roberto Clemente. He’s forever last with precisely 3,000 hits.

It’s probably already happening in places other than Pittsburgh, and I hope I’m there at least once when it does someplace.

A group of kids will be gathering at some ballpark where the club is listed (PNC Park in Pittsburgh has a 3,000 Hit Club Tavern). They’ll go through the list and they’ll come to Clemente.

They’ll wonder, gee, what’s this guy’s story? Did he hang on for a bunch of years just to get his 3,000th hit?

They, in fact, made a 2004 movie, “Mr. 3,000,” about a guy who did just that. It starred the late, great Bernie Mac.

It wasn’t like that with Clemente. His last regular season at bat was his 3,000th hit, a stand-up double on September 30, 1972, in Pittsburgh’s old Three Rivers Stadium. He finished the season batting .310.

Just 92 days later he was dead. He was 38.

That’s compelling stuff right there. If you’re a storyteller, it gets better.

Clemente died a saintly death.

He is considered the Jackie Robinson of Latina players and Latin players throughout baseball to this day consider it a great honor to wear his number 21.

He spent much of his off-seasons doing tireless humanitarian work in impoverished Central American villages like the Puerto Rican one where he was born the youngest of seven children.

When Managua, Nicaragua, was devastated by a massive earthquake on December 23 the newest member of the 3,000 hit club began arranging emergency relief flights. He’d been in Managua three weeks previous.

He was furious when he learned three planeloads of aid packages were diverted by corrupt officials of the then-ruling Somoza government never reaching the victims.

Clemente, who played his entire 17-year career as a Pittsburgh Pirate, decided he’d personally oversee the fourth flight. He knew his presence in a land where he was idolized could make a crucial difference.

The flight crashed in the Caribbean shortly after takeoff from Puerto Rico.

The body of the pilot and part of the fuselage were recovered. A flight bag belonging to Clemente was all they ever found of the great Roberto.

Of his teammates, with whom he’d won the 1971 World Series when he was awarded MVP, only one did not attend the memorial service.

It was catcher Manny Sanguillen. In a grief so poignant it practically shrieks, Sanguillen instead spent weeks diving in the waters where the plane went down in the hopes of recovering the body of his friend.

Baseball in 1954 instituted a mandatory five year waiting period for any former baseball player to be considered for the Hall of Fame.

For Clemente, it was waived and three months after his death he was awarded baseball’s highest honor. He’s the only player in more than 57 years deemed worthy of the waiver.

There’ve been many books written about Clemente, most recently by David Maraniss.

But there’s never been a memorable movie about this most unforgettable man.

I wonder if the reason is physics.

Maybe cameras are incapable of capturing something so dazzling as the idea of an athlete who was as magnificent a player as he was a person.

The man who died last on one famous list lives first forever on so many, many more.

Naked advice on marital discord

The best marital advice I was ever given is the one I’ve most ignored:

“Always argue naked.”

I only wish I could convey this sentiment to Will and Kate.

Like any married couple, they are bound to fight and thoughts more martial than marital are impossible when one is nude.

Alas, I’ve never once begun a nasty joust with my wife by suggesting we both remove all our armor. We’re both too businesslike for that. If we’re fighting, the last thing on our minds is getting naked and if we’re naked we certainly aren’t thinking about fighting.

It’s the way we’re wired.

It’s too bad. Clearly, we’ve surrendered to conventional thinking.

I think our fights would end instantly if at the first harsh words, we’d lock eyes and start undressing each other.

Instead we both sort of sulk. We approach a sort of marital demilitarized zone, reconnoiter the fortifications and back off like they’ve done at the 38th parallel between North and South Korea since 1953.

I think this is fairly common behavior for married couples who fight without resorting to an exchange of gunfire.

I wonder how Will and Kate will resolve their differences.

Kate seems like a shopper so she’ll probably cool off by going with her friends for what I’ve heard called retail therapy. It’s a perfectly harmless way for a princess to blow off steam, especially when British taxpayers seem so at ease with funding the silliness that goes along with hosting a royal family on the national teet.

Will’s another matter. Sure, he could dash off to a distant castle to cool down or split to a friendly country and engage in some good will tour among former subjects.

But, in this case, being Good Will seems unlikely to ease tension. In fact, always being Good Will is apt to increase it.

He’s not like the rest of us. He can’t storm out of the house and down to the pub to unload on marital difficulties as so many commoners do. Really, a little distance with some friends puts everything in perspective.

If it’s tense at home, I often like to head to the bar, have a pint and engage in distracting arguments with my buddies about pointless things like why the Pirates stink.

The pressure Will and Kate are enduring already seem crushing. I never cease to be amazed at the pressures young couples bestow on themselves by hosting enormous weddings -- and by enormous I mean ones involving about 200 guests -- not guests from 200 countries, as is being reported will attend.

But they have their silly protocols. It’s a national event, one that’s swept around the world in an appalling hype tsunami.

I have vain recollections about our 1996 wedding. It was perfect.

We had a small family wedding in our little church, then a quiet dinner with family at one of our favorite restaurants.

Then the next day we had an “All Honest Strangers Welcome” pig roast at a local picnic park.

Anyone was welcome who would by attending pledge to at least try not to steal our stuff. We found that people, even outlaws, are generally respectful if you tell them they’re welcome to party, get pie-eyed, and eat for free if they agree to not steal towels, envelopes or glassware from the gift table.

I guess about 250 friends and honest strangers showed up.

That’s where one of my old friends pulled me aside and told me to always argue naked.

While I’ve never applied the wisdom to my own marriage, I have without fail passed it on to every bride and groom I’ve met since that splendid September day.

One of these days I really ought to try it with Val. But it’s a nerve-rattling proposition for a shy sort of guy like me.

Maybe I ought to test drive it elsewhere first.

I wonder how it would go over in the bar if the next time I started arguing about why the Pirates stink, I just started to shuck my duds.