Roberto Alomar has been enshrined in the Hall of Fame for a decade, not only one of a handful of best second basemen who ever played, but arguably one of the smartest, most instinctive players of his time. He won 10 Gold Gloves and two World Series rings, had 2,724 hits and 474 stolen bases. And he has never forgotten from he came from.

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“I love Puerto Rico,” he said, “and care about the kids in Puerto Rico having the right platforms to help play professional baseball. Most of all, I have always listened to my dad. He taught me about baseball, about life, about Puerto Rico.”

This is not the place to ask what some of us have been asking since Sandy Alomar Sr. had two All-Star sons whose baseball IQs were in the M.I.T. stratosphere and helped develop so many exceptionally smart baseball people, like Alex Cora. No one ever explained how Sandy Sr. didn’t get a managing opportunity, but he still is the voice in his son’s ears. Sandy Jr. had an All-Star career and hit a historic ALDS homer in 1997 off Mariano Rivera to help prevent the Yankees from winning five consecutive World Series. Roberto was a without doubt Hall of Famer.

And four years ago Roberto and his father were watching a Puerto Rican winter league game and began discussing what Robbie says was, “how we don’t see a lot of young players in the league anymore. It used to be that the major league stars would play, and they helped develop the young players.” In the winter of 1994-95, when a strike had shut down the game (and canceled the World Series), most of the star players in Puerto Rico volunteered to play, from the Alomars to Pudge Rodríguez to Bernie Williams.

“Now, not only do the established players no longer participate,” Robbie said, “but you don’t see young Puerto Rican players. They became veteran players looking to help their careers, guys who were let go or trying to be ready for spring training.

“I have never forgotten how lucky I was. When I was 17, Felipe Alou was the manager and gave me a chance to play against older players and learn. I will always be thankful for the opportunity he gave me. He played me every day. He let me learn how to play the game by playing, which is the only way you really learn. It really mattered when I went back and played the minor league season. I was in the major leagues at a young age (20, to be exact, for 143 games, 611 plate appearances, a 105 OPS+). That was the vehicle for me to learn to play and get to the major leagues and eventually have my career.”

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Father and son Alomar talked about it, how seldom players get to play in the league until they were in Triple A and well past 20. “The more we talked, the more I kept thinking about what I could do to help young players in Puerto Rico to have the opportunity I had.

“We came up with some ideas,” Roberto said. “I was determined to give back to young players in Puerto what I had when I was still a teenager.”

These are not easy times for Puerto Rico, between hurricanes, earthquakes, the pandemic and the related economy — issues that rolls of paper towels did not help. Astros owner Jim Crane and, as a condition for hiring Alex Cora as manager, Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner made generous relief runs. But when COVID-19 shuttered so much of the United States and its territories, the island was on hold, and baseball was in freeze-frame. The draft was limited to five rounds. The minor leagues were closed. The winter Puerto Rican league, once the SEC of winter ball, was shrinking in schedule and in teams, which appeared to be headed to three.

Alomar worked through his foundation and his contacts for ways to help. The first idea was to put together a team of younger players and have them play the established teams in the league. “My dad and I talked about it and thought he could put together a team from minor leaguers who missed the season, some free agents let go by organizations because for one reason or another they didn’t get the opportunity to play enough, and some players looking for jobs.”

Thus the RA12 (yes, Roberto Alomar wore number 12) development team was born. Former major league infielder and Rockies minor league coordinator Andy González was chosen to manage. “We wanted the best coaching and training we could,” Roberto said. “We wanted to help them, professionally and emotionally, and give them a platform for their baseball careers.” Former major leaguers included Carlos Baerga and Roberto’s brother Sandy — who this past season took over in the wake of Terry Francona’s medical issues and guided Cleveland into the playoffs. Veteran Puerto Rico players and coaches José Muñoz, Eduardo Galarza, Melvin Poupart, Juan López and Eddie Laboy joined the staff. Alomar hired trainers Ruben Santiago and Evelio Santiago.

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“We went around the island and had tryouts, then invited 17 position players and 17 pitchers to San Juan. We put the team in a hotel. We played them five days in a row so they got back to game conditions,” Roberto said. They took some younger players to a showcase in Jupiter, Fla., where one 19-year-old pitcher, Henry Nuñez, was signed by the Boston Red Sox and rejoined RA12 when they returned to San Juan. “We let scouts know what we were doing, so they came and did coverage and see the players. We did a lot of intense training, and because we had so many coaches the kids got a lot of individual attention and instruction.”

The players ranged in age from 18-year-olds like pitchers Omar Sánchez of the Cardinals and Angel González of the Cubs to 26-year-old free agent pitcher Eddy Reynoso and 25-year-old infielder Jonathan Laureano of the Indians.

They played at historic Hiram Bithorn Stadium, where Frank Robinson managed in the early 1970s while preparing for the opportunity to be the first major league African American manager. They played in the league with the three established, veteran teams: Caguas, Mayagüez, Manati. Some of their games were televised on WAPA Deportes. And they got better. “They held their own, and played really well in the playoffs (that ended last week),” said Cora, whose Red Sox coach Ramón Vázquez managed Caguas. “They did a tremendous job working with that team. Robbie deserves a lot of credit.”

Meanwhile, Alomar was heading PR12, an island-wide development program. The staff went to cities and towns running clinics for kids and young players across the island.

“I can’t thank commissioner Rob Manfred and Dan Halem enough,” Alomar said. “They were behind all the programs, RA12 and PR12, that we’ve run. We needed help doing it, and they supported us in every way possible. Scouts have been able to not only see our league games, but the workouts we run for kids. As I say over and over, I was lucky. I was playing in the Puerto Rican winter league when I was 17 because of Felipe Alou, that helped me get to the big leagues at 20. I love (Puerto Rico), and I want kids to have the platform and the opportunity I had. We have great ballplayers.”

The 2021-22 free-agent class of Francisco Lindor, Carlos Correa and Javy Báez speaks for the talent. But in the nine years since Correa graduated first in his class at the Puerto Rican Acadamy at the age of 16 and was the first pick in the 2012 draft, the economy of the island has taken one shot after another.

In many ways, Lindor and Báez were fortunate because they were enabled to attend high schools in the United States. Correa commuted over an hour at dawn to get to school, and had guidance from Javy Vázquez and Cora. “We’re not only trying to give the young kids at our clinics the opportunity to get into professional baseball, we’re trying to make it possible for them to be seen by colleges in the States for the chance to play college baseball, for education first, then the baseball,” Alomar said. “If scouts and college recruiters see these kids and it provides a platform for a college education, we’ve accomplished something.”

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As the draft and the minor and winter leagues’ contract and a country’s economy remains day-to-day, a Hall of Fame player from one of the island’s first families of baseball lives up to the model of the man for whom the winter league is now named, Roberto Clemente. The annual award for service in baseball is the Roberto Clemente Award, which for this past season’s winner, Adam Wainwright, meant as much as any of the many awards he’s won in his illustrious career.

The meaning of that award, of service and empathy, kindness and responsibility, has never been forgotten by Roberto Alomar. What Felipe Alou offered him and so many Latin players as one of the early union leaders was opportunity.

Never forgetting from whence one came serves others, which in Puerto Rico may someday make the number 12 a national figure.

(Photo: Lino M. Prieto / GRF Media via Associated Press)