We lost a real sports hero last week. I tend not to call sports figures heroes; however, Hank Aaron deserves this accolade. Consequently, I am moved to reflect on his life and career.
Hank Aaron was one of the greatest sports heroes of all times, one of the greatest players in baseball history. He was an extremely successful athlete, but he also addressed the world as he saw it and tried to make it a better place.
Many of us think that Aaron was underrated as a professional athlete. That seems incredible since he broke the most extraordinary and presumably the most unbeatable sports record of all time–Babe Ruth’s 715 home runs in a career. This feat was voted as the greatest moment in sports history.
That was a tremendous and almost unbelievable feat; however, as the years have passed, he is known more for breaking the home run record than anything else, which undoubtedly minimizes his all-around greatness as a baseball player.
Let us look at the other parts of his career. Aaron was a superb outfielder, in addition to being a relentless hitter. He just seemed to hit line drive after line drive, with many of them happening to go over the fence for home runs.
Aaron was not built like a big home run hitter, as his average weight was around 180 pounds. He just kept hitting the ball.
Many of his fans did not consider him a home run hitter for much of his career. I remember a conversation in NYC between some of us baseball fans distinctly. We had just begun to realize—to our surprise–that if Aaron stayed healthy and kept hitting homers, he had a chance to break the most extraordinary record in sports—Ruth’s career home record.
He never hit more than 44 home runs in a year, like his contemporary home run hitting stars who would hit more than 50 some years. He never had spurts. He just kept hitting consistently. Aaron still holds the career record for most runs batted in and the most total bases accumulated.
Aaron had two interesting stops on his way to the Major Leagues. At 18 years of age, he played for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues and did very well. After several months, the Milwaukee Braves bought his contract, and he ended the 1952 season in the Northern (minor) leagues in Eau Claire.
The next year, 1953, Aaron and two other blacks were put on the Jacksonville, Fla., team in the South Atlantic League, trying to force integration, which may have worked, but only barely. Racial epithets and various items were hurled at the black players, and there were near fights between the white fans and the black fans, although they were in separate sections. This was when interracial athletic competition was unthinkable in the deep south. In towns like Birmingham and Montgomery, it was against the law for blacks and whites to even play checkers. In 1954 Hank moved up to the Braves.
I am the proud owner of an autographed copy of Hank Aaron’s autobiography, I Had a Hammer. Thirty years ago, my wife, Mildred, stood in a long line to buy the book and get it autographed by Hank for my birthday present. She told Hank, “My husband admires you as a person in addition to your exploits on the baseball field.”
I have made it a practice to distinguish between the athlete as a person and the athlete’s accomplishments. This practice enables me to admire the achievements but sometimes not the athlete.
Aaron had always said that he was trying to follow Jackie Robinson’s example and do what Jackie Robinson asked him and other leading athletes to do–share their experiences. This meant detailing the bigotry they had encountered in the professional leagues, such as racial heckling, threatening letters, knockdown pitches, and so on. And they were to push for things like more black managers in baseball.
After his playing career, Aaron shocked baseball by applying for the open position of baseball commissioner, arguing that his lack of business knowledge would be no more detrimental to him than the absence of baseball knowledge was to the men usually appointed. Of course, he did not get the job.
Aaron had experienced a lot of racial hatred in his baseball career, but it reached a crescendo when he approached Ruth’s record. It was evident that large portions of white America did not want to see him break this hallowed record. He received so many death threats that he had to disguise where he was staying at night.
Thank you, Hank Aaron.
