The past couple of weeks
have been difficult ones, but I have not lost sight of what is going on beyond
my own family and my own world.
As a sports fan, and a true fan of baseball, I can’t do anything but scratch my head at the number of Hall of Famers who have died recently and in the past year.
I think I read that 10 Hall of Famers have died during the past 12 months, or something in that range, the most to leave us during a similar period in the history of the game.
And the players that have left us were all icons during my youth, the period where baseball meant everything to me.
Most recently, we lost Tommy Lasorda, one of the greatest managers of all time, who spent I think it was 70 years with the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers organization, and Don Sutton, one of his aces during that period, certainly one of the most talented players ever to take the mound.
But even among Hall of Famers, there is another level of player, a player so talented, so good at what he did, and so cherished by even his fellow Hall of Famers that he is on another plane, another level of athleticism that separates “normal” Hall of Famers from other-worldly Hall of Famers.
And that is how I would describe Henry Aaron, one of the greatest players ever to put on the spikes and walk onto a baseball field.
This is a guy who literally came from nothing in the Deep South, played his way through the final days of the Negro Leagues, and rose to play in the National Pastime of Major League Baseball, but not only play in it, but excel in it as few have, past, present or even future.
He met resistance wherever he went, wherever he played, but using Jackie Robinson as a template, he somehow made it through it all to become one of the nation’s true sports icons, a guy who spoke with his bat more than his mouth.
He could do it all: hit, play in the field, and he could do each of them better than just about anybody else during his playing days.
Honestly, while Willie Mays was getting all the bravado as the game’s best player—and deserving that accolade—Aaron simply went about his own way, and drove the old Milwaukee Braves to greatness with his bat and his glove and his presence.
And when the Braves moved to Atlanta, Aaron continued his onslaught of athletic heroics, culminating with his chase of Babe Ruth’s cherished 714 home runs.
Aaron received death threats, he received hate mail that was as vile as could be, he feared for the safety of his family during this period, all due to his race—and we have later learned, even after he broke the home run record—but when he faced Al Downing of the Dodgers that one April evening, it was time to do what he had to do, and he did it, joining Ruth as a baseball immortal, second to none with his home run total.
Moving on to the Milwaukee Brewers in the twilight of his career, he ended up with 755 home runs, 41 more than the Babe had, and he was the all-time home run leader until Barry Bonds supposedly eclipsed his record under the cloud of PED use.
Even though Bonds ended up hitting seven more homers than Aaron, many people consider Aaron the true holder of the home run record, and now that the records of the old Negro Leagues will be considered “major league” and be added to baseball statistics, Aaron will certainly gain a couple of homers to his total, but he probably has Josh Gibson in his way … more on that a few months or years down the line.
But whatever the case, Aaron was a true baseball immortal, one of the real, true all-time greats of the sport, and even as a former player, he carried himself with the same grace he did as a player, remembering where he had been and how he came through it all, somehow.
That really isn’t hyperbole, it is true, because how could he not shake his head at the life he led, going from nothing in the Deep South of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s to the pinnacle of his profession?
And he wasn’t the only Aaron that broke down barriers.
His brother, Tommie Aaron, who had a nondescript and short career in MLB during some of the years his brother was pounding the baseball for the Braves. was the first black manager in professional baseball, serving as the skipper for five years in the Braves organization at Richmond, Va., the Braves Triple-A minor league affiliate.
Although Frank Robinson was the first black man to manage a major league team, it was actually the younger Aaron—who predeceased his brother by several years—who opened the door for Robinson to step into this leadership position.
And the younger Aaron also has a share in another record—the most home runs hits by a brother combination. Adding the older Aaron’s home run total (755) with the younger Aaron’s home run total (13), you get a total of 768, a record that will probably never be eclipsed by any brother duo. I think the closest is Hall of Famer Eddie Murray and his brother Rich, but they are probably 200 homers behind the Aarons.
So Hank Aaron has left us, and to so many of us when we heard he had passed, once again part of our youth went with him.
We are all getting older, but when an immortal succumbs, it just takes our own hearts away, too.
Move Over Babe (Here Comes Henry) … .
Wow, what a baseball team there is in heaven now!
As a sports fan, and a true fan of baseball, I can’t do anything but scratch my head at the number of Hall of Famers who have died recently and in the past year.
I think I read that 10 Hall of Famers have died during the past 12 months, or something in that range, the most to leave us during a similar period in the history of the game.
And the players that have left us were all icons during my youth, the period where baseball meant everything to me.
Most recently, we lost Tommy Lasorda, one of the greatest managers of all time, who spent I think it was 70 years with the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers organization, and Don Sutton, one of his aces during that period, certainly one of the most talented players ever to take the mound.
But even among Hall of Famers, there is another level of player, a player so talented, so good at what he did, and so cherished by even his fellow Hall of Famers that he is on another plane, another level of athleticism that separates “normal” Hall of Famers from other-worldly Hall of Famers.
And that is how I would describe Henry Aaron, one of the greatest players ever to put on the spikes and walk onto a baseball field.
This is a guy who literally came from nothing in the Deep South, played his way through the final days of the Negro Leagues, and rose to play in the National Pastime of Major League Baseball, but not only play in it, but excel in it as few have, past, present or even future.
He met resistance wherever he went, wherever he played, but using Jackie Robinson as a template, he somehow made it through it all to become one of the nation’s true sports icons, a guy who spoke with his bat more than his mouth.
He could do it all: hit, play in the field, and he could do each of them better than just about anybody else during his playing days.
Honestly, while Willie Mays was getting all the bravado as the game’s best player—and deserving that accolade—Aaron simply went about his own way, and drove the old Milwaukee Braves to greatness with his bat and his glove and his presence.
And when the Braves moved to Atlanta, Aaron continued his onslaught of athletic heroics, culminating with his chase of Babe Ruth’s cherished 714 home runs.
Aaron received death threats, he received hate mail that was as vile as could be, he feared for the safety of his family during this period, all due to his race—and we have later learned, even after he broke the home run record—but when he faced Al Downing of the Dodgers that one April evening, it was time to do what he had to do, and he did it, joining Ruth as a baseball immortal, second to none with his home run total.
Moving on to the Milwaukee Brewers in the twilight of his career, he ended up with 755 home runs, 41 more than the Babe had, and he was the all-time home run leader until Barry Bonds supposedly eclipsed his record under the cloud of PED use.
Even though Bonds ended up hitting seven more homers than Aaron, many people consider Aaron the true holder of the home run record, and now that the records of the old Negro Leagues will be considered “major league” and be added to baseball statistics, Aaron will certainly gain a couple of homers to his total, but he probably has Josh Gibson in his way … more on that a few months or years down the line.
But whatever the case, Aaron was a true baseball immortal, one of the real, true all-time greats of the sport, and even as a former player, he carried himself with the same grace he did as a player, remembering where he had been and how he came through it all, somehow.
That really isn’t hyperbole, it is true, because how could he not shake his head at the life he led, going from nothing in the Deep South of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s to the pinnacle of his profession?
And he wasn’t the only Aaron that broke down barriers.
His brother, Tommie Aaron, who had a nondescript and short career in MLB during some of the years his brother was pounding the baseball for the Braves. was the first black manager in professional baseball, serving as the skipper for five years in the Braves organization at Richmond, Va., the Braves Triple-A minor league affiliate.
Although Frank Robinson was the first black man to manage a major league team, it was actually the younger Aaron—who predeceased his brother by several years—who opened the door for Robinson to step into this leadership position.
And the younger Aaron also has a share in another record—the most home runs hits by a brother combination. Adding the older Aaron’s home run total (755) with the younger Aaron’s home run total (13), you get a total of 768, a record that will probably never be eclipsed by any brother duo. I think the closest is Hall of Famer Eddie Murray and his brother Rich, but they are probably 200 homers behind the Aarons.
So Hank Aaron has left us, and to so many of us when we heard he had passed, once again part of our youth went with him.
We are all getting older, but when an immortal succumbs, it just takes our own hearts away, too.
Move Over Babe (Here Comes Henry) … .
Wow, what a baseball team there is in heaven now!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.