Hank Aaron

 

Henry Aaron passed away today.

In my fortunate career in the employ of a major league baseball team I never had the opportunity to meet him. But I certainly wish I had. 

He was amazing in who he was before, during and after his tenure in the major leagues. He was from very modest means and worked hard to become one of the greatest players the game has ever seen.  He once told his father that he wanted to become an airline pilot. "Ain't no black pilots.", his father replied. He then told him that he wanted to become a major league baseball player. "Ain't no black major league ballplayers either" said his father. But that wasn't enough to stop him from trying to make his dream come true. 

My father was a huge Hank Aaron fan. My father worked for a restaurant which had season tickets 12 rows behind the New York Mets dugout. I would usually talk my father into taking us to one game per season. But since he was making the decision it would be when HE wanted to make the drive to Flushing, NY. 

Back then there were only 24 teams in major league baseball. Aaron's team, the Atlanta Braves, played in the western division. The schedule was so balanced that teams from the opposite division would come to New York twice per year for a total of six games. Three weekend games, (Friday-Sunday), and three weeknight games (Monday-Wednesday or Tuesday -Thursday). The schedule didn't get released until after the new year, unlike currently when the next season's schedule is released before the current one has concluded. So the first thing I would do when the schedule was released was look for the Tuesday night game versus Atlanta. That would be my one game for the season, most likely. But I was thankful to have that one. I first saw Aaron play on August 15, 1972 at Shea Stadium in a 50- Mets victory. The other game I saw him play in person was on May 8, 1973. He went 1-for-4 in a 10-6 Atlanta victory. In 1974, after he'd passed Babe Ruth in the all-time home run parade, he didn't play in the game we attended. In 1975 he'd moved onto Milwaukee to play the remainder of his career for the Brewers. 

Aaron's statistics are amazing, to be truthful. His consistent excellence is without rival, really. On April 8, 1974 he passed Ruth when he homered off of Dodger lefty Al Downing. I was 12 years old at the time. I remember watching that game on WNBC-TV. It was monumental in the fact that 714 home runs seemed like a number that would never be challenged. Seeing the ball travel over the left field wall as Curt Gowdy made the call on tv, seeing Atlanta pitcher Tom House catch the ball and bring it to Hank at the plate. Seeing a young Craig Sager covering this event. And watching Aaron's parents celebrate along with him. The the fact remains that Aaron made this happen during a time when he was under constant stress of being hated by so many people in this country solely based on the color of his skin. He received truly awful letters via mail, some of them containing death threats. But he never let it get in his way.

One amazing stat that struck me recently was the fact that if you subtracted the 755 homers from his career statistics he would STILL have over 3,000 hits. 

Aaron is the latest all-time great who has left us in the past 13 months. Dick Allen, Lou Brock, Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Al Kaline, Don Larsen, Joe Morgan, Phil Niekro, Tom Seaver, Bob Watson and Don Sutton would make ANY team more than formidable.