Hank Aaron The Natural Home Run King Dies

[jerrym]

Hank Aaron, arguably the best baseball player ever, died yesterday. The true home run king. No steroids. Not bad for a guy who was listed at 6'0" and 180 lb, but was almost certainly closer to 5'10".

He was my first sports hero. I remember reading article after article about him in the late 50s and early 60s saying he hit 35 home runs, batted .320, drove in well more than 100 runs and scored well above 100 runs, that went on to say he wasn't Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays, that he was a very good player. Part of this was he played in Milwaukee and later Atlanta, not in the media capital of the world, New York and partly it was he did things so easily that it looked so easy to everyone and he never did played it up for show. That's why I loved him. I remember reading a book by what many considered the top baseball writer at the time in 1963, Arthur Daley, discussing the greatest baseball players of all-time with a chapter on Mantle and another on Mays and that at 398 home runs Mays had a real shot at breaking Babe Ruth's record. The book never mentioned Aaron. I immediately looked up his home run total, 298 home runs but he was 29, three years younger than Mays. I thought when are they going to recognize how great this guy is. So I started keeping track of his home run totals. However, the next year he only hit 24 home runs. I thought I was wrong about his chances of breaking the record. He ain't going to do it. He's hit 30 and he's slowing down like a lot of players at 30. I stopped paying attention. Boy, was I wrong! The next year he hit 32 and then 44. I started counting again. He had 398 at the same age that Mays reached that level.

In 1969, I finally got to see him play by travelling to Montreal to watch him the play Expos. He didn't disappoint, hitting a home run and getting another couple of hits. As he approached 600 home runs and the question of breaking the Babe's record started to dawn on more and more people, he began to be recognized for how good he was.

Waiting six months for the start of the 1974 season was agony with Hank so close to the record. I had to go to a bar to see his games, although I'm not much of a drinker, often just drinking coffee.

However, the greater agony was hearing about the massive hate mail and threats on his life because he was breaking the greatest record in sports, a record owned by a white man for almost half a century, all the more real because he was doing in Atlanta in the South. How serious were the threats? There were police in the stands with orders to shoot to kill if anyone jumped on the field. Incidentally, two white fans jumped on the field and ran up and slapped Aaron on the back as he rounded the bases, which he once again handled with grace. Fortunately, the police couldn't or wouldn't shoot, so the fans survived. Yet Hank handled it all with public grace despite the hell it made his personal life.

I remember reading an article about him by a sports writer who discovered that he regularly went to see sick kids in hospital but asked the writer not to writer about that because he felt it would be showing off. He was a true five tool player who could hit, hit for power, field, run and throw with the best of them. When someone asked why although he stole bases, as he never was a 30-30 (HRs and steals) man, he answered that was they style of his team and if he knew people would make such a fuss about it today, he might have tried. The Braves have historically been a home run hitting team that ignored base-running, something they paid dearly for in the 1990s long after Aaron retired, when they failed to score needed runs against the best pitchers in must-win situations during their fourteen year playoff run.

What I have said is not a knock on my part on players who do things with flare. I love Pinball. The Argos likely wouldn't be alive to do without his flare for doing things. But I also loved Hank's style.

[jerrym]

There is already a move on to have the name of the Atlanta Braves change their name to the Atlanta Hammers in honour of Hammerin' Hank Aaron because indigenous people feel violated by the reference to their culture and the Braves use to have a employee dress up as an Indian and whoop it up. They have stopped that but they still use the tomahawk chop in the stadium as the rally cry for the fans and sell rubber tomahawks. In view of the racial indignities Aaron went through as one of the early players to break the colour barrier and come to the majors from the Negro leagues, it would be fitting in my mind. After all the fans could have as much fun waving their rubber hammers.

Hank Aaron’s death on Friday promoted calls for the Atlanta Braves to change their name in his honor.

Because Aaron was known as "Hammerin’ Hank" when he was hitting dingers during his illustrious career, fans began to call on the Braves to change their name to the Hammers.

An online petition on Change.org began to circulate online after Aaron’s death.

"The renaming serves two important purposes: 1) It honors an icon who represented our city with grace and dignity for more than half a century, and 2) It removes the stain on the city of having a team name that dishonors Native and Indigenous people, especially given one of the greatest tragedies in American History, the Trail of Tears, began in the region the team calls home," the petition said.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/hank-...nge-their-name

[jerrym]

Below is a look at Aaron's records.

Here are his seasonal and career stats with all the highligted black and gold numbers indicating a season-leading and career record respectively. https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...aronha01.shtml

Hank Aaron, whose death at 86 was announced on Friday, was the home run king for 33 years. His final total of 755 can be quoted by nearly anyone who follows baseball — it is a number considerably more well known than the actual record, 762, which is held by Barry Bonds. But Aaron’s accomplishments on the field extended far beyond his home run total.
3,771

• With 3,771 career hits, Aaron trails only Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. He had so many hits that if you removed all 755 of his home runs, he would still have 3,016 hits — enough to place him between Rafael Palmeiro and Wade Boggs for 29th place on the career list.
  
  
  2,297
  • Aaron is the career leader in runs batted in with 2,297, a record that it appears will be safe for quite some time. Second place belongs to Babe Ruth, with 2,214, and the active leader, Albert Pujols of the Los Angeles Angels, is 197 short with 2,100. At 41, Pujols appears to have little left in the tank. The same goes for Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers (1,729) and the suspended Met Robinson Cano (1,302). Next on the active list after those three is Edwin Encarnacion, most recently of the Chicago White Sox, who is 37, isn’t signed for 2021 and is more than 1,000 R.B.I. behind Aaron.
  6,856
  
  • Aaron’s record for total bases is even more secure. The statistic, in which a player earns one total base for a single, two for a double and so on, was once a dominant measure of a player’s power and the record was a point of pride for Aaron. No one in major-league history comes close to touching Aaron, who is, not coincidentally, also the all-time leader in extra-base hits. In addition to Aaron’s 755 home runs, he had 2,294 singles, 624 doubles and 98 triples, giving him 6,856 total bases. Second place belongs to Stan Musial, with 6,134, putting him 722 short — the equivalent of 180 home runs. The active leader is Pujols, with 5,923 — a deficit that is the equivalent of 233 home runs.
    
    
    12,364
    • While Aaron has just a few career records, his name is a near constant toward the top of batting categories. Among the many statistics in which he currently sits in the top 10: hits (third, 3,771), at-bats (second, 12,364), home runs (second, 755), R.B.I. (first, 2,297), games played (third, 3,298), runs scored (fourth, 2,174), and times on base (seventh, 5,205). He is seventh in Baseball Reference’s wins above replacement formulation with 143.1 and is rated as the second best right fielder, behind Babe Ruth, in Jay Jaffe’s JAWS career evaluation system.
    20 in 20
    
    • Aaron was as consistent as he was great. He topped 20 home runs a record 20 times in his 23 seasons. In 15 of those seasons he had 30 or more home runs and in eight of those seasons he had 40 or more. His first 40-homer season (44 in 1957) came 16 seasons before his last one (40 in 1973). He is one of just two players (along with Bonds) to have a 40-homer season after turning 39.
      
      
      2,174
      • Owing to his longevity, Aaron, who was a competent but unspectacular defensive player, placed well on many career fielding lists. He played the fourth most games in right field (2,174), is ranked eighth in career assists by a right fielder (179) and is 10th in career putouts by an outfielder (5,539).
      1952
      
      • Aaron had a brief stint in the Negro leagues at the start of his professional career. While statistics from some Negro leagues from 1920 to 1948 are in the process of being applied toward a player’s major-league totals, Aaron’s numbers will not be affected, as he played for the Indianapolis Clowns in 1952.
      13
      
      • Aaron’s only Most Valuable Player Award came in 1957, when he led the league in home runs (44), R.B.I. (132) and runs scored (118). But he was a mainstay in M.V.P. voting, finishing in the top 10 in 13 seasons.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/s...ron-stats.html