Skip to content
Advertisement

Hank Aaron, baseball iconoclast, dead at 86

Advertisement
 (301148)
Credit: Atlanta Braves

“There was that element that didn’t want Aaron to break the record because he was African-American, but there were many more people, I think, who just had such cherished memories of Babe Ruth that they just didn’t want anybody breaking the record. He was such a beloved character in American history.” -Tom Stanton from “Hank Aaron and the Homerun that Changed America” 2001.

At six feet and 180 pounds, Hank Aaron was hardly imposing physically—-if you overlooked his wrists. Quick and strong, they were the secret behind his phenomenal hitting ability, and perhaps unfairly, overshadowed his overall playing ability. Not having the charisma and outsized personality of contemporaries like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, he chose to follow the working man’s mantra of consistency, until he was forced into the limelight of celebrity and controversy.

Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron died at the age of 86 Friday, Jan. 22. Aaron’s cause of death appears to be “natural”, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office. The medical examiner’s office said there is no indication Aaron’s death is related to the COVID-19 vaccine, which he had received two weeks previously. Born in Depression era Mobile, Ala. on Feb. 5, 1934, he was intimately familiar with the soul-crushing opposition the south dealt its dark-complexed residents.

Ironically, Aaron (a natural right-hander) spent his formative years batting “cross-handed” (left hand over right), an unorthodox grip that he claimed would develop his wrists and make him the menace of opposing pitchers in his major league career. Hitting a respectable .366 average with the Negro League’s Indianapolis Clowns, he switched to a more conventional stance when he entered the then Milwaukee Braves farm system in 1952.

By 1954 he’d reached the majors, and the next year was named to his first All-Star team (in 23 seasons he reached that milestone every year except his first and last as a pro). He continued this success as the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, and by 1970 had accumulated 3,000 hits along with 600 home runs the following year.

As the 1970s progressed, talk circulated about the possibility of erasing baseball’s Holy Grail, Babe Ruth’s 714 career home run record. Not all of the talk was positive. A mythical figure whose stature transcending the parameters of sport, this intrusion into Ruth’s sacred legacy (by a Black man no less) ruffled the sentiments of those with only a passing interest in athletic pursuits.

Aaron ended the 1973 season with 713 homers (one shy of the record) on Sept. 29. As the temperature dropped during the winter, the controversy climbed, with the Post Office presenting him with a plaque for receiving some 930,000 pieces of mail. Much of this was hate mail. In short order a contingent of FBI agents materialized on the Fisk University campus where his daughter was enrolled, posing as gardeners and maintenance workers in response to kidnapping threats. Meanwhile detailed letters arrived specifically describing scenarios in which an execution might be carried out.

By April 8, 1974 the stars were aligned, and Hammerin’ Hank dragged sport—-and the American psyche——into the 20th century. The iconic photo of him rounding the bases in the company of two supportive White fans is all the more compelling in hindsight.

Aaron kept all the hate mail in his attic, and would periodically visit this bastion of intolerance, perhaps as a reality check to remind himself of the environs in which he was born and still lived.

“The Ruth chase should have been the greatest period of my life, and it was the worst,” he recalled.

With his passing, condolences and accolades poured in from high and  low, the most telling possibly from fellow southerner and former President Bill Clinton. “…he wasn’t just chasing a record, he was helping us chase a better version of ourselves — melting away the ice of bigotry to show that we can be better as a nation.”

Advertisement

Latest