Have you ever tried to remember how old you were when you had a lot of experiences and feelings you still can recall today? How does everybody remember the landmark year when you became more aware of the world outside of your direct experience?
For me, it was as an 8 year old. Dad took me to my first professional sports game, Giants vs. Cardinals at Candlestick Park on July 3, 1971. He got me interested in playing baseball, and he taught me how to learn to play well and subsequently have a discipline to learning any sport. I feel like I can set time markers for every range of 4-5 years since then based on what was going on in sports.
Starting last Spring, baseball players I learned about first who were still active started passing away. Glenn Beckert in April. Tom Seaver and Lou Brock in September. Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, and Joe Morgan in October. Richie Allen and Phil Niekro in December. Don Sutton last week, and now Hank Aaron today. As far as I know, COVID isn’t being cited for any of them except Seaver.
Hank was already a living legend in 1971. Willie Mays, everybody’s local hero was ahead of him in home runs, but ironically, his fall from greatness started right about the time I started following the game. Everyone said it was Hank who had the best shot at getting to 715 and breaking the career home run record of the biggest dead legend in baseball, Babe Ruth. Hank never hit 50 home runs in a season but it was ridiculous how consistently he’d hit around 40. I got to see a lot more of Hank than Willie, because Willie was traded to the Mets in May of 1972, and it was always the Braves, Padres, or Astros playing when the Giants held their promotional games, like Bat Day or Fan Appreciation Day.
Dad liked Hank because he always liked players who performed excellently, but were not showy about it. “Speak softly, but carry a big stick” has a particular metaphorical resonance with baseball. Hank seemed to be a quiet guy. You’d never see him making headlines for saying something or arguing with anybody, and I don’t remember seeing any interviews. Baseball would promote Willie because he ate it up, but Hank was a real lunch pail guy. Steady as sunshine in L.A.
We had heard about Hank getting a death threat as he closed in on 714. My memory might be shaky on when we learned what, but I remember having the sense that the Venn diagram of people who didn’t want him to get there had big circles for racists and Yankee fans and I don’t know how much overlap between the two. We certainly have learned a lot more since then about what kind of abuse black athletes have had to take in their lifetimes. Willie and Hank both played in the Negro Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, so we knew they went through many of the same experiences Jackie did. Jackie’s significance was well understood.
Hank did pass the Babe in April of 1974. A white guy ran on the field as Hank was rounding the bases and ran up to him with the intent to congratulate Hank. Security got him quickly, but you can imagine Hank wondering what was going to happen. He went and crushed 40 more and retired with 755… the new magic number my generation would revere. When Barry Bonds broke that record with the public very aware of steroids in his regimen and suspicious of even more, I could understand how people who weren’t Giants fans really would prefer he didn’t do it. The game stopped and the scoreboard showed a video of Hammering Hank himself congratulating Barry and as always, it was all class.
Major League baseball recently said that they’re going to consider Negro League games official. So it would mean that Hank gets his crown back because that gets him over 762, which is what Barry finished with. Except for some reason, baseball will only count them through 1948, which was still before Hank's time. That seems like a weird place to stop, but I'm guessing they figured they had to draw the line somewhere before the Negro Leagues became the equivalent of the minor leagues and two years with the color barrier broken was it. Hank still holds the career record for RBIs, which is surprisingly not as widely known as you’d think. Rest in peace, Hammering Hank! You also have a legend that will never die.
