Hammer Away

Every once in a while, a name I haven’t heard mentioned in a long while appears in the news and gets me thinking, Is that person still with us? He seems so out-of-place today, such a throwback to a very different time and place. That train of thought pulled into my mental station last week upon reading that baseball great Henry Aaron had died just short of his 87th birthday.

By the time I was following baseball in the early 1970s, Hank Aaron’s career was already entering its twilight. And as a Bronx kid, I had no particular interest in someone who played for an Atlanta team that, being in the National League, never faced my beloved Yankees. Unless, of course, my blue pin-striped heroes were to make it to the Series, which they never did in those years of famine (but that’s another topic, on the indispensability of holding onto hope amid despair).

But even so, everyone knew about Hank Aaron, because he was a relatively rare combination of outsized talent and plain decency. Although best known for breaking Babe Ruth’s record with his 715th career home run in 1974 (he eventually reached 755), Aaron was a phenomenal all-around player.

While his home-run record was eventually surpassed (by a player whose use of performance-enhancing drugs might well bar him from the Hall of Fame forever), Hammerin’ Hank still today holds major records like those for total career bases and runs batted in. That latter record was one he said he valued even more than any other, because bringing his teammates around the bases to score was more important to him than hitting home runs. And that’s the kind of guy Aaron was.