With Barry Bonds poised to eclipse Henry Aaron's Major League Baseball home run record, I finally read I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story by Hank Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler. It's mostly an autobiography as biograpical passages by Wheeler introduce each chapter.
After a bit of background about his childhood, Aaron quickly delves into the story of his life in baseball. Hank glibly describes the rampant racism he faced in his early career, but you get the sense he appreciated that people were honest about their bigotry. As the years pass, the racism becomes latent yet still obviously present.
Then the hate explodes again once he is within reach of tying and breaking Babe Ruth's total of 714 home runs. Even then, though, the threats come from afar -- short letters spitting ignorance and hatred in the same breath. To whit:
"Dear Nigger,
You black animal. I hope you never live long enough to hit more home runs than the great Babe Ruth. Niggers are like animals and have a short life span. Martin Luther King was a trouble maker, and he had a short life span."
"Dear Hank Aaron,
I hate you!!!! Your such a little creap! I hate you and your family. I'D LIKE TO KILL YOU!! BANG BANG YOUR DEAD.
P.S. It mite happen"
Some were sent anonymously. Some were not. Threats to his life and family were made frequently. It's incredible realizing what kind of grace and dignity Aaron exuded during those days. Luckily, baseball itself provided him a haven from the distractions. Even though Hank was nestled among thousands of spectators, and any one of them could have jumped out of the stands and carried out those threats, he kept swinging and kept hitting home runs.
A few random tidbits:
--When he debuted for the Milwaukee Braves in 1954, Aaron was the 11th black player after Jackie Robinson to play Major League Baseball.
--Aaron once played for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues. The Clowns were one of the few remaining Negro League teams at the time.
--Along with Horace Garner and Felix Mantilla, Aaron helped intregrate the Southern Atlantic League in 1953. To that point the "Sally" league had not allowed any blacks to play, and later, it's commissioner would proudly declare that he had never witnessed a black player playing on a Sally league field.
--Aaron's secretary, Carla Koplin, handled 930,000 pieces of mail in 1973. According to the US Postal Service, that was about 870,000 more than anybody else.
--Aaron broke Ruth's record on April 8, 1974 against Al Downing of the Dodgers in front of (to that point) the largest crowd in Atlanta Braves history.
Reading I Had a Hammer was a revelation for me. Growing up, I'd heard and read accounts of racism and had seen much news footage about the civil rights movement, but none of that prepared me for what I found when reading Aaron's book. So many of us are so far removed from that era that we can not fathom what black people experienced. Even the popular black athletes like Willie Mays and Aaron had to endure sitting at the back of the public bus (if even allowed on), having to eat at black restaurants or have food brought out to them by the few sympathetic whites, when travelling, not being able to stay in the same hotels and motels as their white peers, when not travelling, having to stay in separate "camps" far away from any whites at all, having to use separate restrooms and water fountains, hearing all manner of taunts and insults from fans (and white players) and bearing that and other degradations simply because they knew that fighting against them would likely result in banishment from the game, potential imprisonment or, perhaps worse, mob justice while white police looked the other way. Even with all that, black players dominated the league (well, the National League) throughout the 1950s. From 1949-1959, nine black players were named league NL MVP. None came from the American League as, aside from Larry Doby in 1947, it was slower to integrate.
Hank Aaron was MVP in 1957. His team won the World Series that year. A few years later, though, the Braves moved south to Atlanta. Even with its large black population, Aaron was never really comfortable in Atlanta except in the batter's box. Even he admits that in Atlanta he became a home run hitter due to the fact that the baseball seemed to jump out of the ballpark. Fulton County Stadium wasn't called "The Launching Pad" for nothing! And so it was there that Aaron played out his career (before briefly going back to Milwaukee to join the new Brewer team) launching the shots that eclipsed Babe Ruth.
As much as Aaron endured while breaking Ruth's record, it's a shame that someone shrouded in so much controversy as Barry Bonds will break Hank's HR record. At the very least, Barry's pursuit of the record has led to fond recollections of Aaron and his amazing baseball career. But even the new record may not last very long. Time moves on. Fulton County Stadium is no more. The spot where HR number 715 landed is now a plaque in the parking lot for Turner Field, the Braves latest home. And what stands at the entrance to Turner Field? A statue of Hammerin' Hank Aaron.
Bonds may surpass Aaron in HR, but he will never surpass him in my admiration.
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