Hank Aaron
1934 - 2021
"The Hammer"
There are good ball players, there are great ball players, there are really great ball players, and then there are ball players whose greatness really just can't be put into words - at least not by a someone like me - and such a player was Hank Aaron, who died today at the age of 86.
You all the know the numbers....755 home runs. He was the guy who broke the unbreakable record of Babe Ruth when he hit is 715th home run back in 1974. He also has more RBI - 2,297 - than anyone else in history. And add to the story the death threats and racial hatred that he endured as he chased Ruth's record only adds to the story and truly defines Hemingway's definition of courage: Grace under pressure.
Then there is the one undefinable metric that I always use. In a tight game involving my team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who is the batter that I would LEAST like to see coming to bat against the Pirates late in the game with runners on base? Hank Aaron pretty much tops that list.
I am not going to go on and on here, because, like I said, what can I say? However, I will tell you one story that sits deep in Sproule Family Lore. Upon return from one of his annual trips to Florida with my grandmother, this one in the mid-1950's, my grandfather, Bill Madden, proclaimed to my father: "I seen (that's how he talked) a skinny kid down in Florida for the Braves who's going to be really something. Name is Hank Aaron." I believe he had that.
Oh, and one more. My Dad always told the tale of sitting in the left field bleachers once at Forbes Field when Aaron hit a line drive that Dick Groat at short leaped up to try and catch, only to see the ball keep rising and easily clearing the clock at the top of the left field scoreboard.
RIP Hank Aaron. We may never see his like again.
#715
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