To Absent Friends - Hank Aaron

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

 

Mike and Mickey...and Hank and Barry and Willie

Spring Training opened yesterday, and rather than doing an extensive analysis of the Pirates, I thought that I would delay such ramblings and instead talk about a subject that has been niggling in the back of my mind for awhile.  It concerns Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout, already a two time Most Valuable Player.

At some point during this off season, someone, probably on the MLB Network, probably after he was named the AL MVP  for the second time in his career, said that he is "this generation's Mickey Mantle." 

High praise for Mr. Trout, so I decided to do one of my famous spread sheets to compare the two of them at comparable stages in their careers, and this is what it looks like.

	Mike Trout	Mickey Mantle
Seasons	6	6
Games	811	808
BA	0.306	0.308
HR	168	173
HR/162 games	34	35
RBI	497	575
RBI/162 games	99	115
Hits	917	907
Hits/162 games	183	181
Runs	600	642
Runs/162 games	120	129

Through six seasons, Trout and Mantle are practically the same player.  The Mick outpaces Trout in both Runs Scored and Runs Batted In, which may be a function of the other players on their respective teams.  Otherwise, those "Trout Is Mantle" comparisons are not far off.

Then, I decided to throw in a couple of other players into the mix to see how Trout compares to them.  You might recognize them:

So, here is the expanded chart:

	Mike Trout	Hank Aaron	Barry Bonds	Mickey Mantle	Willie Mays
Seasons	6	6	6	6	6
Games	811	886	871	808	762
BA	0.306	0.323	0.269	0.308	0.311
HR	168	179	142	173	128
HR/162 games	34	33	26	35	27
RBI	497	617	563	575	509
RBI/162 games	99	113	84	115	108
Hits	917	1,137	837	907	903
Hits/162 games	183	209	156	181	192
Runs	600	612	563	642	531
Runs/162 games	120	112	105	129	113

I will only draw a couple of conclusions from these comparisons.

1. Trout certainly holds his own when compared to these four great players.  No doubt that in Trout, we are seeing a guy who can become one of the all time great players by the time his career is done.
2. Please don't bother pointing out that Bonds' numbers were rolled up in his Pre-Balco Era.  We all get it.
3. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this little chart are the stats of Hank Aaron.  When discussions of "who was the greatest ball player ever?" take place, I don't think that Aaron's name gets mentioned nearly often enough.

Okay, time to put the calculator away and start getting into Bucco Spring Training.  Time to worry about just which Ivan Nova shows up for the Pirates in 2017.

A Sports Illustrated "Special Issue"

No, the title of this post is NOT referring to the annual soft-core porn swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, but rather the "Where Are They Now" issue published each summer and which arrived in the mailbox yesterday.

I have spent most of this morning reading some of the stories in the issue including ones on Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, the 1976 (0-14) Tampa Bay Bucs,  and Angelo Pizzo, who wrote the screenplays for "Hoosiers" and "Rudy", and there are at least three more stories I want to read.

The cover story about Banks is terrific.  What a guy!

The Aaron story is not so much about Aaron himself as it is about some of the peripheral people who were around Aaron forty years ago when he hit that famous 715th home run.  One of them is ex-Pirate announcer Milo Hamilton!   The best quote in the story, however, belongs to Al Downing, whom baseball fans will recall as the pitcher who gave up that historic dinger.  It notes that Downing does not regret the fact that his 17 year, all-star career has been reduced to a trivia question to many, and he says that he was dismayed when pitchers a few years back talked about being willing to walk Barry Bonds to avoid being the guy who would serve the pitch to Bonds that would break Aaron's record, and here is the money quote from Downing:

"If you don't want to give up home runs, don't pitch."

Love it.

There are many weeks when I can glance through SI and be done with it in about 20-30 minutes, but then there are the half dozen or so times each year when they serve up stories that make the cost of an annual subscription worth every penny you pay, and this issue is one of them.