Black History Month always reminds me of two of my heroes as an avid baseball fan: Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron. I’ve previously had the opportunity to write about Robinson before, so I’ll keep this centered on Aaron, one of the greatest, yet most underrated athletes of all time.
Greatest and underrated are two words that generally don’t go together in the sports lexicon. However, Aaron is exactly that.
He’s one of the greatest baseball players and athletes in general of all time simply based on his numbers on the field. Aaron finished his illustrious baseball career with 755 career home runs, a record until Barry Bonds cheated his way past it with steroids a few years ago, 2,297 runs batted in (first all time), 3,771 hits (third all time) and 2,174 runs scored (fourth all time- tied with Babe Ruth).
Despite these all time great numbers, Aaron is only considered to be the fifth greatest baseball player ever by The Sporting News. In my book, that’s the equivalent of saying Michael Jordan is the fifth greatest basketball player of all time.
Hank Aaron the great baseball player is only half the story about why he’s one of my personal heroes. Hank Aaron the man means just as much.
In the early 1970s, when it became apparent that Aaron had a shot at breaking the legendary Ruth’s all time home run record he started to receive hate mail and death threats. Many of these hate mail letters and death threats were published in Aaron’s autobiography “I Had a Hammer,” and are to this day some of the most vile, despicable things I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Not only did Aaron receive these threats, but so did his family and during a time when his focus should’ve been solely on baseball, things got so bad that he and his family had to be protected by FBI agents and he couldn’t even stay in the same hotel as his teammates while on the road as a safety precaution.
This led to William Leggett writing in Sports Illustrated in 1973: “Is this to be the year in which Aaron, at the age of 39, takes a moon walk above one of the most hallowed individual records in American sport...? Or will it be remembered as the season in which Aaron, the most dignified of athletes, was besieged with hate mail and trapped by the cobwebs and goblins that lurk in baseball's attic?”
It was a moment that should’ve been cheered by everyone in the country – both black and white – but, like so many things that came before, it divided the country.
Aaron refused to quit and kept on playing. On April 8, 1974, he hit career home run number 715 off of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing to break Ruth’s home run record. It was a moment that should’ve been nothing but joy, but unfortunately felt more like a burden had been lifted off of his chest.
Aaron said: “I read the letters, because they remind me not to be surprised or hurt. They remind me what people are really like" and “Babe Ruth never had to contend with anything like that when he was establishing his record.”
Aaron was the kind of athlete that kids today should aspire to be and more importantly he’s the kind of man they should aspire to be.
During Black History Month when students learn about great African-American leaders and heroes like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson and others I hope that Aaron’s legacy is being taught right alongside them. He’s every bit as important.
