RIP Hank Aaron, American Icon

Hank Aaron was once given a plaque by the US Postal Service for being the non-politician who garnered the most pieces of mail ever. The vast majority of the mail he received was of the hate variety, death threats and other vulgarities aimed at him and his family. Much of it he kept; he wanted to remember exactly what kind of country America was.

During his pursuit of Babe Ruth's all-time homerun record, there were enough credible threats of kidnapping that the FBI felt compelled to provide a guard detail, the same FBI that a decade before tried to destroy MLK and that a half-decade before essentially had Black Panther leader Fred Hampton killed.

In the George Plympton baseball book "One for the Record," a detailed account of the moment Henry became the all-time HR leader, a quote from his father sealed up the basic truth of the Hammer's situation: "Henry played ball for work."

The nickname, the Hammer, is apt: not because of any of his incredible baseball prowess, but because it was given to him by the fans in Atlanta, and it's an object, a tool. Hank was less a person (and not just to the folks in Atlanta) to fans and more of a collection of accomplishments---in the best of times, and a harbinger of impurity in the record books of America's White Pastime.

An influential book for me and my understanding of baseball, and its stats, was Bill James' Baseball Abstract, and the edition to which I'm referring is the newest one that was released in 2000, the edition in which he introduces the idea of Win Shares. In the years since, many stat-heads have moved on from WS to a slightly more nuanced idea of Wins Above a Replacement player (WAR). The goal for either is to establish how much value a player added to a team with their bat, their arm, their defense, and relative to their home stadium and era in which they played. It's all pretty heady, and as a math guy, it makes a kind of sense.

Baseball is a sport, or rather, the sport in America where numbers play the most severe role in our understanding of history and relative standing, and what Bill James and the WAR folks later are trying to do is contextualize everything and remove all rose-tinted-glasses effects.

The results are occasionally enlightening, like when James takes an unpopular position that Mickey Mantle had more value than Joe DiMaggio because his peak seasons came at a time when runs were more scarce because of the era. Okay. I've seen the numbers. That passes the smell test, anyway, numerically speaking.

THEN James uses the same logic---that the era effects of the runs make them more valuable---in favor of Mantle over Hank Aaron. NOW YOU LOST ME.

Mickey Mantle started playing for the Yankees in 1951; Hank started playing with the Indianapolis Clowns, a Negro League team, in late 1951. They were born three years apart, and entered MLB three years apart.

I started crunching  my own numbers...

...and arrived at a conclusion: how come we've never had a conversation about how Hank Aaron is the greatest player ever? I'm not sure I'm not at this meme already:

But for a sport that's so beholden to numbers, how can people so easily ignore Hank's? When he retired, he had the most homeruns, the most RBIs, the most extra-base-hits, and the most total bases; now he's second in homers, and still first in the other three. Barry Bonds needed steroids to chase down the homer record, and he barely just eclipsed it (762 to 755).

The stats, people. Hank Aaron is so far ahead in total bases that second place, Hall of Famer Stan Musial, is closer to Carl Yastremski in tenth place than he is to Aaron in first.

Mantle gets a boost over Joe D because of era, but the Hammer get's knocked for...longevity? Is that really the issue? 

And what of the era? Both Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax, two of the best pitchers of any era, said that Hank gave them the most trouble of any batter, as in, "...not sure what we're gonna do with him..." It seems like we can all agree that the early sixties weren't the 1920s-Live Ball times, when 8 people hit over .400 or whatever. 

The era that Hank Aaron played in had him have his life threatened regularly. Threats of death and kidnapping, having to use different bathrooms and hotels...does Albert Pujols have to deal with that?

That's not a knock on King Albert, far from it; he's one of the few players that can compare somewhat to Hank Aaron---and he doesn't have to deal with threats of death and kidnapping regularly. And his numbers are still not as amazing in the long run.

So...who was the best baseball player? Hank Aaron...and who else can even compare?

Willie Mays, and he may be the only real comp here. Babe Ruth...Walter Johnson...Honus Wagner...Ty Cobb...Stan Musial...Albert Pujols...Mike Trout...I'm just naming names here, because that's what we have. 

Pujols is nearly done, and with over 600 homers and 3000 hits, he's close numbers-wise. If you've watched him play over the last seven years, you'd be forgiven for not thinking he may be the best ever. Walter Johnson was possibly the greatest pitcher ever, but he played before WWII, so...try to wrap your head around that. Black people couldn't even play.

Stan the Man was great, a top player really, in the conversation for greatest ever, surely, but was he objectively better than Hank Aaron? Was his life threatened on the reg? 

Honus Wagner was SOOOO much better than his competition, but he was an old man and wily veteran when WWI started. He was so much better because he worked out in the offseason instead of chain-smoking while working the docks---he was playing a different game than everyone else. Cobb played the best Dead Ball game there had ever been, but again, he had no Black competition.

Mike Trout may make the case for best ever, but he has to perform at this level for...another fifteen years in a row? Then he'll be close?

The only two that I can muster attention for would be either Willie Mays or Babe Ruth. Those are the two that have a case. Both Willie and Hank came up through the Negro Leagues, and into an America that more closely resembles today than we'd like to admit. 

The Babe is another matter. No Black competition vs Hall of Fame pitching skills. Iconoclastic view of playing, moving the game into the modern era and showing off the power of, er, power. He was bigger than the game. He presaged the future of celebrity athlete and pop-cultural stardom. His treatment of the ladies in his life left much to be desired, but that's not exactly relevant. He played before WWII. His life was not under general threat and he did not live in a different, lower caste sector of society.

I cannot stress this enough: the context of the working conditions MATTERS. Imagine being good at your job. Hell, being great at your job. People come to watch you work, which sounds like a good thing, but these people just shout obscenities at you, insulting you and your family, even vulgarities like death threats. And this happens every day for decades. How would you feel about your job then?

Have you ever seen Hank Aaron-the-player smiling? Just check the collage above...

With a game that's so beholden to stats, the burden of proof is on those arguing Hank Aaron is NOT the greatest of all time. So...go! Convince me. (And if you're coming at me with anyone besides Willie Mays or Babe Ruth, you can go fuck right off!)

Experimental Meditation on Immigration and Assimilation

 Another great Decemberween gift from Auntie Peg and Uncle Dan:

Author Charles Yu has written for many shows across many prestige channels, as well as being a decorated fiction and non-fiction writer.

This novel is broken up into Acts and uses a font that is used with film scripts. The main character is introduced as Generic Asian Man and described as one would describe a character---a bit character, mind you---in a movie, with even a bit of resume from Willis Wu (as in "Can do 'face of great shame' on command" and "Can speak well with accent").

The action all takes place at the Golden Palace, a Chinese food restaurant with 8 floors of SRO above where all the Generic Asian Men and Pretty Asian Ladies live. Willis aspires to the highest position allotted to his people: "Kung Fu Guy."

At the Golden Palace is a television show in constant production called "Black and White," a buddy cop procedural starring a Black dude and a white lady. Oh, how the lighting on them is always correct. 

Not being the center of one's own story is a major theme, one that many folks, minorities especially, can identify with. Sometimes the action takes place written as prose, like any other novel. Sometimes it follows a script-like written pattern. The inventiveness is part of the charm for me.

Two things specifically I wanted to mention, besides that I really enjoyed it (the experimental nature I find inspiring) are:

1. The concept that the oppression that was/is inflicted on the Asian diaspora in America is such that they feel that because they weren't subjected to enslavement like Black people, their oppression is not as bad, and that they feel self-conscious about complaining about it; they may have had it bad (and they did, as the author lays out some of the laws enacted over the years), but it's just not as bad; and;
2. That "falling in love" is an act one person in involved in, a story a person tells themselves; while "being in love" takes two people and is much harder and way more satisfying.

The love concept, beyond the nailing-it discussion of Asians-in-America oppression, is what stickes with me from this novel.

I really enjoyed it, and would reccommend it.

Problematic Reverence

"

I used to be cruel to my woman
I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved
Man, I was mean but I'm changing my scene
And I'm doing the best that I can (ooh)

"

This sounds like instructions, or the secret diary of an abuser, or the honest reflection of a particular abuser.

I've been thinking for a while about how to reconcile a person's art separate from the artists, like: Is it possible to revere the art of a person that would revile us on a personal level?

The answer for this is complicated, so intertwined to how much value, or cultural cache, the artist or performer has brought to either our society or the the world at large.

Some critics call this the basis of so-called "cancel culture," or at least make this the point that cancel culture is detrimental to society, that cancel culture is a terrible thing.

For every television personality that loses their gig because they (see: white men, usually) fondled, groped, grabbed, forcibly kissed, or verbally assaulted someone in a subordinate position, I shed exactly ZERO tears. Because, fuck 'em. Don't be a sexual predator.

One major critic of this brand of societal change has just has his position been filled by a replacement named Joe Biden, and one thinks that his ire towards this societal change may stem from the nearly two dozen women that have accused him of sexual assault...well, some of the accusations may just be sexual misconduct, but the fact he's a creep remains.

But moving past the Anderson Coopers and Kevin Spaceys of the world, I'm more interested, in this moment, with choices that are harder to artistically reconcile, or performatively reconcile.

Not necessarily hard for me, but society at large can't seem to deal with: Michael Jackson. Maybe the news of the kiddie-porn dungeon they found at his Neverland Ranch didn't break until after he died, and the tragedy of his rough upbringing taking away his childhood and ironically turning him into a perpetual child obscures a sad truth: the dude was messed up and likely a child-sexual-predator. DJs easily dismiss this fact, or choose to not believe it.

Is the fact he was a sexual predator change the value of the art he gave the world?

The lines that began this piece are lyrics to a song, a song so famous and iconic that Microsoft paid a fortune (to, er, Michael Jackson) to license it for their advertising campaign back in the '90s. It was written by:

I wanted a picture of John Lennon that was when he was younger and maybe a little menacing. ("Getting Better" is the name of the song, if you didn't know.)

If you do a little digging, you'll find the tip of the iceberg. Get deeper, and you start to burrow deep into the berg, getting sadder and darker and colder as the time ticks away. And you realize that this dude was a BAD dude: physically and verbally abusive to the women in his life, generally disrespectful, a terrible father until right before the end. When you realize that the stanza I quoted in the beginning was autobiographical, and then hear that "Hey Jude" was a song that Paul wrote to John's son Jules to cheer him up because his dad was never around, you find yourself conflicted a bit.

Cancel culture doesn't mean much when the person was gunned down more than 40 years ago and his work is so culturally important to the Western World. I mean, damn, "Imagine" is one of the most beautiful songs ever, and while it espouses the basic tenets of communism, regularly ranks in the Top 10 to Top 5 song lists compiled by popular sources.

Does the fact he was an abusive, womanizing, dead-beat dad change the value of the art he gave the world?

Earlier I used the phrase "performatively reconcile," and while it seems like an choice, it was very deliberate. This is where if you look too close at your heroes, chances are better than zero that you'll be disgusted.

Like: how about possibly the greatest lacrosse player ever:

Only sorta joking, as I like to remind people that Jim Brown, Hall of Fame NFL player, still considered one of the greatest running back ever, is also considered the best lacrosse player ever.

He's also the model for the successful athlete-moving-over-to-popular-culture-personality, as he starred in many films in the years after he retired from professional football.

He's also a titan of the Civil Rights movement, one of the blue-collar jock types white folks didn't hate. Check out this next pic, one that I love:

This picture (or any number like it taken at different moments) is generally called the "Ali Summit" photo. I'm embarrassed to say that I can't remember the names of the dudes in the back row, but that information is readily available. Seated, though, is a collection of the top Black Dude Athletes you may ever see. Like, EVER. It's pretty cool: On the left is Bill Russell, NBA star, owner of 11 championships and STILL considered one of the top 5 players ever; next is Muhammed Ali, self-proclaimed (and mostly agreed upon) Greatest of All Time, a man who risked prison and had his championship belt taken away because he refused to go kill Vietnamese people; then Jim Brown, holding court; then Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, owner of the record for most points in NBA history and also considered a top 5 NBA player.

I mean...Russell, Ali, Brown and Abdul-Jabbar. Hell yes.

Feels good to see, right? 

Now, to become a mature, eyes-open American (EOA), put those feelings next to the widespread allegations that Jim Brown absolutely savaged his wives and girlfriends. Once, cops showed up at his house and found his lady outside with broken legs, having been pushed fallen from the balcony above. 

He even began supporting the Orange One. And if that isn't a red-flag, I'm not sure what is.

But this has lead me to a hard realization: we are a fucking brutal ape. We at least recognize that this type of behavior shouldn't be perpetuated, and should be criminal, even shamed. But what kind of action needs to be taken to keep it from happening?

And, of the culturally significant perpetrators, what is to be done? We can't change the fact that Bill Cosby paid for the stage setup for the Million Man March when MLK gave his "I Have a Dream" speech anymore than we can change the fact he drugged women and had sex with them when they were passed our for years. 

The is the uncomfortable reality of this kind of problematic reverence.

I don't have answers. Only children. And I need to be honest about the world with them whenever they'll be able to comprehend it. 

How will we ever make the World better without these conversations?

Hapy New Year?

That didn't take long.

A gang of pro-tyranny weirdos storm the US Capitol...and...are sent home?

Turns out cops CAN show restraint and refrain from beating the crap out of people?

I love the reaction from my Black acquaintances on social media; it can be summarized thusly:

1. LOL;
2. Y'all need to stop acting surprised;
3. We don't really care about what's happening, and;
4. You can burn it all down as far as we care.

I'm SURE January 20th will go swimmingly. 

It was pretty cool to see in real time the results of Georgia's senatorial runoff happening in real time: as uneducated dipshits stormed the castle, took some selfies, and eventually were escorted out, Georgia elected it's first Black senator and it's first Jewish senator, both Democrats, basically flipping the senate's power balance. 

Anyway, here's to this year shaping up to be something special!