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!)
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