Note: I was shocked and saddened recently to hear of the passing of one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived, my personal boyhood hero, Hank Aaron; who died on January, 22^nd in Atlanta at the age of 86. I grew up in Seattle, Washington in the 1950s and 60s; a time when baseball was truly the national pastime and the New York Yankees ruled the world. Except, that is, for that 1957 World Series when the Bronx Bombers fell to the Milwaukee Braves 4 games to 3. The Yankees lost that Series largely due to the play of a slender, 23-year old Black man who played right field and hit the cover off the ball by the name of Henry “Hank” Aaron. From that time forward, as I grew up through the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, across the years of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, and on into the time of Richard Nixon and Watergate, Hank was my favorite player. As the seasons came and went I followed his exploits closely in the box scores and sports pages; noting every game, at bat and home run hit, all the way to that day in April of 1974 when he parked an Al Downing fast ball into the Atlanta Braves bullpen to at last break the all-time career home run record of the great Babe Ruth. I never met Hank, but sometimes it feels as if I knew him well; and while you may find it ironic that a white, middle class kid from a south Seattle suburb felt that way, it’s the truth, and is the reason I am publishing this tribute to the man who is surely one of the greatest ball players of all time; to me, my favorite player ever–Hammerin’ Hank Aaron!   

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Baseball was my sport. No one ever had to teach me to catch or hit; I could just naturally do those things. My Grandfather got me my first glove when I was 6. At the time, I was recovering from a broken arm and had a cast on my left wrist, which, as a right hander, was my glove hand. Such was my excitement on receiving that glove, that I immediately pulled it on, cast and all, and went out to play catch. This was in the spring of 1957, and I was just about to complete my kindergarten year in school. Later that fall I would enter first grade at Shorewood elementary, and a couple weeks later the National League champion Milwaukee Braves would meet the American League perennial champion New York Yankees in the ‘57 World Series. These were the Yankees of Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra and Casey Stengle, one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled. So, when the Braves beat New York 4 games to 3 for their first World Series championship since 1914, when they were the old Boston Braves of Babe Ruth, it was no mean accomplishment. I date myself as a Braves fan, and as a fan of Hammerin’ Hank Aaron, from that World Series.

That late 1950’s Braves team was good. Besides Aaron, who played right field, the team featured a couple of other future Hall of Famers, 3^rd baseman Eddie Mathews (512 career homers) and pitcher Warren Spahn, who would go on to become the winningest southpaw of all time with 363 career victories. Like the Yankees, along with their superstars that Milwaukee team fielded a solid supporting cast of players: Joe Adcock at first base, Del Crandall behind the plate, and another excellent starting pitcher, right hander Lew Burdette, who had 3 complete game victories in that ’57 series. Despite all of that Braves talent, for some reason it was Hank Aaron I latched on to as my boyhood hero. Most likely it was his 3 homers and .393 batting average in that ’57 Fall Classic that impressed me. Had Burdette not pitched those 3 complete game wins, against the Yankees no less, Hank for sure would have walked off with the Series MVP award. (As it was, after a 1957 season in which he hit .322 with 44 home runs and 132 RBIs, he had to settle for the ‘57 National League MVP award to go with the World Series championship.) But, however it happened, from that point on for nearly another two decades; as he developed into one of the greatest baseball players ever while chasing down the most revered record in American sports, the all-time home run record of the great Babe Ruth, Hank was my guy.

In the 1958 season Aaron and the Braves repeated as National League pennant winners, and once again faced the Yankees in the World Series. That’s the way it was in Major League baseball in the decade of the 1950s. While teams like the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers, the Braves and the New York/San Francisco Giants[1]fought it out to see who would represent the National League in the Series, the Yankees regularly made mincemeat of the American League competition, winning pennants in eight of the nine seasons from 1950 to 1958 (the only outlier being 1954, when some how the Cleveland Indians snuck in.) In that ’58 season Hank had another stellar campaign, hitting .326 with 30 dingers and 95 RBIs; but in the Series, though he still hit well, the power was missing, with no home runs and only 2 RBIs. This time, though they had to overcome a 3 game to 1 deficit to do it, the Yankees won the championship in 7 games, reversing the results of the previous season. After that Series loss, all the Braves could do was look ahead to the ’59 season and beyond. Besides Aaron they still had all those great players, and there was every reason to think they would be pennant contenders indefinitely into the future.

Alas, it wasn’t to be. After their dominance in the late ’50s, the Braves would not make it back to a World Series until 1991, many years after Hank’s retirement and 25 years after the team had moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta. That lack of success wasn’t because of Aaron, however. Despite the state of the Braves as a team, he went on to fashion what is, in many respects, one of the most remarkable careers in the history of Major League baseball. Hank’s career statistics speak for themselves. He played 23 seasons in the big leagues, and across that time compiled a career batting average of .305, with 755 home runs, 3,771 hits, 2,297 RBIs and 6,856 total bases. To this day he has more RBIs and total bases than any player in the history of the game; and he has hit the 2^nd most home runs in baseball history, behind only Barry Bonds; and he did it without the PEDs Bonds[2] has acknowledged using. Aaron’s career hit total ranks 3^rd in baseball history, behind only Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. Of course, what he is most famous for is his incredible pursuit of Babe Ruth’s career home run record of 714, which, at the time Hank broke it in 1974, had stood for nearly 39 years. It was a record that many thought would never be broken. Perhaps more impressive than his breaking the record, however, is what Hank had to overcome to do it, and that is a story in itself.

Henry Louis Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama on February 5^th, 1934. At the time the Depression was in full vigor, and the combination of that along with Mobile being in the Jim Crow deep south meant that there was precious little opportunity for a young Black boy growing up. With 7 other brothers and sisters in his family, it was a constant challenge for Hank’s father, a part time boilermaker and tavern manager, to make ends meet. There was no money in the family for such things as balls, bats and gloves, so young Hank often made do in other ways, one of which was hitting bottle caps with a broom stick. In his autobiography, “I Had a Hammer” Aaron describes the process and value of learning to hit in such a fashion:

“I believe that my style of hitting was developed as a result of batting against bottle caps. Even in the big leagues, I never swung the bat like other power hitters. Most great home run hitters—guys like Mickey Mantle, Harmon Killlebrew and Reggie Jackson—hit with their weight way back on their back foot. But I was the opposite. I had my weight on my front foot—especially early in my career—and I got my power by lashing out at the last second with my hands. If you’ve ever tried to hit a bottle cap, you know that you can’t sit back on your haunches. The way those things will dip and float, you’ve got to jump out and get it, and that’s the way I always hit a baseball.”

Hank’s “bottle cap” swing was one way that his hitting style differed from other players, but there were several others. If you look at hitters, they all, whether right or left handed, when gripping a bat have their off hand on bottom and their favored hand on top. A right-hander, therefore, will grip the bat with his left hand on the bottom and right hand on top; a left-hander vice-versa. Not so with Hank Aaron, at least when he initially was learning to hit. Hank was right-handed, but for some reason in his early years he was a cross-handed hitter, meaning that his right hand was at the bottom of his grip and not the top. He played that way through his early to late-teen years, until he hit professional baseball. As he says in his book:

“We were never told the right way to bat, and we didn’t lose any sleep over technique. Coaching was something for white kids. I realized I batted differently than other guys, but it felt right and it worked, so I saw no reason to change.”

By the time he made it to the Majors Hank had adopted the standard “left hand on bottom” batting grip for a right-hander, but I think his years as a cross-handed hitter benefitted him in another, less obvious way. To start with, and as you may know, one of the maxims pitchers follow for getting hitters out is changing the hitter’s “eye level.” Pitching isn’t just an “inside-outside” game; it’s also an “up-down” game, and the high fastball is legendary in baseball for being difficult to hit. In pitching vernacular throwing the high fastball is called “climbing the ladder” on a hitter, and it’s a standard way for a pitcher to get a strike-out or pop-up when he needs it. You should also know that Hank Aaron was famous for the fact that pitchers had a very difficult time getting any fastball by him, especially those up in the zone. In his day Hank routinely faced some of the greatest pitchers ever; guys like Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Fergie Jenkins.[3] To a man they all acknowledged this about Hank; a fact which prompted Aaron’s old teammate, Joe Adcock, to quip, “Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.”

With all that understood, not too long ago, shortly after he passed away, I spent some time looking at every You Tube video I could find on Aaron, and I found one in which Hank himself goes into detail on his hitting style. It was fascinating to watch and explained much to me about why he was such a great hitter. In the video Aaron demonstrated how in swinging the bat he would roll his top (right) wrist over on his follow through, which had the effect of allowing him to “stay on top” of pitches up in the strike zone. This, in turn, led to line drives and ground balls off Hank’s bat on such pitches, instead of pop-ups and swinging strikes. After seeing Aaron’s video, I wondered if his cross-handed hitting experience would have made it easier for him to master the top-wrist roll over technique he described, so I did a test. To do this you simply need to assume a batting stance and place your grip onto an imaginary bat handle, but make sure you use a “cross-hand” grip (for right-handers, left hand on top). Then make a slow-motion swing of the imaginary bat, and if you are like me you will notice a natural, top-wrist roll over on the swing. Based on this, I think it’s likely his earlier “cross-hand” experience lent itself to Aaron carrying the “top-hand roll” on into the Majors, where he perfected it and became one of the preeminent hitters in baseball history. Today’s hitters are so infatuated with getting loft and launch-angle when they swing, they have more or less abandoned Hank’s top-wrist roll over technique; most likely to their detriment I think.

All of that is somewhat speculative, but illustrates what a different breed of cat Hank was when it came to hitting. It was that special quality about him that first caught the eye of a man named Ed Scott, who, in 1951, managed a semi-pro team called the Mobile Black Bears. Hank was only 17 at the time, and most of the players on the Bears were full grown men; a challenge for someone as wet behind the ears as Aaron was. Another problem was that Scott’s team played their games on Sundays, which conflicted mightily with the Aaron family’s church going ways. Thus began Ed Scott’s courting of Hank Aaron and his parents to get Hank’s services for his baseball team. Finally, after promising Hank that, yes, he would indeed be given a uniform if he would play for the team, Aaron was motivated enough to handle his parents to let him join the Bears. In Hank’s book, “I Had a Hammer,” Ed Scott himself is quoted in describing the first time Aaron came to bat for his team:

“He was green as he could be. He stood up there at the plate upright, no crouch at all, and the other team figured he wasn’t ready. The pitcher tried to get a fastball by him, and he hit a line drive that banged against the old tin fence they had around the outfield out there—nearly put the ball through the fence. They walked him the rest of the time.”

Aaron didn’t know it at the time, but Scott was also a part time scout for the Indianapolis Clowns, a professional Negro League team[4] that barnstormed through the south and east coast during the baseball season, playing other Negro League teams while using Harlem Globetrotter-like antics[5] to entertain the fans. Scott informed the business manager of the Clowns, a former Negro League manager named Bunny Downs who Scott had once played for, of the young 17-year old phenom on his team; and the two men arranged for the Clowns to come to Mobile to play the Black Bears so Bunny could see Hank for himself. In his book Aaron describes his first meeting with Bunny Downs as follows:

“I don’t think I knew what was going on, but I hit the ball hard that day—a home run and maybe a double or two, as I recall—and after the game Bunny Downs came up and asked me how I’d like to play shortstop for the Clowns. Well, I knew Mama wouldn’t go for that one. I had to go back to school in the fall and try to stay there. But anyway, Mr. Downs came home and talked to Mama and said that when school was out next year he’d send for me. I figured I’d never hear from him again.”

Long story short, Hank did hear from Bunny Downs again, and when he did it was in the form of an offered contract to play ball for the Indianapolis Clowns for $200 a month. If he accepted the contract he would be required to go to Winston-Salem, North Carolina for spring training; which, to a kid who had never even travelled on a train before, might as well have been 1,000 miles away. The school year wasn’t yet over, but Hank, feeling that he couldn’t afford to wait around to see if any white scouts from the Majors would notice him, lobbied his parents successfully to be able to go. His closing argument to his mother was that if he made the team he would finish high school in the off season; and if he didn’t he would go to college. That was enough for his mom and dad; so a few days later, with $2 in his pocket, a sandwich from his mom and a couple of changes of clothes in his old suitcase, Hank boarded a train for the first time in his life, a scared 18-year old, on his way to spring training with the Indianapolis Clowns. Thus began the professional baseball career of one of the greatest players to ever take the field—Hammerin’ Hank Aaron!

To be continued…

Copyright © 2021

By Mark Arnold

All Rights Reserved

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[1] Following the 1957 season both the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants baseball teams packed up and moved to California, the Dodgers to LA and the Giants to San Francisco. They left in their wake legions of upset fans, who had followed the teams for decades. Both teams won National League pennants in the 1950s, the Dodgers in 1952, ’53, ’55 and ’56, and the Giants in 1951. In each instance they faced the Yankees in the World Series, with the Giants losing in ’51 and Dodgers losing in ’52, ’53 and ’55 before at last winning the Championship in 1956.

[2] PEDs is an acronym for “Performance Enhancing Drugs.” Major League Baseball (MLB) was rocked in the early 2000s by allegations from former players of steroid use by some of the biggest names in the game, including Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Barry Bonds. Using such drugs without a prescription was already against the law and had been banned by MLB since 1991, but baseball had no enforcement mechanism. Bonds, who holds the career home run record with 762, has acknowledged in sworn testimony the use of steroid creams, but said he thought, based on what his trainer told him, that it was flaxseed oil. The question has persisted whether Bonds should be considered the true career home run champ, because he used dope to accomplish it, whereas Hank Aaron’s power was all natural.   

[3] The 1950s through the 1960s was, in many ways, a Golden Age for baseball, with great hitters and pitchers abounding. The pitchers I mentioned in this article; Gibson, Koufax, Drysdale and Jenkins, were some of the greatest, and all are in the Hall of Fame, but there were many more, including Warren Spahn and Whitey Ford.

[4] The Negro Baseball Leagues flourished during the first half of the twentieth century, ironically beginning their demise when Blacks were at last allowed to enter the Major Leagues with the arrival of Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. At its peak in the mid to late 1930s Negro League Baseball consisted of an American League and National League and had developed many of its own stars in players like Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and Satchel Paige, who were every bit as good as the white players in the Majors. Jackie Robinson himself, and the other Blacks soon to follow him to MLB, all started their careers in the Negro Leagues.

[5] Founded in 1926, The Harlem Globetrotters is an American exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, and comedy in their style of play and have played more than 26,000 exhibition games in 124 countries and territories. I got to see the Globetrotters and their basketball wizardry as a kid when they came to Seattle for an exhibition game. They were a treat to watch.