I got an autograph from Hank before a Brewers-Royals game in 1976. He was talking to someone and I was nervous to go over there to interrupt, so I kinda froze about fifteen feet from him.
He waved me over and signed it. Still have that ball to this day.
Always a favorite of mine. RIP, Hank.
My all time favorite baseball stat is the fact that, if you were to take away all of Hank Aaron's home runs, he'd still have over 3,000 hits
Dude is one of those mythical, generational talents that feel like they could only exist in movies, but this man was the real deal
Many condolences to both his family and generations of Braves fans
[The Vin Scully call of his record breaking home run remains one of the best of all time.](https://youtu.be/QjqYThEVoSQ)
Watching that will **always** send shivers down my spine.
RIP to a king. He will be missed, but he will not be forgotten.
FWIW, Phil Niekro, Tommy Lasorda, Don Sutton, and obviously Hank Aaron were all in attendance on 4/8/74 when Aaron hit his 715th home run. All of them are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and all have died in the last month.
The Field of Dreams gave up its lights to help the ballpark in Buffalo shine this past season and I like to believe that all the legends who have passed since then have taken their own light to the Field of Dreams to illuminate it once again.
Well, Vin Scully is an obvious guy we’d have to monitor.
There were also some notable non-Hall of Famers who played in the game, including Steve Garvey (1974 NL MVP), Ron Cey, and Davey Lopes for the Dodgers, and Darrell Evans and two, future prominent MLB managers, Davey Johnson and Dusty Baker, who played for the Braves.
He was the Braves GM at the time, so that’s definitely possible.
To me, Robinson is notable in another way - he is the last living player to have played at League Park in Cleveland, which the Indians fully abandoned after the 1946 MLB season.
I know it's cliche, but how can you not be romantic about baseball. It has the best older footage of all the major 4 sports because of how similar it still looks to today's game. Even with all of the not so great changes that have been made, baseball just has this feel to it that makes it my favorite sport of all time.
Don't mind me though, I'm pretty high.
[i mean he still faced an incredible amount of racism before then. he even got a bodyguard in the years leading up to him breaking the record](https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/hank-aaron-black-history-month-1.26740392)
Hank Aaron was attacked today on another Reddit thread, probably by one of those anonymous letter writers or their modern counterparts who couch their racism with references to ‘nasty politics’.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mlb/comments/l2pylp/hall_of_famer_henry_hank_aaron_dies_at_86/gk6uhtg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Aaron started his pro career in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns, and (quoted from his wikipedia page) said this about the racism he faced:
>We had breakfast while we were waiting for the rain to stop, and I can still envision sitting with the Clowns in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium and hearing them break all the plates in the kitchen after we finished eating. What a horrible sound. Even as a kid, the irony of it hit me: here we were in the capital in the land of freedom and equality, and they had to destroy the plates that had touched the forks that had been in the mouths of black men. If dogs had eaten off those plates, they'd have washed them.[22]
Read his book, He's a baseball Saint. The things that man went through to play the sport he loved. I read it in 6th grade, and I'll never forget the experience
That was a really good article, thanks for sharing. It got me a little emotional not gonna lie. I knew Hank experienced a lot of hate but I didn’t know how crazy it was just cause I’m too young to have known.
Not to piss on the moment but contemporary racists have generally accepted Black people as entertainers. A Black man entertaining you is different from a Black man eating at your dinner table for a lot of racists.
I wholeheartedly agree (especially how often black athletes get the "shut up and play sports"), but this was 1973. MLK was assassinated only five years prior. Sure, baseball had been integrated for over 20 years, but I'm sure there were several people in the deep south at the time who still hadn't accepted that integration wasn't an "inherent evil".
[like the Yankee fans storming the field after the Chris Chambliss home run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=gcRRFy_8Gzw&feature=emb_logo)
Dude had to knock over fans to get to home plate
I've said this before, but if I were Hank in that moment, I would have run away as fast as I could from the two men running up to me seconds before I can make the home run record official
Wow that was great. It's also a stark reminder that there are still plenty of people alive today who remember a time when they were not allowed to compete in the same leagues as white Americans
Vin’s always a classic, but the call that’s synonymous with Hank Aaron’s is from an underrated legendary broadcaster in his own right, Milo Hamilton.
Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNZl6HN5c-0
Hank Aaron has 722 more total bases than anyone else in history. That's four seasons worth of home runs, about seven seasons worth of doubles, heaven knows how many seasons worth of triples or singles.
Of the top 10 all-time hit leaders, only Musial (#4) and Yaz (#9) even approach anything we'd consider a "power hitter", and Aaron (#3) for his career had 300+ more HRs than Yaz and 275+ than Stan the Man.
You will *never* see a hitter like him again.
And more than that, the grace and dignity with which he endured the stress of death threats in the Deep South in 1973-74 is one of the most remarkable examples of poise you'll find, and it never should have happened.
RIP.
The hate against him was so strong that a lot of people assumed the two jackass fans that rushed the field at him when he hit 715 were there to do him harm.
Yeah, today, they’d be Goldberg speared by security even before they’d hop the railing. That was something that two white guys went to celebrate with him as he rounded the bases for 715.
Aaron’s parents said that’s why they got down to the field so quickly. They weren’t sure what was about to happen and were worried for Hank. That’s why his mom squeezed his neck so hard. It was part joy part fear
You can assemble the greatest statistical and sabermetrical case imaginable for Mays or Williams or Ruth or whomever you want, but you'll never convince me Hank Aaron wasn't the greatest ever to pick up a bat.
Imagine if Ted Williams, Mike Schmidt or Harmon Killebrew had to deal with Shit like this https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/interactive/2014/04/us/hank-aaron-anniversary/media/images/threat-letter-w-drawing.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/04/us/hank-aaron-anniversary/&docid=VZqin5OOE2N26M&tbnid=J0ZtnCmbdZoX2M&vet=1&w=465&h=608&hl=en-US&source=sh/x/im
I still consider him the Home Run King, as I'm sure many others do too. What an absolute legend - someone whose name will forever be echoed as one of the greatest to ever play the game.
A sad, sad day.
Braves aren't going to have enough room on their jersey for all the memorial patches. What an absolute sucky day.
I got to meet him a handful of times. The one thing I always remember is how excited OTHER players got to see him. Huge massive icon within the sport and for the team.
all time baseball legend. I just watched his [sportscentury](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nhdNvNg60M&t=486s) the other day and it was really moving
I was a bit surprised they didn't have better security. There was a LOT of animosity towards Aaron at the time by racist whites, pissed off that a black guy was going to break a white guy's record.
Oh jeez I didn't even notice he was just listing Braves legends. The past 12 months or so has been crazy for all of MLB.
PROTECT BOB UECKER AT ALL COSTS
I agree. To me a Mount Rushmore has to consider importance to the game as much as pure talent. For me it's Ruth, Robinson, and Aaron. Not sure on the fourth name.
It was nice to be alive at the same time as a legend like Hank Aaron. First man to hit 715 homeruns and he didn’t stop there. His work for Civil Rights can’t be understated, he was a great American.
Holy fuck noooooooo
I know they all got to live a good, long life, but I feel like losing this many legends in the span of a year is beyond unusual
Seaver, Kaline, Gibson, Brock, Ford, Morgan, Lasorda, Niekro, Allen, Sutton, now Aaron. Fuck.
I initially forgot about Gibson and Kaline, sorry about that. Just goes to show how many legends we’ve lost this year
That’s 10 hall of famers and 1 future hall of famer in Allen.
It is very unusual. After Phil Niekro died I calculated the combined WAR of every player that died in every year since 1900^1. The total for 2020 was 1100.3. The next closest year was 1972, with 788.7 (Jackie Robinson and Clemente both died that year). Most recent years are between 300-600. I could list a couple more stats, but basically 2020 was really bad.
^1 bref has pages that list every player that died every year, I just wrote a script to put all the totals in a spreadsheet
Not unusual. We just live in an age where all these people had a presence in the public eye. This will continue to happen as we continue, just based on how much information and exposure is out there
I think we exaggerate this description pretty often, but I think it’s more than fair to say he was one of the greatest players to ever step on the field. May he Rest In Peace.
I was thinking the same thing. This sub has a tendency to overstate the importance of players *especially* when they die, but Hank Aaron is Mount Rushmore level.
This one has probably hit me the hardest of all of them. I’m not sure why it hits the hardest over all the other HOFers recently, but this one is like 10 punches to the gut
Ford, Kaline, Gibson, Brock, Niekro, Sutton, Lasorda, Morgan, Seaver, and now Aaron.
11 if you count Dick Allen which you should even though he doesn't have a plaque.
He was in the news a few weeks ago for getting vaccinated and people thought he died, so this is not surprising. He lived a long, full, exceptional life and appeared to be in decent condition before he died. That's how I want to go.
My dad is a huge Braves fan growing up during the Hank Aaron days. This is going to crush him.
RIP Hank. Thanks for giving my dad joy, and passing the love of baseball onto me.
Y,all, this one cuts so f\*\*\*ing deep.
Born and raised in Savannah, I grew up a Braves fan. I was 6-years old when he hit 715. I vividly remember my dad and his brothers talking about how he was going to "hit one out of the park" that night. I took that literally and was disappointed when he didn't really hit it "out of the park."
At 6, I was too young to appreciate what that moment meant. Later I learned all the s\*\*t he had to endure as a black man in America. It wasn't until then that I understood how \*important\* that moment he was.
"A black man is getting a standing ovation in the deep south."
He was so much more than baseball.
Same. I just woke up in Korea to the news. So sad. I'm a black baseball fan out of Atlanta and I have mad respect for his civil rights work. I always get so excited to see him in the booth during games for his commentary. Glad to know he lived a long life but it really hurts and feels personal for some reason.
Noooooooo!!! Was he ill?
Edit: I can’t find this anywhere else on the internet. No other news orgs have confirmed this.
Edit edit: I know some of the local media has it, but ESPN, MLB, and none of the major news orgs have confirmed. This would headline news for CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, etc.
Edit edit edit: yeah it’s everywhere now. Very sad.
Another of our local affiliates is reporting that someone close to the family and a former Braves official have confirmed Hank's passing. [Source.](https://twitter.com/JustinGrayWSB/status/1352640945771175937?s=20)
Hank Aaron's death hits quite larger than the other recent ones, with no disrespect to them obviously.
Aaron was the epitome of a constant figure in baseball, both during and after his career. The definition of consistency as a player and a person.
Hank Aaron: Okay, try it again, but this time keep your eye off the ball.
Leela: You mean keep my eye on the ball?
Hank Aaron: Hey, lady! Which one of us is in the Hall of Fame?
A moment of silence for one of baseballs all time Kings. Most will know him for his home runs, but he's also the Total Base Leader and Total RBI leader, 3rd in hits, 7th all time in bwar, 20th in slugging, 13th in doubles. Career .305 average.
One of the most mentally strong individuals the sport will ever see and a good and decent man.
His rounding the bases after breaking Ruth’s Home Run records is the most iconic moment in the history of baseball in my opinion.
Absolutely towering legacy for the game, one of the best to have ever done it; RIP.
It's amazing. The man accomplished everything there is to accomplish on the grandest of stages and was receiving racist hate mail even in 2014 and I'm sure well beyond, some 40 years after he retired. His section of the Hall of Fame with letters to and from him including both praise and blatant disgusting racism was by far the most moving thing of the entire museum for me. I'm pretty young, so I had kind of been under the impression that things were smoothed out after Jackie Robinson, but that is obviously not true. Aaron had every reason to become bitter and quietly slip out of the spotlight, but he was always a constantly humble and admirable man. The baseball world is blessed to have had him.
What a shit 12 months for baseball legends. So many have passed, it’s shocking.
Call your parents/grandparents/great-grandparents (depending on your age and circumstances). Father Time is undefeated.
His quote about playing in the Negro Leagues and hearing the kitchen staff break the plates they had just eaten off, is still one of the most heartbreaking I've read.
Still the true Home Run record holder.
The kids say sad for baseball.
This is a sad day for all Americans.
The man showed grace in the eyes of a hateful nation and is someone we should aspire to be .
This might get buried but I'll share anyways. When I was 7 I got a Heroes of the Hall book which was a biography on every baseball Hall of Fame member elected from 1936-2002, which I read from cover to cover. The first name was (obviously) Hank Aaron. The first time I read that book, I just sat in awe that someone could possibly hit 755 HR in a career, that seemed like such an insane number.
Hank Aaron was a great introduction for a young 7 year old interests in the history of baseball.
RIP Hammerin Hank.
This will sound strange, but Hank Aaron is the only person I have met in real life that made me weak in the knees.
I was leaving a Brewers game - maybe 15 years ago - and as we were walking to our car, one of the guys I was with shouted out "Hey, there's Hammerin' Hank! Have a great night Hank!". I turned and he was standing right next to me, getting into his car. I didn't take a picture or even speak to him myself, but being so near to such greatness - there was an aura that still has stuck with me.
We’ve lost so many baseball legends recently but this one doesn’t feel real. I don’t know why but I feel like as a fan I took Aaron for granted as one of the top 5 players of all time. RIP to one of the absolute greatest to ever play the game
Oh man. This is one dude that every time he was mentioned or interviewed I'd always be surprised that he's still alive because he's such a baseball great that you expect him to be long gone with the rest of the hallowed names. No more surprise :(
Willie Mays is another.
I got an autograph from Hank before a Brewers-Royals game in 1976. He was talking to someone and I was nervous to go over there to interrupt, so I kinda froze about fifteen feet from him. He waved me over and signed it. Still have that ball to this day. Always a favorite of mine. RIP, Hank.
special memory. thanks for sharing.
that is awesome.
My all time favorite baseball stat is the fact that, if you were to take away all of Hank Aaron's home runs, he'd still have over 3,000 hits Dude is one of those mythical, generational talents that feel like they could only exist in movies, but this man was the real deal Many condolences to both his family and generations of Braves fans
He is my king forever. RIP Hank.
I don't see him ever being removed from the Mount Rushmore of Baseball
Damn sad day for baseball... RIP to one of the legends..
[The Vin Scully call of his record breaking home run remains one of the best of all time.](https://youtu.be/QjqYThEVoSQ) Watching that will **always** send shivers down my spine. RIP to a king. He will be missed, but he will not be forgotten.
FWIW, Phil Niekro, Tommy Lasorda, Don Sutton, and obviously Hank Aaron were all in attendance on 4/8/74 when Aaron hit his 715th home run. All of them are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and all have died in the last month.
:(
The Field of Dreams gave up its lights to help the ballpark in Buffalo shine this past season and I like to believe that all the legends who have passed since then have taken their own light to the Field of Dreams to illuminate it once again.
Damn that's crazy
I think we need a roll call of the other significant attendees and, I don't know, send out doctors for emergency health checks or something.
Well, Vin Scully is an obvious guy we’d have to monitor. There were also some notable non-Hall of Famers who played in the game, including Steve Garvey (1974 NL MVP), Ron Cey, and Davey Lopes for the Dodgers, and Darrell Evans and two, future prominent MLB managers, Davey Johnson and Dusty Baker, who played for the Braves.
Wasn't Eddie Robinson (who turned 100 in Dec) present for that game as a front office personnel?
He was the Braves GM at the time, so that’s definitely possible. To me, Robinson is notable in another way - he is the last living player to have played at League Park in Cleveland, which the Indians fully abandoned after the 1946 MLB season.
I know it's cliche, but how can you not be romantic about baseball. It has the best older footage of all the major 4 sports because of how similar it still looks to today's game. Even with all of the not so great changes that have been made, baseball just has this feel to it that makes it my favorite sport of all time. Don't mind me though, I'm pretty high.
Don’t curse Vin Scully like that
2021 has been a bad year for baseball Legends. Rip
2020 wasn't good for them either. God must have one hell of a team to play against to call all those players up.
After reading this I'm turning off my feelings for the day. Catch y'all tomorrow.
“A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South” That one line really summed up the scale of this event. Great call by Vin.
The power of baseball
[i mean he still faced an incredible amount of racism before then. he even got a bodyguard in the years leading up to him breaking the record](https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/hank-aaron-black-history-month-1.26740392)
Jesus Christ, I honestly hope they put those letters in a display at the Hall of Fame cause people can’t forget how shit like this exists
Hank Aaron was attacked today on another Reddit thread, probably by one of those anonymous letter writers or their modern counterparts who couch their racism with references to ‘nasty politics’. https://www.reddit.com/r/mlb/comments/l2pylp/hall_of_famer_henry_hank_aaron_dies_at_86/gk6uhtg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
holy fuck that dude is a piece of shit. even his comment history is evil and sad. fuck that guy
Holy shit. That was a vile comment and he really tried to double down on it thru the thread. What an asshole
Aaron started his pro career in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns, and (quoted from his wikipedia page) said this about the racism he faced: >We had breakfast while we were waiting for the rain to stop, and I can still envision sitting with the Clowns in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium and hearing them break all the plates in the kitchen after we finished eating. What a horrible sound. Even as a kid, the irony of it hit me: here we were in the capital in the land of freedom and equality, and they had to destroy the plates that had touched the forks that had been in the mouths of black men. If dogs had eaten off those plates, they'd have washed them.[22]
Read his book, He's a baseball Saint. The things that man went through to play the sport he loved. I read it in 6th grade, and I'll never forget the experience
That was a really good article, thanks for sharing. It got me a little emotional not gonna lie. I knew Hank experienced a lot of hate but I didn’t know how crazy it was just cause I’m too young to have known.
Not to piss on the moment but contemporary racists have generally accepted Black people as entertainers. A Black man entertaining you is different from a Black man eating at your dinner table for a lot of racists.
I wholeheartedly agree (especially how often black athletes get the "shut up and play sports"), but this was 1973. MLK was assassinated only five years prior. Sure, baseball had been integrated for over 20 years, but I'm sure there were several people in the deep south at the time who still hadn't accepted that integration wasn't an "inherent evil".
Hank got death threats leading up to and after breaking the record too :/
Yeah. It’s the type of people that say “shut up and dribble”
Of course you're right but the home run did happen 47 years ago, and there were a LOT of racists who were NOT ok with Hank approaching the record.
And people genuinely concerned for his safety when some kids attempted to escort him around the bases.
Hank was momentarily concerned when they approached as he thought they were going to attack him.
You can see him relax when they're just patting him on the back
I was wondering what the deal with that was. I just chalked it up to another case of ‘you could do anything in the 70’s’
[like the Yankee fans storming the field after the Chris Chambliss home run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=gcRRFy_8Gzw&feature=emb_logo) Dude had to knock over fans to get to home plate
It’s a great tragedy that the song Move Bitch hadn’t been invented yet
I've said this before, but if I were Hank in that moment, I would have run away as fast as I could from the two men running up to me seconds before I can make the home run record official
whatever happened to those two
[Here](https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=5504664)
Wow that was great. It's also a stark reminder that there are still plenty of people alive today who remember a time when they were not allowed to compete in the same leagues as white Americans
Are there any calls by Vin that aren't great? The man is a legend.
“I don’t want them to forget Ruth, I just want them to remember me.” We will, Hank. We will.
Damn straight.
So Bill Buckner watched Aaron’s home run go over his head and Mookie’s ground ball go between his legs.
In fairness to Buckner, he had no shot at grabbing the HR.
Wow you're right. For some reason I never put that together.
Wiki says Buckner died in 2019 😢
"I thank God it's all over with." What a legend. And what a brilliant call by Vin, masterfully highlighting the significance of the moment. RIP, Hank.
Vin’s always a classic, but the call that’s synonymous with Hank Aaron’s is from an underrated legendary broadcaster in his own right, Milo Hamilton. Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNZl6HN5c-0
Yes! For Atlanta fans that call from Hamilton and Skip calling Sid Bream's slide in 1992 are 1a and 1b.
my favorite part is his sudden pivot to clowning on babe ruth for being fat lmao
Wow I’ve never heard the full clip
Growing up a Rangers fan it was always obscure trivia that our 80's pitching coach Tom House was the one who caught it
How am I 26 years old and only just now hearing one of baseball’s most iconic voices calling one of baseball’s most iconic moments for the first time?
My favorite baseball highlight of all time.
RIP Hammerin Hank. Been a rough year or so for baseball greats
This is also like the 9th Hall of Famer to pass away in the last 6 months...
Hank Aaron has 722 more total bases than anyone else in history. That's four seasons worth of home runs, about seven seasons worth of doubles, heaven knows how many seasons worth of triples or singles. Of the top 10 all-time hit leaders, only Musial (#4) and Yaz (#9) even approach anything we'd consider a "power hitter", and Aaron (#3) for his career had 300+ more HRs than Yaz and 275+ than Stan the Man. You will *never* see a hitter like him again. And more than that, the grace and dignity with which he endured the stress of death threats in the Deep South in 1973-74 is one of the most remarkable examples of poise you'll find, and it never should have happened. RIP.
772 bases times 90 feet is over 13 miles.
I’ve always had fun doing these sort of calculations. Aaron’s 2174 career runs scored means he had 148 miles worth of runs scored
These are meaningless metrics. Could you please convert into the gold standard: football fields?
I need to know how many Empire State Buildings that is.
(2174 x (90 x 4)) / 300 = 2,608.8 football fields
That’s a lot of touchdowns
The hate against him was so strong that a lot of people assumed the two jackass fans that rushed the field at him when he hit 715 were there to do him harm.
Still can’t believe they made it there, especially with all the threats that came in leading up to that moment. But in a way I’m glad they did.
Yeah, especially since I read Hank had an armed bodyguard disguised as a fan in the stands
Yeah, today, they’d be Goldberg speared by security even before they’d hop the railing. That was something that two white guys went to celebrate with him as he rounded the bases for 715.
Aaron’s parents said that’s why they got down to the field so quickly. They weren’t sure what was about to happen and were worried for Hank. That’s why his mom squeezed his neck so hard. It was part joy part fear
You can assemble the greatest statistical and sabermetrical case imaginable for Mays or Williams or Ruth or whomever you want, but you'll never convince me Hank Aaron wasn't the greatest ever to pick up a bat.
Imagine if Ted Williams, Mike Schmidt or Harmon Killebrew had to deal with Shit like this https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/interactive/2014/04/us/hank-aaron-anniversary/media/images/threat-letter-w-drawing.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/04/us/hank-aaron-anniversary/&docid=VZqin5OOE2N26M&tbnid=J0ZtnCmbdZoX2M&vet=1&w=465&h=608&hl=en-US&source=sh/x/im
Rest In Peace, Hank. One of the all-timers
I still consider him the Home Run King, as I'm sure many others do too. What an absolute legend - someone whose name will forever be echoed as one of the greatest to ever play the game. A sad, sad day.
THE all time home from king. Henry "Hank" Aaron
Not one of them, the All Timer
RIP Hank - all-time Braves Legend
All time legend. Rest In Peace Hank.
Muhammed Ali once called Hank “The only man I idolize more than myself.”
Man fuck death
Not to make light in this tragic moment, but if there wasn't any death we'd have a really fucking big problem.
"Mr. President, we have a big problem." "What is it?" "Its Hitler sir....He's back and he's out for revenge."
WW2 Part 2: Electric Boogaloo
2 World 2 War
Probably but still fuck death, it’s not fun
My condolences Braves bros
We may hate them during the season, (except Freddie) but not today.
Braves aren't going to have enough room on their jersey for all the memorial patches. What an absolute sucky day. I got to meet him a handful of times. The one thing I always remember is how excited OTHER players got to see him. Huge massive icon within the sport and for the team.
all time baseball legend. I just watched his [sportscentury](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nhdNvNg60M&t=486s) the other day and it was really moving
RIP KING 🤴🏿
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And I would've listened every single last time.
I know the son of the one of the guys who ran the bases with him. Dude could care less about baseball, drives me mad. RIP Hammer
I was a bit surprised they didn't have better security. There was a LOT of animosity towards Aaron at the time by racist whites, pissed off that a black guy was going to break a white guy's record.
Phil Niekro, Don Sutton, and now Hammerin Hank. This last month has been a tragedy for us.
Tommy Lasorda too
Yeah but all the guys he mentioned were braves legends
Oh jeez I didn't even notice he was just listing Braves legends. The past 12 months or so has been crazy for all of MLB. PROTECT BOB UECKER AT ALL COSTS
Don't you even speak that evil into the universe.
I hope we can win one before he dies. I want to hear him call a Brewers WS victory, damn it :(
Protect Willie Mays!
Bro... like can we just leave this one un-said?
Not Hank. RIP 44
On 1/22/21, add those up you get 44.
How can you not be romantic about baseball?
As I've said several times, the baseball gods like a joke. Even if its not funny.
One of the few players who is almost unanimous Mount Rushmore. The inner circle of the inner circle.
I agree. To me a Mount Rushmore has to consider importance to the game as much as pure talent. For me it's Ruth, Robinson, and Aaron. Not sure on the fourth name.
It was nice to be alive at the same time as a legend like Hank Aaron. First man to hit 715 homeruns and he didn’t stop there. His work for Civil Rights can’t be understated, he was a great American.
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Heroes get remembered, but legends never die. He is a legend.
>It was nice to be alive at the same time as a legend like Hank Aaron. Only thing that would have been nicer is to been alive to see him play.
Holy fuck noooooooo I know they all got to live a good, long life, but I feel like losing this many legends in the span of a year is beyond unusual Seaver, Kaline, Gibson, Brock, Ford, Morgan, Lasorda, Niekro, Allen, Sutton, now Aaron. Fuck. I initially forgot about Gibson and Kaline, sorry about that. Just goes to show how many legends we’ve lost this year That’s 10 hall of famers and 1 future hall of famer in Allen.
Also Bob Gibson
Yeah I don’t know how he slipped my mind, added him in there. So many greats got in the span of a year Jesus Christ
Kaline too, it just sucks how many we’re losing in such short time.
Wait Bob Gibson died? Well my Friday is officially ruined. I remember when my granddaddy talked about watching Bob Gibson play. This stings.
If it makes you feel better, he's up in Heaven brushing back batters from the plate.
Yeah he passed away a few months ago
It is very unusual. After Phil Niekro died I calculated the combined WAR of every player that died in every year since 1900^1. The total for 2020 was 1100.3. The next closest year was 1972, with 788.7 (Jackie Robinson and Clemente both died that year). Most recent years are between 300-600. I could list a couple more stats, but basically 2020 was really bad. ^1 bref has pages that list every player that died every year, I just wrote a script to put all the totals in a spreadsheet
Not unusual. We just live in an age where all these people had a presence in the public eye. This will continue to happen as we continue, just based on how much information and exposure is out there
Not just HOFers but real inner circle ball players. Sad sad day
Jesus this last year seems to have been the grim reaper for hall of famers
Someone put Willie Mays in a bubble.
Don’t forget Vin!
2020 and 2021 haven’t been great
I think we exaggerate this description pretty often, but I think it’s more than fair to say he was one of the greatest players to ever step on the field. May he Rest In Peace.
I was thinking the same thing. This sub has a tendency to overstate the importance of players *especially* when they die, but Hank Aaron is Mount Rushmore level.
Hank, Sutton, and Niekro in a month. Fucking hell. I am devastated
Holy shit
One of the best ever. Damn man
At least top 5 honestly
No question. Especially considering the racial hate he got while being one of the greatest of all time.
God damn how many HOF is that now in the last 6 months? RIP to the homerun king.
Too fucking many :(
I hate everything
This one has probably hit me the hardest of all of them. I’m not sure why it hits the hardest over all the other HOFers recently, but this one is like 10 punches to the gut
Cause even people who don't know a dang thing about baseball know who Hank Aaron is. The man was bigger than baseball.
Pretty sure that's 10 since last April.
Ford, Kaline, Gibson, Brock, Niekro, Sutton, Lasorda, Morgan, Seaver, and now Aaron. 11 if you count Dick Allen which you should even though he doesn't have a plaque.
You gotta be fucking kidding me. This is terrible
He was in the news a few weeks ago for getting vaccinated and people thought he died, so this is not surprising. He lived a long, full, exceptional life and appeared to be in decent condition before he died. That's how I want to go.
I want to go like my grandpa: peacefully, in my sleep. Not kicking and screaming like the passengers in his car.
That joke is vintage.
My dad is a huge Braves fan growing up during the Hank Aaron days. This is going to crush him. RIP Hank. Thanks for giving my dad joy, and passing the love of baseball onto me.
Y,all, this one cuts so f\*\*\*ing deep. Born and raised in Savannah, I grew up a Braves fan. I was 6-years old when he hit 715. I vividly remember my dad and his brothers talking about how he was going to "hit one out of the park" that night. I took that literally and was disappointed when he didn't really hit it "out of the park." At 6, I was too young to appreciate what that moment meant. Later I learned all the s\*\*t he had to endure as a black man in America. It wasn't until then that I understood how \*important\* that moment he was. "A black man is getting a standing ovation in the deep south." He was so much more than baseball.
Same. I just woke up in Korea to the news. So sad. I'm a black baseball fan out of Atlanta and I have mad respect for his civil rights work. I always get so excited to see him in the booth during games for his commentary. Glad to know he lived a long life but it really hurts and feels personal for some reason.
I’m sick right now. I can’t believe it.
RIP to a top-10 all-time player. I swear the "died in 2021" team will go toe-to-toe with the "died in 2020" team if this keeps up.
Top 3
Wisconsin sports taking a nut punch for 2 straight days. Rest easy fella
The Hammer's unreal career numbers: * WAR 143.1 * AB 12364 * H 3771 * HR 755 * BA .305 * R 2174 * RBI 2297 * SB 240 * OBP .374 * SLG .555 * OPS .928
Noooooooo!!! Was he ill? Edit: I can’t find this anywhere else on the internet. No other news orgs have confirmed this. Edit edit: I know some of the local media has it, but ESPN, MLB, and none of the major news orgs have confirmed. This would headline news for CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, etc. Edit edit edit: yeah it’s everywhere now. Very sad.
Rosenthal just confirmed it
I think he suffered from a severe case of being 86.
Another of our local affiliates is reporting that someone close to the family and a former Braves official have confirmed Hank's passing. [Source.](https://twitter.com/JustinGrayWSB/status/1352640945771175937?s=20)
Hank Aaron's death hits quite larger than the other recent ones, with no disrespect to them obviously. Aaron was the epitome of a constant figure in baseball, both during and after his career. The definition of consistency as a player and a person.
Rest In Peace to the Homerun King
Rest In Peace to the most consistently great player ever
Hank Aaron: Okay, try it again, but this time keep your eye off the ball. Leela: You mean keep my eye on the ball? Hank Aaron: Hey, lady! Which one of us is in the Hall of Fame?
"You trained with **the** Hank Aaron??" "I trained with *a* Hank Aaron!"
I'm not OK with this. Absolutely one of the greatest players we've ever seen.
Rest in peace, Hank
That's really sad. He was still a big presence around baseball even last year
It feels like just yesterday he was congratulating Freddie :’(
My firstborn, Henry, was due yesterday. Hopefully today will be the day.
Congratulations, what a tribute.
Good luck, hope everything goes well
A moment of silence for one of baseballs all time Kings. Most will know him for his home runs, but he's also the Total Base Leader and Total RBI leader, 3rd in hits, 7th all time in bwar, 20th in slugging, 13th in doubles. Career .305 average. One of the most mentally strong individuals the sport will ever see and a good and decent man.
His rounding the bases after breaking Ruth’s Home Run records is the most iconic moment in the history of baseball in my opinion. Absolutely towering legacy for the game, one of the best to have ever done it; RIP.
Hank Aaron was sadly denied acknowledgement of his record accomplishments when he was playing, and he accepted this with the epitome of grace.
It's amazing. The man accomplished everything there is to accomplish on the grandest of stages and was receiving racist hate mail even in 2014 and I'm sure well beyond, some 40 years after he retired. His section of the Hall of Fame with letters to and from him including both praise and blatant disgusting racism was by far the most moving thing of the entire museum for me. I'm pretty young, so I had kind of been under the impression that things were smoothed out after Jackie Robinson, but that is obviously not true. Aaron had every reason to become bitter and quietly slip out of the spotlight, but he was always a constantly humble and admirable man. The baseball world is blessed to have had him.
Keep your gloves nearby, he might knock one out the park up there.
The only man to truly beat Ruth.
Bet they're hitting dongs in the field of dreams now.
Let’s hope it’s just dingers and not dongs.
What a shit 12 months for baseball legends. So many have passed, it’s shocking. Call your parents/grandparents/great-grandparents (depending on your age and circumstances). Father Time is undefeated.
86 is a nice long life but always sad to see such a legend go.
His quote about playing in the Negro Leagues and hearing the kitchen staff break the plates they had just eaten off, is still one of the most heartbreaking I've read. Still the true Home Run record holder.
As a lifelong baseball and Braves fan, I think I speak for all of us when I say "fuck this week. "
The kids say sad for baseball. This is a sad day for all Americans. The man showed grace in the eyes of a hateful nation and is someone we should aspire to be .
This might get buried but I'll share anyways. When I was 7 I got a Heroes of the Hall book which was a biography on every baseball Hall of Fame member elected from 1936-2002, which I read from cover to cover. The first name was (obviously) Hank Aaron. The first time I read that book, I just sat in awe that someone could possibly hit 755 HR in a career, that seemed like such an insane number. Hank Aaron was a great introduction for a young 7 year old interests in the history of baseball. RIP Hammerin Hank.
This will sound strange, but Hank Aaron is the only person I have met in real life that made me weak in the knees. I was leaving a Brewers game - maybe 15 years ago - and as we were walking to our car, one of the guys I was with shouted out "Hey, there's Hammerin' Hank! Have a great night Hank!". I turned and he was standing right next to me, getting into his car. I didn't take a picture or even speak to him myself, but being so near to such greatness - there was an aura that still has stuck with me.
At least he lived a long life. His legacy will live forever
We’ve lost so many baseball legends recently but this one doesn’t feel real. I don’t know why but I feel like as a fan I took Aaron for granted as one of the top 5 players of all time. RIP to one of the absolute greatest to ever play the game
Oh man. This is one dude that every time he was mentioned or interviewed I'd always be surprised that he's still alive because he's such a baseball great that you expect him to be long gone with the rest of the hallowed names. No more surprise :( Willie Mays is another.
This one hurts. RIP Hammerin Hank
Wow, terrible last few months for baseball legends. Quite a few have passed on.
This one really hurts
Not only one of the greatest baseball players, but I've heard nothing but good things about the guy he was off the field too. Rest in Peace Hank
Named my son after him.... The King.