40 years later, Hank Aaron's grace a beauty to behold

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...nniversary-of-715-home-run-babe-ruth/7432225/



Hank Aaron has the letters tucked away in his attic, preserved these last 40 years. He's not ready to let them go.

He almost has them memorized by now, but still he carefully opens them up and reads every word, as if he wants to feel the pain.

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"You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it," one of them reads. "Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. My gun is watching your every black move."

Yes, Aaron even saved the death threats, the ones that vowed to end his life if he dared break Ruth's cherished all-time home run record.

"I wouldn't have saved those damn things," says Hall of Famer Willie McCovey, who grew up in Aaron's hometown of Mobile, Ala. "I would have burned them. I had a few of them myself over the years. I don't save stuff like that.

"Why would you?"

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Aaron's march to history ended 40 years ago today, when his 715th home run vaulted him past Ruth as baseball's all-time home run leader. Yet it was an often joyless and lonely pursuit, and Aaron says he has good reason to hang onto the cruel correspondence.

"To remind myself," Aaron tells USA TODAY Sports, "that we are not that far removed from when I was chasing the record. If you think that, you are fooling yourself. A lot of things have happened in this country, but we have so far to go. There's not a whole lot that has changed.

"We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics. Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated.

"We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country.

"The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts."

Aaron, 80, looks around and sees few African Americans as CEOs of major corporations. He reads and watches about incidents such as the Trayvon Martin case, a racially charged trial in which George Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, was acquitted after shooting and killing Martin, an unarmed black teen. Zimmerman was accused of racial profiling; he claimed he acted in self-defense.

And, of course, Aaron looks at the faces on the ballfield.

"When I first started playing, you had a lot of black players in the major leagues," Aaron says. "Now, you don't have any (7.7% of big-leaguers last season). So what progress have we made? You try to understand, but we're going backward."


Hank Aaron speaks during a press conference after hitting his 715th home run.(Photo: AP)

'Perfect man to do it'

While Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 and Larry Doby became the first African American to play in the American League, Aaron's feat might be the next most significant accomplishment in baseball's role in the Civil Rights movement.

"There isn't a doubt in my mind that he was the perfect man to do it," says Commissioner Bud Selig, one of Aaron's closest friends, "representing this sport socially and everything that happened during that time. Henry took a lot of abuse when he broke that record, but he rose above all that.

"I can't think of a better human being to achieve what he did and carry himself the way he has, and, as a result, baseball is better because of him."

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Aaron, a proud, private man, wishes he could have experienced joy in chasing the record. He would love to look back and think of fond moments that might have been clouded 40 years ago but now are appreciated. But he can't think of any.

"I don't think about it that much," Aaron says, "just because of the pain. I think about other things. There were other things in my life that I enjoyed more than chasing the record.

"I was being thrown to the wolves. Even though I did something great, nobody wanted to be a part of it. I was so isolated. I couldn't share it. For many years, even after Jackie Robinson, baseball was so segregated, really. You just didn't expect us to have a chance to do anything. Baseball was meant for the lily-white.

"Now, here's a record that nobody thought would be broken, and, all of a sudden, who breaks it but a black person."

It wasn't just the thousands of hate letters and death threats. He could handle those. It was the isolation. He couldn't even stay in the same hotel as his teammates. His name was listed in one room, and he checked into another. Constantly, he had a security guard at his side.

"That was a tough time in our country, period," says Dusty Baker, Aaron's close friend from their playing days with the Braves. "I lockered next to (Aaron), and I could see him just staring at those letters and throw (them) on the floor. Then I would read it. But he would never share his problems."

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And when he marched toward the record that April evening, those threats became even more real.

"Hank never showed his fear," Baker says, "but we did. I remember one day we were told that there was going to be this guy in a red coat that was going to shoot Hank in Atlanta. Hank told us not to sit by him on the bench. Me and Ralph (Garr) couldn't concentrate one game. We kept looking for the guy in the red coat the whole game. Hank acted like it didn't bother him, but I know there was a lot of pain."

When Aaron stepped toward the plate in the fourth inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers' Al Downing, he was determined to homer.

"The night before," says teammate Paul Casanova, who played in the Negro leagues with Aaron, "he was so confident he would do it right away. He just wanted to get it over with."

 

A class act all the way around. I would not have anywhere the dignity and grace he had under such pressure. A role model for everyone.

 

Hank Aaron is an athlete who is about the game of baseball and not the money, glamour and drama that seems to follow athletes today. Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record. Like Babe, he also had a candy bar named for him; Oh, Henry. Then Reggie Jackson had his moment and a candy bar named after him. All of these candy bars were very good. But Aaron remained an athlete and not a performer. He was a true gentleman on the field and off.