Via Medium, commentary on how the Hank Aaron may be underrated both in his ability to play baseball but what he achieved for civil rights and equality:

Aaron has recounted stories during his brief Negro League playing time of people throwing rocks from the stands at players in the field, incessant mocking, throwing both live and dead black cats onto the field during games, threats of violence, and even death.

But in 1952 after having success and showing his potential with the Clowns the Boston Braves outbid the New York Giants by $50 per month to win the future services of the 18-year-old. The amount of $600 is all that kept Aaron from sharing an outfield with Willie Mays!

The Braves sent him to Wisconsin to play for their Class C team, the Eau Claire Bears. It was a part of the country far removed from the South. Aaron must have felt hope in going to a place so far removed from his past.

His hope was quickly validated.

In Wisconsin, Aaron discovered he was one of few blacks in the entire state, much less the town of Eau Claire. Aaron discovered quickly that the folks there were friendly, welcoming, and supportive.

The quiet, shy kid from Alabama was routinely invited to dinner by white families and treated like a regular member of the community. Treatment he was most assuredly not used to. As an adult Aaron would recollect, “I was treated as fair as could be in Eau Claire.”

The fact that he torched the Northern League on the baseball field helped. Eau Claire residents loved their Bears, and Aaron developed a following and fanbase on his way to being named Rookie of the Year.

When the team traveled he, of course, got a taste of what life was like before coming to Wisconsin as other towns weren’t as welcoming. But his short time in Eau Claire would prove to be the only time in his 24-year professional baseball career he would experience peace as a black man in America.

In 1953 the Braves promoted Aaron by sending him to their Class A affiliate the Jacksonville Braves. Jacksonville, Florida, back in the Deep South.

In his only season playing in Jacksonville Aaron led the South Atlantic League in hits, doubles, runs scored, runs batted in, total bases, and batting average.

He was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player for his incredible success on the field. Aaron was rewarded by having to make his own accommodations during road trips. The whites running the front office wouldn’t do it. Aaron would stay nights alone apart from his white teammates during those trips.

He was subjected to the same Jim Crow laws he had experienced as a boy forced to eat alone, and dealing with segregation, slurs, and threats of violence at every turn. In the Negro Leagues and the Northern League, Aaron handled all of it with class. He kept his mouth shut, kept his wits about him, and kept swinging his bat. And once again this stop would prove to be a short one of only one season.

In the winters of 1953 and 1954, Aaron honed his skills at the plate in Puerto Rico. The two-month stint afforded him the rare chance of avoiding being drafted into the United States military.

In a vote of massive confidence, the Braves were able to persuade the draft board to pass on Aaron, convincing them he was primed to be the player who would integrate the Southern Association League by playing for the Braves Class AA affiliate club, the Atlanta Crackers, the most successful minor league team in professional baseball history and known as the “Yankees of the Minors.”

But the events involving Aaron of 1954 took a turn that no one in the Braves organization saw coming at the time, and a turn of events that would change baseball and the South forever, and solidify Aaron as a professional athlete peaceful civil rights figure the likes of which had never been seen.

In the spring of 1954, Aaron was invited to workout with the Milwaukee Braves at the big club’s spring training. It was a rare occurrence as he was barely 20 years old, and only had two seasons of minor league experience. He was already on the roster of the minor league Crackers, and he was black.

Henry played so well that the Braves had no choice but to sign him to a new contract and carry him onto the major league roster as a left fielder for the now Milwaukee Braves (the franchise had moved from Boston after the 1952 season).

In 1954, only 5.6% of professional baseball players were black and only eight of the sixteen major league teams had at least one black player on their roster. Aaron truly was one of the pioneers of the sport in the area of integration.

Jackie Robinson certainly broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947, but it wasn’t until the coming of age of Mays and the emergence of rookies Aaron, Larry Doby, Roberto Clemente, Willie McCovey, Ernie Banks, and Orlando Cepeda in 1954 when the integration of Major League Baseball and professional sports in general truly began.

It’s also worth noting that there was not one single major league team south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The harsh treatment and racism these early heroes suffered was being committed in places like New York, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and others, including Milwaukee.

All of these players recollect staying in black-only hotels, eating in black-only sections of restaurants, being taunted and threatened, and Aaron specifically was referred to as “Stepin Fetchit” by his own manager!

Baseball life for Hank, as he was called after being coined by Milwaukee Braves PR Director Don Davidson, continued on from 1954 into the 1970s. Davidson and Aaron grew a close friendship as Davidson knew the cruelty of discrimination all too well. He himself was a dwarf who rose to the highest ranks of Major League Baseball management.

As black players became more and more prominent and accepted, the incidents of racism and bigotry seemed to thin out a bit but never completely ceased, even in Atlanta where the Braves moved to after the 1965 season.

Then things began to get bad again after the 1972 season. Hank’s now 19-season major league career proved to be an amazing feat of consistency. His statistics never waned and he was able to stay healthy, having never missed a lot of games due to injury.

At the end of the 1972 season, Hank stood at 673 career home runs, just 43 shy of breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record and supplanting him as the Home Run King of Major League Baseball.

The unbreakable record that had stood for nearly 40 years, and the one no one thought could be broken since neither Mickey Mantle nor Willie Mays was able to do it. But people realized it could be broken, and soon, by a black man, in the South. Unacceptable. The hate mail and death threats began in the fall of 1972 and grew and grew and grew to a fever pitch for the next year and a half.

In 1973, at 39 years of age, Aaron belted 40 home runs, one shy of tying Ruth’s record. He and the Braves were flooded with mail, some of it supportive, a lot of it dripping with hate.

The best thing that could have happened would’ve been for him to tie or even break the record, then he could’ve essentially gone into hiding during the off-season. But it was as if God had different plans. He decided Aaron was the right man to shoulder the burden of unbridled racism and bigotry, and He was going to let the events play out over an extended period of time.

The 1973–74 off-season was a nightmare. Aaron would later say he was most afraid he wouldn’t live to see the 1974 season, that’s how serious the threats were.

Sports Illustrated summed up the vitriol Hank experienced this way, “Is this to be the year in which Aaron, at the age of thirty-nine, takes a moon walk above one of the most hallowed individual records in American sports or will it be remembered as the season in which Aaron, the most dignified of athletes, was besieged with hate mail and trapped by the cobwebs and goblins that lurk in baseball’s attic?”

Hank received over 930,000 pieces of mail during 1973, more than any non-politician in the country. It was bad. The Aaron family lived in fear and hiding. He had personal security. His wife Billye had personal security. The Atlanta Braves had to increase security. Even the Atlanta Journal & Constitution Braves beat writers received death threats and hate mail.

The primary refrain was “if you hit number 715, you will never make it to home-plate.” It was a scary time.

But God had a plan!

In his first swing of the bat on opening day in 1974, Aaron hit home run № 714 off Reds pitcher Jack Billingham to tie Ruth’s record. He did make it around the bases, the family did survive the night, and things seemed to be ok, for now.

Four days later, Aaron hit number 715, breaking Ruth’s record. Would he make it around the bases? He recalls just trotting in fear. After rounding second base, teenagers Cliff Courtenay and Britt Gaston ran up to Hank to congratulate him and ran with him for a bit on the field.

The stunt scared Aaron to death and he thought that was it. That was how he was going to get taken out. But the two peeled off before Hank got to third base and were taken into custody by police.

Aaron rounded third and 90 feet later touched home plate. He was immediately met by his mother, who had come onto the field. She grabbed him and hugged him for several minutes refusing to let go despite umpires, teammates, and coaches imploring her to.

She would later say she did it because she thought there was no way someone would shoot Hank while his mother was hugging him, and if a shot was taken it would be her wish that it hit her and not her son.

№715 came and went without incident. The hundreds of thousands of threats from racists proved to be fruitless, the talk of ignorant gutless cowards, such as racists generally always are. God’s plan worked perfectly, as it always does.

Aaron left the Braves after the 1974 season and played the final two of his 24 seasons back in Milwaukee for the Brewers. He retired from baseball and began work for the Braves in their front office as one of the first blacks in upper management in Major League Baseball.

As time went on, people remembered the events in Aaron’s life from 1952 until 1976, and they remembered how he handled them. His consistency, his class, his integrity, his ability to stare evil in the eye and look it down, his ability to do his job and beat back the hate one swing of the bat at a time without a single reference to his own celebrity, his amazing feats, or himself in any other way other than as a ballplayer, a husband, and a father.

History would remember Hank’s stalwartness during this time, but unlike Jackie Robinson, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, and Muhammad Ali there was little fanfare and few cameras. Milwaukee and Atlanta were a far cry from New York and a few beat writers and local TV light years from national news and the FBI.

Aaron was every bit the pioneer those others we celebrate were. He was awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal in 1976, the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award in 1977, established the Chasing A Dream Foundation in 1994, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Public Service by Tufts University in 2000, awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2001, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002, awarded the Lombardi Award of Excellence in 2002, and named on the list of “The 100 Greatest African Americans in History” in 2002,

He was also named a Trustee by the Georgia Historical Society in 2010, awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities by Princeton University in 2011, awarded the Portrait of a Nation Prize in 2015, received the Order of the Rising Sun from the Emperor of Japan in 2016, and so much more. But most are completely unaware because the man was so unassuming. He truly was the most underrated human being to play professional baseball.

Speaking of baseball, Aaron is ranked fifth on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All-Time and he’s on Major League Baseball’s All-Century Team.

I’d argue he should be №1 on that list and the top selection on the all-century team. Name four players better? Babe Ruth? Willie Mays? Ty Cobb? Those are the three position players ahead of Aaron on that list (along with pitcher Walter Johnson who…..was a pitcher).

I can argue Aaron should be at the top of that list bar none. One could say “he was a great homerun hitter, but there’s more to baseball” or “Sure, he drove in a bunch of runs, but there’s more to baseball.”

Fine, I’ll give you both facts and start my presentation with them because they’re obvious. But have you ever checked out the complete resume? Areas where the Babe, Willie, and Ty fall short as compared to the “affable” Aaron?

Well, lets take a look:

755 career home runs — first all-time (Bond’s cheating ass can take his steroid-filled syringe and stick it in his butt…..oh wait, he already did.)

2,297, RBIs — first all-time

There’s your low-hanging fruit.

Now prepare to be in awe……

Twenty seasons with 20+ home runs — first all-time.

Twenty consecutive seasons with 20+ home runs — first all-time.

3,298, career games played — third all-time (first, Pete Rose; second, Carl Yastrzemski).

Fourteen seasons, 150+ games played — first all-time.

Twenty-one Seasons, 120+ games played — first all-time.

13,941, career plate appearances — first all-time.

3,771, career hits — third all-time (first, Pete Rose; second, Ty Cobb).

2,174, career runs scored — fourth all-time (first, Rickey Henderson; second Ty Cobb; third, Barry Bonds*).

6,856, career total bases — first all-time (722 more bases than Stan Musial (second) which equates to over 12 miles in distance).

1,477, career extra-base hits — first all-time

293, Career intentional walks — fourth all-time (first, Barry Bonds*; second, Albert Pujols; third, Stan Musial)

143.1, career WAR (Wins Above Replacement…how many wins a player is responsible for as compared to a replacement for him) — fifth all-time (first, Babe Ruth; second, Barry Bonds*; third, Willie, Mays; fourth Ty Cobb)

3,000+ Career Hits & 500+ career home runs — top of the list of only seven players in history (Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmeiro*, Alex Rodriguez*, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera).

3,016, career hits minus his home runs — Subtracting out his home runs puts Aaron’s career hits total 30th all-time (more than Wade Boggs, Al Kaline, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson, Rogers Hornsby, Al Simmons, Mel Ott, Harold Baines, Brooks Robinson, Babe Ruth, and over 100 other HOFers even when you INCLUDE their Home runs as hits….and yes, more than Barry Bonds*).

.820, OPS (On Base Plus Slugging Percentage) vs. pitchers in the HOF — first all-time.

25 All-Star Games — first all-time.

17 All-Star Games started — first all-time.

16 seasons with a WAR of 6+ — first all-time (context: on average only 13 players each season achieve that).

15 most consecutive seasons with a WAR of 6+ — first all-time.

Post-season batting average — fifth all-tine (minimum of 70 plate appearances).

Post-season slugging average — fourth all-time (minimum of 70 plate appearances).

Post-season OPS — fifth All Time (minimum of 70 plate appearances).

Ten seasons of 30+ home runs and <65 strikeouts — the only player in professional baseball history to achieve this

Career .300 batting average and 500 home runs — one of nine Major League players to achieve this.

Career .300 batting average, 500 home runs, and 2000 RBIs — one of only two players to achieve this (the other is Babe Ruth).

Career .300 batting average, 500 home runs, 2000 RBIs, and 3000 hits — the only player in Major League Baseball to achieve this.

What others had to say:

“Aaron is the only man I idolized more than myself,”
— Muhammad Ali

“As far as I’m concerned, Aaron was the best baseball player of my era…he’s never received the credit he’s due,”
— Mickey Mantle

“I would have to say myself, but it would not look good for me to say it. I just have confidence I am the best because I believe in myself. If I had to pick another player, it would be Hank Aaron. He does everything so well.”
— Roberto Clemente

“More than anyone else, Hank Aaron made me wish I wasn’t a Manager,”
— Walter Alston

“People I look to? Again, Hank Aaron. Man, you challenged the status quo and the records of the game. Monumental feats in an era when people didn’t like that,”
— Dave Winfield

“Hank was the best. He could do anything I or Willie or Duke could do only his hat wouldn’t fall off,”
— Stan Musial

But my favorite comes from, again, Mantle when asked who is the best of all time.

“Hank Aaron. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. He could run. He was fast. He was world-class in the field. He could hit any pitch. Of course home runs, that’s a given, but he got on base about half the time when he didn’t hit it out of the park. And he did it all at a time when the ballpark wasn’t a safe place for him. All those guys dealt with some horrible stuff, but the ballpark was a sanctuary for Willie and others. For Hank it was another place he was threatened at. He was the only player I ever stopped whatever I was doing to watch play. And, honestly, he was the nicest guy in the world. I still enjoy when I run into him.”
— Mickey Mantle in 1994, Lake Oconee, Georgia, to me