Hank Aaron Passes Away

Greatest of all time. Fantastic baseball player. All-around great human. Rest in peace Hank!

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In my opinion he was the greatest player of all time.

If you look at the number of consecutive years of 35+ homeruns it is crazy how consistently great he was. Plus he played on teams that didn’t provide him with a lot of protection in the lineup. So he wasn’t seeing a lot of great pitches to hit.

Greatest of all time in my opinion.

Plus, unlike Ted Williams (who is probably the closest in terms of being a hitter) Hank was good in the field. Plus he was an all around gentleman facing horrendous situations.

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Had a friend who lived in the Towers and hailed from Richmond Va, the home of the Braves’ AAA club. He loved Hank and the Braves. We went to the Dome in September of '73 with Hank sitting on 711 dingers. We were lucky enough to see him hit #712. We went back on Sunday hoping that with some luck he’d hit two and we could at least see him tie Ruth. But he sat that one out. Still a fun memory.

We got some sort of little certificate on our way out of the Dome for "712. I’ve got in buried in one of my many boxes of memorabilia.

I always got a kick out of the fact that he and Al Downing were both wearing my number (44) when Downing gave up #714. :wink:

RIP, Henry Aaron

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My brother and I took our dad to the Baseball Hall of Fame two years in a row for induction weekend (year before Bigio was inducted and year of) and the loudest and longest standing ovations were for Hank Aaorn when he was introduced on the stage. I and many others had some very moist eyes. Great feeling. Even though Bonds has a few more HR’s, Hank to me is the HR king!!

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Hank Aaron was before my time, so I wasn’t aware of all his career accomplishments beyond the HR record. What a legacy.

3rd all time in hits
3rd all time in games played
4th all time in runs scored
#1 in RBI, extra base hits, total bases
An All Star for 25 consecutive years

I don’t know how many ever play 25 years, let alone at an All Star level.

He was a first ballot Hall of Famer with 97.8% approval. Apparently one or more writers didn’t vote for him? I assume they got their credentials pulled…:wink:

Edit: Found a story from 1982 discussing the nine voters that didn’t vote to elect Hank Aaron. The New York Times: This Day In Sports

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Some writers used to pretty much refuse to vote for a player on the first ballot. It was an old stupid tradition that I think has died out.

Of course, there was probably another issue driving some of that with Aaron.

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mmmm…I can’t quite see it…