January 22nd, 2021 at 10:41 AM ^
Forever HR King and class act. Rest, Henry
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:00 PM ^
^___ this says it all - sad to lose him
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:27 PM ^
I was lucky to spend a couple days with him because of a work-related thing. Not really a baseball fan but I sure as shit knew who he was. He was a bit prickly at first but really warm and sincere once you got through. There was a moment I'll never forget where the TV was on - ESPN of course - and they mentioned steroids in baseball. I froze and he just shook his head.
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:17 PM ^
Interesting that he died two weeks after getting the first of two Moderna vaccine shots. Head scratcher, eh?
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:13 PM ^
Yes, I am sure it was ENTIRELY a coincidence.
And all the elderly dying after getting the injection - even while in a coma and against their wills...but the explanation is they were "old anyways".
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:22 PM ^
QAnon?
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:43 PM ^
Oh fer fucks sake. A lot of us have some great memories of Hank. Let us enjoy them. Save your anti-vac stuff for a thread over at tinfoilhats.com
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:59 PM ^
Good thing Brimley already passed away, else someone would be forcing a death vaccine injection on him as well.
January 24th, 2021 at 6:01 PM ^
Head scratcher that you'd post such garbage without a shred of evidence.
I'll be watching your and the JohnnyWalkerBlue account.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:42 AM ^
A class act and an inspiration. RIP.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:45 AM ^
One of the greats of the game... and untarnished.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:47 AM ^
Great comment. Any statue of his certainly has and will stand the test of time.
January 23rd, 2021 at 10:36 AM ^
The true, non-asterisk all-time HR king
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
Hamerin Hank. The video of his trip around the bases where all of the fans truly were there to celebrate the accomplishment of a black man breaking a white hero's record in Atlanta, GA will forever be an iconic moment in sports & society.
The argument of Hank vs. Barry can be for another day.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:01 AM ^
There is no argument - Barry cheated with performance enhancing, body building drugs. The PED era is a stain on baseball and should be purged from the Hall...
(If only I had my way...)
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:26 AM ^
I don't want to detract for recognition of a great man and great baseball player in this thread. I also am not defending the PED use. But I would challenge you to define the "PED era" when it is unclear when it started, how many were using it (most), how much it helped, etc. When the previous era of players were popping amphetamines like candy and medical science has advanced to where guys were getting pain killing shots to keep playing it is pretty hard to tell what the "PED era" is. It is also hard to exclude an entire era of the game when it was a part of history and the pitchers were using just as much as the hitters.
To me, you don't exclude people when there are so many other issues associated with past and future HOF. You instead acknowledge it for what it was - good and bad. You don't take away from Aaron's accomplishments by recognizing that Bonds had a great career as well - with the help of PEDs while facing guys like Clemons who also used PEDs.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:56 AM ^
I completely agree with him that the PED era was a stain. Its most destructive effect was the rapid diminution of the MLB record book. MLB records are (or, to my point: *were*) more important than records in other sports, due to the sport's timeless nature, its long history, and its heavy association with statistics that are trackable over time. I grew up knowing about, for example, Babe Ruth's records and the efforts of Maris and Aaron to break them decades later. They were the sort of thing that people talked about in casual conversation.
Now, not so much. The only real significant records that would make any waves if approached are Dimaggio's 56-game hitting streak and the now-elusive .400 batting average, both stats that have cache even if advanced metrics have reduced their importance (and, consequently, likelihood). The reality is that those major records that were magical when I grew up are no longer magical. The single-season home run record was broken by two guys in 98 and exceeded several other times, finally set by Bonds at 72 or 73 or whatever (I can no longer remember and no longer care to look it up, which says something).
But Bonds is not the real villain here. MLB got caught up with the excitement and failed to consider the long-term damage to the game that would inevitably come by the rapid destruction of those records.
Now, when we think about setting records, they lack the magic. We know that guys in that era were participating in unrestrained PED use; we know that's why they set the records, rather than any unique level of excellence that they had as players; and we know that these records are likely untouchable unless someone is allowed to juice again.
They are now just irrelevant. And a key part of the game's history, a history that is greater than any other sport, has been thrown in the trash.
As I write below in the thread, I do not particularly resent Bonds for this. I don't like him much, but that's not the issue: he did the same stuff that "likeable" guys like McGwire did. He is, in fact, probably less morally culpable than them, because reported accounts suggest that he did not start his juicing regimen until he saw McGwire and Sosa just getting a free pass for what was a pretty flagrant use of foreign substances. When you let people juice, you can't get mad when other people decide they need to juice to keep up. Bonds was, if anything, late to the game. But take his natural talent and add PEDs, and you get what we had. If it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else.
MLB under Bud Selig let it happen. Bonds is simply the guy who was the best at it.
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:51 PM ^
I know he was a racist, but to me the most unbreakable iconic baseball record is Ty Cobb’s 367% lifetime batting record.
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:52 PM ^
Actually, Cobb was the victim of a hatchet job by a guy named Al Stump who made up the racist jerk stuff to sell books. The reality is that his family were longtime abolitionists (in Georgia!). He was quoted in The Sporting News in 1952 as saying, "The Negro (the accepted term at the time) should be accepted wholeheartedly into baseball; he has the right to play baseball."
January 22nd, 2021 at 5:44 PM ^
.367 lifetime avg is great,but the one record thats hardest to break; is the 749 complete games ,the active leader is JV with 26 ,then Felix and Clayton with 25 each .
Its possible someone hits .370 and retires ,(hes technically the highest BA all-time) ,749 complete games,is going to last for a long time ....
January 22nd, 2021 at 12:29 PM ^
Great career and a large head. Very, very large head later in his career. Of all the steroid abusers, his body had the word “steroid” tattooed across it in the boldest letters.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:49 AM ^
I'm not sure there is a solution for reconciling the records over time.
My thoughts are this:
- Hank Aaron is the Homerun king. I think the way he achieved the record must be taken into account. Consistency and longevity. 15 years with 30+ homeruns. Not one season over 47.
- Yes, Barry Bonds used PED's. But I watched him play live multiple times as well as many other greats, and Barry had the quickest rotation of his body combined with hands that I have ever seen. He also performed to the moment in the later half of his career (not his time in Pittsburgh). While PED's can turn a warning track fly into a homer and can help an athlete recuperate to perform better over a 162 game season, unlike other sports, there is a skill to square the bat up with the ball and I question how much steroids impacts that. Barry doesn't win the homerun title without PED's, but he probably finished top 6 or 7. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for him. Especially the single season record which was being destroyed by other PED users.
Let me be clear, I'm not absolving or advocating for Barry. I do think he was a very talented player who's ego succumbed to cheating.
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:36 PM ^
I tend to side with Jay Jaffe's take on PEDs...
I believe that voters should distinguish between PED use that came during baseball’s “Wild West” era — when it took a complete institutional failure on the part of the players’ union, team owners, the commissioner, and the media to prevent a coherent drug policy from being implemented — and use that came after testing began in 2004 (though the first penalties weren’t imposed until ’05). From what we know, Bonds’ usage occurred in the context of many other dopers, pitchers as well as hitters. He is a none-too-flattering reflection of the era in which he played. Even so, he’s no Lance Armstrong or Ryan Braun, PED users who intimidated or smeared those who gave evidence against them.
If you want to play the “He was a Hall of Famer before he touched the stuff” game, consider only what Bonds did through 1998: His 411 homers, 1,917 hits, 445 steals and .290/.411/.556 line were good for 99.9 career WAR (which would rank third among left fielders), 62.6 peak WAR (second), and 81.3 JAWS (third behind Williams and Rickey Henderson). That’s still a Hall of Famer.
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:01 PM ^
Asterisk sure - purged hell no. We need to understand the cohorts as they hit. If you saw Bonds play, saw his dad play, lived in that time ... put an asterisk on it, write it down, understand it for what it was. Barry was dominant. Sure, due to PED use... also having grown up in a MLB batting cage with mentors who were themselves HOFers and having considerable natural talent.
The Hall should be a reference for history not a lens. People who interpret the HOF in terms of PED use, race or nationality are missing the game which exists outside these things. I want to celebrate the game first and foremost. All the other stuff is mixed in without any real hope of separation outside of interpretation.
How high the mound should be, what is in the ball or bat, PED use, Tommy John surgery, artificial joints, AI driven defensive alignments... that is all for the rules. The HOF should just be a record. People who played under the rules should be put in. Asterisks applied. Exhibits put that explain - as they currently do for the Negro League.
I don't want to have to bring googles to the HOF to keep out what really happened. Write it down, put a bird on it, move on.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:08 AM ^
The backstory makes his accomplishment even more remarkable. He was getting death threats from racist assholes who didn't want to see him break a white man's record. He persisted anyway. That's courage. That's also why you see him in that video recoil when he was first being mobbed by fans. He didn't know if he was gonna get killed.
January 22nd, 2021 at 5:53 PM ^
Absolutely. Death threats naming the game they were going to kill him. Threatening his family. The Braves hired a cop to guard him, had to sneak him into stadiums. Screaming from the stands. White folks spitting anger, calling him names because he dared to beat a white guy's record.
Aaron had endure personally, while playing at a high level—the highest level—professionally.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:12 AM ^
Didn’t care about any of that when I watched it on TV. I just wanted to be like Hank Aaron.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:27 AM ^
Hank vs Mays is probably a better argument, no?
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:52 PM ^
Absolutely a better argument. Willie Mays is the best all-around ballplayer ever, period. Not only did he have all five tools, but he was about the best in each of them. Hammering Hank's greatest feat was his consistent power over time.
January 22nd, 2021 at 5:55 PM ^
Period?
January 22nd, 2021 at 12:59 PM ^
Shoot. Hank didn't even wear batting gloves. Man's game.
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:16 PM ^
I love those 1974 Braves uniforms. They changed them up in 1972 partly because Hank’s favorite color was blue. One of my favorite ball caps too.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
Terrible. God bless you all of eternity, Mr. Aaron.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:48 AM ^
Sad day for all baseball fans. From the days of the high mound, a less lively ball, and no PEDs. The real HR king.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:55 AM ^
Technically, not true. Aaron admitted to having taken "greenies" in the past.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:02 AM ^
He admitted to taking one - and said he didn't like the way it felt. There is no evidence or statments or claims that he ever took more. Barry, OTOH...
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:09 AM ^
I'm just saying its out there and he admitted to doing it so there's an argument to be made that cheating is cheating. Personally, I don't care. I think Hank Aaron is one of the greatest of all time. I also think Barry Bonds is the single greatest hitter I've ever seen swing a bat and whoever would be second is a distant second. I totally understand some people having a grudge against him but, personally, I don't really care and think he should be in the HOF.
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:42 PM ^
You do realize that Bonds (and Clemens, and Sosa) never failed a PED test once testing was in place, right?
And that the Mitchell Report’s accounts date to the time before MLB began testing players for PEDs or penalizing them?
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:05 AM ^
If I'm not mistaken, he said he tried it once and didn't like it. But now I'm curious and will have to read about it.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:40 AM ^
Not that I condone any of it but greenies =/= steroids and growth hormones
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:52 AM ^
RIP Mr. Aaron?
Glad I got to see him play, if only in a spring training game against the Tigers in Lakeland. It was in March of 1973, went to the game with my Dad and both grandfathers. RIP Dad and both grandparents ???
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:46 PM ^
Very glad I got to see him as well, although it was at Milwaukee County Stadium in the early 60's. My memory is understandably hazy, but I do think I did see him hit a home run. Magnificently quick wrists. Even though I grew up in the U.P, since I was a Milwaukee Sentinel paper boy, the Braves were my team. Warren Spahn, Lou Burdette, Joe Adcock, Eddie Matthews, Johnny Logan--these were my boyhood heroes. One of my greatest memories was listening to the Harvey Haddix perfect game (through twelve) that he eventually lost when Joe Adcock drove in the winning run with a double in the thirteenth. Even then I knew I was listening to history (yes, young'uns, people used to listen to baseball games). RIP, Hammein' Hank.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:53 AM ^
RIP the home run king
Barry Bonds will always have an asterisk next to his name
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:55 AM ^
The home run record will always live with Hammerin' Hank.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:56 AM ^
Sad.
Unquestionably a Legend.
January 22nd, 2021 at 10:58 AM ^
"There's a new home run champion of all time, and it's Henry Aaron!"
RIP legend.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:01 AM ^
Great player and man. I only met Hammerin' Hank once, but he was one of my idols when I was growing up in Atlanta (born and raised). I eventually got a corporate job working with Hank's daughter, Gaile. She is a wonderful human being and I believe that reflected her upbringing.
Peace and prayers to the Aaron family.
January 22nd, 2021 at 11:06 AM ^
I’m crying he was my hero.