Henry Aaron was probably the single most famous person I ever got to meet personally. In 1978 or 79, about a year or so after he had retired from baseball as the all time home run champion, Aaron appeared at a luncheon at the old Alvino's Restaurant in Langhorne, PA. As the coach of the Bristol High School baseball team, I was invited to bring some of my players and attend the luncheon. There we got to shake hands with the great man and pose for a group picture with him. I don't now remember the topic of Aaron's talk, but I remember how he spoke: quietly and with dignity, just the way carried himself as a ballplayer for so many years.
Many people may remember Aaron as the prolific home run hitter that he was. The image of the aging star turning on an Al Downing fastball and launching it over the fence for home run 715, breaking Babe Ruth's record is burned in most of our minds. For me, however, who was lucky enough to have seen Aaron play in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Aaron was the consummate line drive hitter, slashing base hits to every part of the ballpark and often hustling them into doubles and triples. Many of those line drives also left the park, of course, but they were almost always line drives, not those long majestic bombs hit by other sluggers of the day like Harmon Killebrew or Mickey Mantle.
Perhaps that is why Aaron suddenly sneaking up on Ruth's record came as a surprise to many. He never had huge home run numbers; the most he ever hit was 47. What Aaron was was a consistent hitter. Probably the most consistent power hitter in baseball history. While he never hit 50 homeruns in a season, he hit 30 or more in 15 of his 23 seasons and exactly 44 homeruns (the number he wore on his back) four times.
As a lifelong Phillies fan, what I mostly remember about Aaron is how often he seemed to beat the home team. For his career. Aaron hit .318 against the Phillies pitchers with 76 home runs. Connie Mack Stadium was one of his favorite away ballparks. He hit 39 home runs there, topped only by Chicago's Wrigley Field (50) and Cincinnati's Crosley Field (43). Remarkably, Aaron hit 16 triples in old Connie Mack, seven more than he hit at any other away ballpark. This reinforces the view of Aaron as a line drive hitter with speed. Connie Mack had a spacious outfield that gave the advantage to a guy who hit the ball on a line in the gaps.
Aaron had some special games at Connie Mack Stadium like the night of June 14, 1957 when he went 3 for 5 with a homerun and 4 RBIs in a 10-5 Braves win. Or the night of May 22, 1959 when he had four hits including a two-run home run off Robin Roberts, scored 4 runs and knocked in 3 more. And then there was the May 30, 1961 game when Aaron's eighth-inning triple drove in the 2 runs that were the difference in a Braves 3-1 victory. In a 5 game series against the Phillies in July of 1962 Aaron compiled 9 hits, 2 home runs, and 6 runs scored. In a three game series in 1968 he collected 8 hits, including 2 home runs. Aaron had a 2 home run game at Connie Mack on April 20, 1966. The second home run that day, off Bo Belinsky, was the 400th of Aaron's career. Two years later, on July 26, 1968, he would hit career number 501 at Connie Mack off Grant Jackson.
Aaron's greatest day at Connie Mack Stadium came on Thursday night, May 3, 1962. It started with a solo home run against Art Mahaffey in the first. Aaron led off the 3rd with one of his patented Connie Mack Stadium triples and then scored on a Joe Adcock sacrifice fly. Aaron doubled in the fifth, before striking out in the 7th. He finished off the evening with a two-run home run in the 9th off Phils reliever Jack Baldschun, to tie the score at 8-8. The Phillies finally won the game in the bottom of the ninth when Clay Dalrymple singled home Johnny Callison. Aaron's line for the night: 5 AB, 3 R, 4 H, 3 RBIs, 2B. 3B, 2 HRs.
To be fair to the Phillies though, virtually every team that Aaron played against in his prime could point to similar numbers. He batted .326 for his career against the Cubs and swatted 97 home runs against the Reds. Henry Aaron was simply a great hitter. I was lucky enough to see Mays and Aaron close up in their primes. Mays was certainly the more charismatic player on the field, but as one wag once said, "Aaron could do everything Mays could do, but his cap stayed on."
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