NOTE: Stats quoted are from Baseball Reference unless otherwise noted.
April 8th, 2024 is solar eclipse day and that will surely dominate the headlines come Monday. But April 8th is also the 50th anniversary of an eclipse of a different kind. On April 8th, 1974, Henry Aaron sent a ball into orbit to eclipse a record once thought immortal; Babe Ruth’s all time homerun record had been eclipsed. It was the day where a long time superstar, often overlooked, got his moment in the sun. Fifty years later, we look back and marvel at a man whose trademark was consistency in more ways than one.
Henry “Hank” Aaron played from 1954 through 1976, achieving a 143.1 WAR, 3771 hits, 2174 runs scored, 2297 RBI, a 155 career OPS+, 240 SB, and of course, 755 HR. All this is very impressive, especially that last stat which is the cornerstone of his baseball immortality. But what if I told you that he never hit more than 47 HR in any one season? You would be rightly surprised no? This is the (non PED) homerun king after all. Alas, yes, his 47 HR in 1971 were the most he ever hit. Two things to note here though. One, this was his age 37 season. Only a truly consistent player can hit to that standard of power that late into a career. Also note that he was by no means one-dimensional, even at that age. He put together a .327/.410/.669 slash line that year and finished 3rd in the MVP voting to the tune of a 7.2 WAR.
Zooming out to his career as a whole, we find that Aaron blasted 40+ HR a grand total of eight times, 35+ eleven times, and 30+ fifteen times (with a near miss in 1968 where he hit 29). For about two-thirds of his career, Aaron hit the coveted 30 HR plateau. As for RBI, Aaron got over the famed 100 mark eleven times as well. On nine of these occasions, he even got over 110. He had an additional five seasons where he got to at least 90 RBI. On fourteen occasions, Aaron surpassed the .300 BA mark and in seventeen different seasons, he surpassed the .900 OPS mark which is now considered something of a benchmark for star players. Going by the modern WAR metric, he only failed to put up at least 5.0 WAR only six times in twenty three campaigns. He almost did it at age 39 in 1973 also, finishing with a 4.7 mark.
Unsurprisingly, Aaron is an inner circle Hall Of Famer who in spite of being overshadowed by the likes of Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, Frank Robinson and Willie Mays over the course of his career, came to eclipse them all in some sense. He was the tortoise to their hare and that is not a knock on their greatness, merely a reflection of Aaron’s often understated and often underappreciated greatness. In the end, he not only homered more than all of them but drove in and scored more runs as well (1st all-time in RBI and 4th in runs scored). He is also third all-time in hits, behind Pete Rose and Ty Cobb.
The consistent statistical greatness of Hank Aaron is beyond dispute. That said, it is important to note that consistency is not just something for leaderboards and the backs of baseball cards. Consistency is also an attitude, a way of life that eventually manifests itself onto a statsheet. In Aaron, this manifested itself through a rock solid drive to succeed, even in the face of difficult odds, and the hatred that he came to know all too well. The brutal conditions endured by Aaron and other African Americans in 1950’s minor league system would have broken lesser men. Aaron persevered, and he made it to the bigs. Once there, he thrived, again in defiance of the racist attitudes around him. He also never allowed being overlooked for so many years to dampen his will to the best he could be. The instability surrounding the Braves in the 1960’s that ultimately led to relocation also did little to shake his focus on being a true all-around great.
But the most glowing example of his consistency as a person is the whole saga that built up to his greatest moment. The media circus that surrounded him after the 1973 season was enough of a test to bear, but the ferocious onslaught of death threats, racist insults and other mean-spirited correspondence that we can still read today at the Hall Of Fame presented a whole other test of personal consistency. He really needed to want that record badly enough to do the day-to-day things needed to be an MLB level athlete even pushing forty years old in spite of credible threats on his life and the other pressures surrounding him. Only a truly consistent, driven person pushes on in the face of such an onslaught. Aaron’s consistency as an athlete remained strong because his consistency as a man was as well. Otherwise, he would have never gotten to 713 after 1973, much less 755 after 1975.
As we stop and remember the eclipsing of one of baseball’s most cherished records, let us remember what that home run off Al Downing was at the most granular level. It was a reward for years of consistency, the validation of years of quiet triumph through struggle and the injustice of the Jim Crow mindset that led to those vile letters in the mail. Let that be a lesson for all of us in whatever we do. The tortoise beats the hare because it insists on a few small steps a day every day without fail. The legacy of Hank Aaron is this more than anything else. The 755 homers can and were eclipsed, but the legacy of consistent discipline and dedication to one’s craft is something not so easily eclipsed.
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