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Greatest sports legend in Atlanta history, Hank Aaron has passed


NBASupes

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Stuff I wasn't aware about, from the Journal-Sentinel's article about his time in Milwaukee.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/mlb/brewers/2021/01/22/baseball-legend-hank-aaron-who-played-braves-and-brewers-dies/6670475002/

* Aaron actually signed with the Bravos while they were in Boston, accepting a $10,000 signing bonus in 1952 a year before the National League club relocated to Milwaukee.

* After toiling in the minors in Jacksonville FL (yeah, those fans had to be "fun"), the Puerto Rico winter league, and in Eau Claire with the Bravos' farm system, Aaron got his first big call-up opportunity in the majors when Bobby Thomson, of "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" fame with the 1951 pennant-winning NY baseball Giants, broke his ankle sliding into second base for Milwaukee.

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Former Milwaukee Brewers owner and baseball commissioner Bud Selig, who knew Aaron for 63 years and counted him among his closest friends, said he received news of Aaron's death from a longtime assistant of the baseball great. 

"I'm absolutely heartbroken, heart sick," Selig said. "This is so devastating. I know some people may quarrel with it but I've always said he was the greatest player of our generation. But he was a better human being. I'm so sad. 

"When you think back to what he accomplished on the field, he was an even greater man off it. He was the same nice, wonderfully decent human being that he was when I first met him in 1958."

 

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Brewers Hall of Fame radio broadcaster Bob Uecker was born 10 days before Aaron in 1934 and they were teammates with the Milwaukee Braves in 1962-63 and again in Atlanta in 1967. They had been friends ever since and loved spending time together.

"This is a tough day, a really tough day," said Uecker, who got the news at his winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona. "We were friends a long time. We were very close friends. We had a lot of great times together."...

"He treated everybody the same," Uecker said. "He was just one of the guys. I got to call his last home run (on the radio). I'll always remember that."

 

~lw3

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I had a hard time holding it in when I found out and even so now. I remember meeting him when I was an 8-year old at the old Whitehead Boys' Club near South Bend Park. There were a ton of folks there to greet him and wanting to just take a picture or get an autograph; he was like a rock star but he had the humbleness as if he was just just another guy.

But he wasn't just another guy to us and especially to me. He carried himself with such grace despite what was happening behind closed doors. And it goes without saying that he's the real home run king no matter what the record book says and I doubt anyone within the metro area has the brass ones to admit otherwise in public. 

A true loss to baseball and to our fair city, indeed.

This does and should not take away from the recent loss of your uncle, Jay. My deepest condolences go out to you and your family.

I guess we all get to the point in life where it stops giving things to you and starts taking them away. But this pandemic is really accelerating it way too much...

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14 hours ago, Dnice said:

City jerseys next season, please?..

 

This would be great.   Man would these sell like crazy.

I know this is a super charged discussion but I'd be absolutely in support of doing this.   I'm not going to way in one way or another on the Braves name as a political issue but i think this is too perfect to pass up honestly.   I know a lot will disagree and it will never happen i'm sure.

 

 

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