Ugg, this is turning into a major league baseball RIP thread.
Latest lost today is Hank Aaron. He was known for breaking Babe Ruth's career homerun record, but he was also one of the greatest all-around hitters and outfielders.
I have this 1962 card.
George W. Bush, a one-time owner of the Texas Rangers, presented Aaron in 2002 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“The former Home Run King wasn’t handed his throne,“ Bush said in a statement Friday. “He grew up poor and faced racism as he worked to become one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Hank never let the hatred he faced consume him.”
Willie Mays, another Alabama native who arrived in the big leagues a few years ahead of Aaron and seemed most likely to break Ruth’s record until late in his career, remembered all the All-Star Games they played together as National League teammates.
“He was a very humble and quiet man and just simply a good guy,” said the 89-year-old Mays, who finished with 660 homers. “I have so many fond memories of Hank and will miss him very much.”
“He might be the greatest player of all time,” said the late Tony Gwynn, a fellow Hall of Famer. “Just look at his numbers. Everybody characterizes him as a home run hitter because he’s held that record so long. But he was a great baserunner, a great defender, a great player period.”
We've also lost two other Hall of Famers (and LA Dodger greats) in the month of January 2021: Tommy Lasorda and Don Sutton.
Current Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner was struck by all the greats who have died in the last 13 months.
Gibson, Seaver, Whitey Ford, Lou Brock, Al Kaline, Joe Morgan and Phil Niekro — Aaron’s teammate with the Braves for a decade — all died in 2020, the most Hall of Famers ever to pass away in a calendar year.
“We’ve lost some of the greatest to ever do it,” Turner tweeted, adding that Lasorda is “gonna have a hell of a roster to manage up there.”