Hank Aaron passed away today. The world says goodbye to one of the greatest baseball players of all-time. I highly recommend reading about his life and his history. I want to take a second to remember just how insanely good he was during his career.
Everyone knows about the 755 home runs, but he was so much more than just a home run hitter. He had 3771 hits in his career. If you subtract the home runs, he still had 3016 hits. That would put him ahead of Wade Boggs, Al Kaline, and Roberto Clemente. He is the leader in RBIs, total bases, in the top fifteen for doubles, and never had more than 97 strikeouts in a season.
He had a career .305 average. Such a different hitter than the power-hitters of today. Constantly making contact with the ball and hitting line drives. The crazy thing is to think how he was able to sustain that throughout his career. Look at players who have that skillset (Andew McCutchen always comes to mind), but over a few years it wreaks havoc on their bodies (I believe Andruw Jones is another player like that).
It will be a long time until we see another player of Aaron’s caliber. May he rest in peace and always be remembered.
