Ted Williams on Hank Aaron

Henry Aaron and Ted Williams at Fenway Park on July 22, 1957, for an exhibition game to benefit the Jimmy Fund. (Photo by C.K. O’Connell / Boston Globe via Getty Images.)

 

Former SABR member Ted Williams offered an appreciation of Hank Aaron, which we offer here. Some of Aaron’s cited stats may have been surpassed, but the truth and insights remain.

Well, what do you think about when you say Hank Aaron? Seven hundred and fifty-five homers. Better than the Babe! More RBIs than Ruth too. More RBIs than anyone. More total bases than anyone. How did he do it? He HIT! When Henry Aaron got his pitch he hit it. He didn’t foul it off. He didn’t watch it go by. He hit it. Henry Aaron – hitter! My kind of guy.

Where do you start with Hank? I know where I started. I had just come back from Korea. I was playing in spring training in Sarasota, and because I was an older, more experienced player, I got to play the first three innings and then BOOM! They take me out. I went in and showered and came on out because I wanted to watch the rest of the game. In Sarasota there was a nice little field, and you had to go through a little dugout door and then sit on the bench. So I went out and just as I dove through the door, I heard WHACK!, and then the roar of the crowd – it was a small crowd but it was a helluva roar anyway – and one of my teammates said, “Did you see that guy hit that ball?” I didn’t know who in the hell they were talking about – never heard of Hank Aaron before, I don’t think – and he was rounding second. Boy did he hit that ball.

Aaron really wasn’t very big then. He’s a big guy now, but he was thin then and still growing, I guess. He looked great for sure, but he hadn’t hit any home runs and nobody knew too much about him. Years later I became manager of the Wahington Senators and we had a couple of young pitchers on our club. One of them – Joe Coleman – was starting and he had too stuff, but I had to tell him, in some situations stuff is not enough.

So anyway, Joe’s starting this spring-training game and Hank Aaron is in the Braves’ starting lineup. So I took Coleman aside and I said, “You know today you’re going to pitch against a great hitter.” And I said, “Here’s the way I want you to pitch to him. I want you to throw a curveball, another curveball, another curveball, another curveball.” Aaron finally grounded out to shortstop. And I had said, “When you get two strikes, I want you to throw the hardest, fastest, high fastball you can throw.” And he did. The first one Aaron had seen. First time he had ever seen this guy. But he hit a ball that’s still going on a line out of the park. Boy, did he hit it! So we were convinced of one thing, he could hit a fastball, that’s for damn sure. But he was a great hitter, period, and an all-around great player. No question about it.

He was more of a line drive hitter and if he got a ball 20 to 23 feet in the air and hit it good, he’d get it out. A lot of my home runs were big fly balls. Greenberg’s homers were big high flies. So were Ruth’s. Hank was more of a line drive home run hitter, but a great hitter all around, I think one of the greatest. The technique he had, and all great hitters have, is that they can hit a fastball high or low. Yiu know, some pitchers get by with high fastballs, but the really outstanding hitters don’t get beat on the high fastball. They might miss it one time, but when they hit it, it was goodbye Charlie. That was my feeling about Joe DiMaggio, too.

How was Hank as a runner and fielder? He did everything great. He was plenty fast, a good baserunner, good defensive outfielder – a helluva ballplayer. I’d like someday to talk a little more hitting with him. No question about it, my admiration and respect for him are as high as you can get.

And you know something – he’s stayed in the game. Now, I suspect a fellow with 755 home runs might not have to do that. Might be able to take it easy. Play a little golf. Hit some long ones with those wrists of his. But Hank Aaron has stayed in the game, kept working at it. He keeps giving back to it.

And he gives back to the community. Community, that’s a two-dollar word for people. Hank Aaron cares about kids and people and cares about doing what he thinks is right. Maybe the average person doesn’t know that about him. But it’s true. You see, Hank Aaron works for people and causes just the was he played baseball – without a lot of noise. Then, before you know it, there’s Hank stepping across home plate. Making a difference. Standing up for hat he believes in.

Like I said before – Hank Aaron, he’s my kind of guy.

[Because this was written as a foreword for a book, Williams added one final sentence: And Home Run is my kind of book.]

TED WILLIAMS is a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was a SABR member from 1997 until shortly before his passing in 2002 and famously declared SABR “the best-kept secret in baseball.”

 

NOTE

This article by Ted Williams was published as the foreword to Home Run: My Life in Pictures by Hank Aaron and Dick Schapp (Berkeley, California: Total Sports, 1999). Reprinted here by permission granted to SABR.