A Son Asks Why Hank Aaron Story Isn’t a Bigger Hit

My son Mario, who plays Little League baseball here in Santa Ana, posed a question to me while we were having breakfast this morning, a question I almost didn’t want to answer. No, it wasn’t as you might anticipate about sex or the L.A. riots. It was simply this, “Why doesn’t Hank Aaron who hit 755 home runs in his career (41 more than Babe Ruth) get the credit he deserves for what he did?”

Mario is a thoughtful, intelligent 9-year-old. His question to his father was well thought out, for as I soon realized he had done his homework. He read Hank Aaron’s life story, “I Had a Hammer.”

Most important, he surveyed his teammates on the Valley Little League Rangers (8- to 10-year-olds very knowledgeable about important events and facts about baseball). To his great surprise, most of his teammates didn’t know who Hank Aaron was. To his even greater surprise and dismay, they were convinced that Babe Ruth was the home run king of baseball.

When I heard this from Mario, I realized what an irony Hank Aaron’s legacy had become. Most of these kids on Mario’s team are Hispanic and black, and even they didn’t realize the great accomplishments of a star athlete who like them was raised with all the hardships of America’s minority children. Yet Aaron overcame all the obstacles to become a tremendous role model for all children. As an Italian-American, I wonder how all immigrant Italians would have accepted Joe DiMaggio’s loss of identity if no one recalled his exceptional 56-game hitting streak.

Mario as a child doesn’t yet see things completely the way we grown-ups do. He believes in fairness and justice. He believes a person’s achievements are recognized and rewarded. He admires Hank Aaron for his clean living and positive values. Hank wasn’t an alcoholic and he didn’t take drugs or use steroids as so many of today’s athletes seem to do. Perhaps Mario will understand someday that our system too often recognizes the recovering drug addicts, alcoholics or victims of child abuse, and at the same time completely ignores the virtuous heroes of the day.

But, back to the question, “Why didn’t Hank get his credit?” Well, in this family we do not emphasize black-vs.-white or white-vs.-black issues. We see those issues as destructive and unfruitful, especially since my wife is Jamaican and our son “Jamericain” as he describes his ethnic background.

Thus the answer to my son’s question is this: “Hank and Babe’s race are as unimportant to their accomplishments as the color of their eyes is to their character. Hank Aaron doesn’t get the credit he deserves because--the answer is not really important. What’s important is that you know what Hank did and that he is the greatest!”

DAVID BASSANI, Santa Ana