Hank Aaron (part two)
In his whole life, Aaron never got the chance to play the game without having to overcome adversity or without dealing with racism. His father said that even when he first started playing, “When he came up, I heard fans yell, ‘Hit that n****r. Hit that n****r.’ Henry hit the ball up against the clock. The next time he came up, they said, ‘Walk him, walk him.’”
The letters he received during his professional career, his secretary would read first and were so violent that she didn’t even want to let Aaron see them. They consisted of postcards with drawings of guerrillas on the one side and a note on the other, reading, “You are not the man that Babe Ruth was and never will be, you faggot n****r bastard.”
“Dear Mr. N****r, I hope you don’t break the record. How am I supposed to tell my kids that a n****r did it.”
Another letter told him to retire or die, that its author knows where he’ll be throughout the months of June and July and August, and the author will be at one of those games with a rifle or a .45 and will shoot him dead by god unless he retires before then.
Aaron eventually read one of the letters out loud from behind a podium before a national broadcast. He read from the letter, “Hank, there’s three things you can’t give a n****r. A black eye, a puff lip or a job.”
Teammates said it didn’t seem to affect him, that if he didn’t have security guards around him at all times for safety, they themselves might not even know about the death threats. But they knew it eventually, and could tell in the clubhouse when he’d drop a letter on the floor and walk out onto the field that he hadn’t just read anything written by a fan.
They’d sit next to him in the dugout and he’d stand up and sit somewhere else away from them in case a shooter missed and the teammate was killed by way of sitting next to Aaron. When his teammates found out they admitted that they were scared to death, and admitted too that Aaron wasn’t afraid at all. He had been taught at a young age by his father to not show pain.