A FAN’S NOTES

Dying by Degrees

Baseball legend Henry Aaron died last week. ‘I Had a Hammer’ is the first volume on my two shelves of sports books. An intricately detailed figurine of Henry (he hated ‘Hank’), clad in that awful uniform the Braves sported in the early 70s, following through on home run number 715 stands nearby in the exalted company of plastic casts of two other childhood heroes of mine, Roberto Clemente and Bob Gibson.

Clemente was killed in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve 1972, a humanitarian mission to Central America ending in catastrophe. Gibson, a dominating and fearsome pitcher whose talent compelled Major League Baseball to change its ground rules (the height of the pitcher’s mound was lowered in order to give hitters a better chance of putting the ball in play), died last October. I saw these baseballers play against the Montreal Expos. I was a kid; I didn’t know enough about sports to realize that these stars were past their primes whilst taking the field at Jarry Park.

Language is a living entity and so am I. The words I write at age 60 are very different from the words my memory suggests I may’ve spoken at age 10 or 11. What has never changed is that tingling, hair-bristling awe in proximity to greatness even as time has forced me to constantly redefine greatness and shuffle tarnished touchstones.

I was lucky enough to see Paul McCartney live in concert a couple of years ago. His hair was an unnatural colour for a man of his age. His face was a little jowly. I realized his lengthy set was paced more to preserve his voice than take his audience for a rocking rollercoaster ride. But my God, that’s Paul McCartney on stage and I’m in the same room and breathing the same air. My post-Beatles druthers would be the ‘Wings Over America’ era when his hair was still black and his cheekbones more sharply defined.

That distinction, this sort of critical thinking, lay beyond the intellect of a sandlot baseball tween. Seeing Willie Mays in New York Mets kit was not a sad and bittersweet denouement to an amazing career. No. It was more, Hey! That’s Willie Mays! Gosh.

In times like these I bristle when someone I assume to be a fully formed adult espouses child-like adoration for any particular ideology, be it political, philosophic or religious. Blind yet wide-eyed worship is a realm best left to kids and should be reserved for a man like Henry Aaron, possibly the best there ever was. Number 44’s personal statistics over a major league career with the Indianapolis Clowns, Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers were so reliably and consistently excellent as to be ho-hum, expected, boring: a .300 average, 190 hits, 44 homers, a Gold Glove and an all star selection. The usual.

After more than 20 pro seasons playing the game so determinedly and quietly at an insanely high level, Aaron found his voice, the voice of experience. He spoke out about the lack of civil rights in America, systemic racism and the tortoise pace of off-field integration in Major League Baseball.

Aaron was born in Alabama in 1934. The Clowns were a Negro American League club. Between 1966 and 1974 Aaron played his Braves home games in Georgia. What could a Canadian boy like me know about the American South? The confederate states lost the Civil War and that was that. (I must digress: I sent two dollars along with an order form from the back page of a comic book in exchange for some 200 blue and grey plastic Civil War soldiers. The advertising graphic was awesome. It took some time for me to learn that two Canadian dollars in an envelope to the United States bought nothing. Needless to say, the blue and red Roman legions didn’t quite work out either. I’ve never been a quick study.) It never occurred to me that Henry Aaron was Black. He was a ballplayer.

A teammate of mine had a Louisville Slugger with Henry Aaron’s signature branded onto the fat end of the barrel. We were pretty sure he’d signed it himself somehow and he’d handled the bat at the factory and swung it a few times, inspecting its weight and balance. And the Beatles were four best friends who lived together. When I was a kid there was a lot I didn’t know, not sure that’s changed all that much 50 years on.

When an artist dies, an admirer is left with the work: canvases, reels of celluloid, poetry, prose and songs. All can be revisited and appreciated time and time again. Sport is ephemeral. If McCartney has performed ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ a thousand times, Henry Aaron could only break Babe Ruth’s career home run record just the once. Sure, there were photographs, highlight footage from different angles, newspaper and magazine stories and updates to the Baseball Encyclopedia, but ultimately the morrow brought another day and another game.

It’s here and then it’s gone. My memories of my childhood are vague and imprecise. This flaw in whichever portion of my cerebral cortex is sometimes vexing. I can watch ‘Help!’ any old time I choose and refresh my memory. But when an athletic idol from those days dies, I’ve found that my early past, a little of it, a lot of it, blurred already, recedes that much further. I’m a little more unmoored, another anchor lost as I drift ever closer to my own death. How could I ever have imagined that Henry Aaron would be some sort of marker in my own existence? Gosh, I just saw him play ball a couple of times. I suppose there will be more bad news and erasures to come soon enough. As there must be.    

     

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of internal contemplation and unabashed fandom since 2013. Sign up for e-mail alerts from the Crooked 9, use that thingy on the right. The second wave along with its more virulent cousin is here and so is winter; you’ll need a distraction.