049 Hammer time transcript (Hank Aaron)

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[00:00:00] Amit: This is Famous and Gravy, a podcast about quality of life as we see it one dead celebrity at a time. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

[00:00:11] Michael: This person died 2021, age 86. He was routinely brilliant performing with seemingly effortless grace, but he had little flash.

[00:00:24] Friend: Dick Van Dyke.

[00:00:25] Michael: Not Dick Van Dyke, who as of this recording is still with us amazingly enough. He did not enjoy the idolatry accorded to his contemporaries.

[00:00:35] Friend: Mel Torme.

[00:00:37] Michael: Not Mel Torme. He grew up in Alabama amid rigid segregation and its humiliations and he faced abuse from the stands while playing in the south as a minor leaguer.

[00:00:49] Friend: Jackie Robinson.

[00:00:50] Michael: Not Jackie Robinson. He was voted in all-Star in all but his first and last seasons, and he won three golden glove awards.

[00:00:59] Friend: Ken Griff. Ken Griff's.

[00:01:01] Michael: Not, not a Ken Griffey. The San Francisco Giants buried Bonds surpassed his home run record in August, 2007.

[00:01:10] Friend: Oh, and I know it's nothing about sports. Like zero. Like less than zero.

[00:01:15] Michael: That's fine, that's fine. In 1974, he eclipsed Babe Ruth as Baseball's Home Run King, hitting 755 homers and holding the most celebrated record in sports for more than 30 years.

[00:01:29] Friend: Sounds like it's a baseball player then Hank Aaron. Hank Aaron.

[00:01:34] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Hank Aaron.

[00:01:38] Archival: Here's the pitch by Downing. Swinging. There's a drive in the left center field. That ball is gonna be outta here. It's gone. It's seven 15. There's a new home run champion of all time, and it's Henry Aaron.

The fireworks are going, Henry Aaron is coming around. Third his at home plate and listen to this crowd. The crowd is cheering. Henry Aaron, the home king of all time.

[00:02:18] Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

[00:02:21] Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor.

[00:02:22] Michael: And on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question.

Would I want that life today? Hank Aaron died 2021. Age 86. Okay. Okay. I'm nervous about this one. Why are you so nervous? I don't know if I know enough. I know a lot, but I don't know if I know enough. There's something about him that has me wanting more, that feels like there is more to be gotten. If I were to keep digging, I predict

that's gonna be a theme throughout this episode, and I, I, I don't think it's you.

I think that's part of the narrative that we're talking about here.

All right, well, let's find out category one grading. The first line of the obituary, Hank Aaron, who faced down racism as he eclipsed Babe Ruth as Baseball's home run King, hitting 755 homers and holding the most celebrated record in sports for more than 30 years has died.

He was 86.

[00:03:34] Amit: It's a racism like right off the bat.

[00:03:37] Michael: Yeah. Which I was, I don't wanna say glad to see that sounds weird, but like felt like that was necessary. Hank Aaron was subject to the interpretation of the White Press. Like so many other black athletes, there were adjectives attributed to him in major newspapers that you just wouldn't believe.

Things like Aaron is indolent, lazy, shuffles. How come a boy who loves to hit as much as Hank takes such a long time meandering

[00:04:06] Amit: up to bat?

[00:04:07] Michael: DiMaggio's, aloofness, abruptness ness. It was seen as some kind of princely grace, where in a black man, it's seen as some kind of mean-spirited bitterness. I have two things I most wanna talk about.

Should I just get right to him?

[00:04:22] Amit: I wanna, I wanna talk about this racism, inclusion. So you knew who Hank Aaron was as a child,

[00:04:28] Michael: right? Only because of the home run record. Good enough. Yeah. Right. But, and I'm not that much of a baseball fan. You're, we've discussed this before. You're Yeah.

[00:04:36] Amit: I'm more so, yeah. But were you aware of the difficulty surrounding his life?

No. Me neither. I just thought he was an idol. Yeah. It's only adulthood that's presented me like this much more complex story. And

[00:04:48] Michael: like the research for this episode. Yes. Like, holy shit, it belongs in the headline. This is the right thing to do. So can I get to the two things I wanna ask please? About? One is, I don't know if you noticed this, this is a nuanced point.

It ends, has died. The most celebrated record in sports for more than 30 years has died. There's a sort of like, let's close our eyes and nod our heads and say like, a great man has passed here. That comes with the structure of this sentence that I don't remember seeing in another obituary. I mean, usually it said died on Sunday.

He was whatever. Usually it doesn't end with comma

[00:05:26] Amit: has died. Sounds like a pope dying, like the black

[00:05:29] Michael: smoke is coming out. Right. There's something about the way it's structured that almost asks for a moment of silence, which I gotta say I like. It's not in the verbiage, it's in the sentence structure of the first line of the episode.

There's some deference to it. Exactly. All right. Here's the thing I most want to talk about. Who faced down racism as he eclipsed Babe Ruth, the work down. Faced down racism, not just faced racism, faced down racism. If you remove that word down from this sentence. So it would just read Hank Aaron who faced racism as he eclipsed Babe Ruth versus Hank Aaron who faced down racism as he eclipsed Babe Ruth.

What does it mean to face down racism?

[00:06:08] Amit: I like this conversation to face it down to me and says to just stare at it until it goes away to me. Certainly there's a,

[00:06:15] Michael: you can only face something down if you are above it. So I think that there is an implication here that he faced it down and rose above it.

[00:06:22] Amit: Correct. Right. So that the picture I'm getting is, let's say that you have two people that are entering a fight. Yeah. And the taller one looks down at the other until he intimidates him in such a way that the fight doesn't happen. Yeah. That's the picture I'm getting. I

mean,

[00:06:36] Michael: so I'm conflicted about it in a funny way because I do think there's no question he faced racism.

What it means to face down how you like ascribe that as an accurate action that a person does in their life to face down any form of oppression. There's a placing 'em on a pedestal here. There's not a writer out there who doesn't use the word dignity when talking about Hank Aaron. That word is maybe even an omission here, but they're saying it through an action.

It's implied through an action by facing down racism, but it's also ascribing virtue without pointing to any specific thing necessarily, other than he dealt with it. He tolerated it, he lived it. Right. But to face down racism, what exactly does that mean? And, and, and I'm. Again, conflicted about it cuz there's things I like about it, but there's questions that come up for me.

[00:07:27] Amit: Yeah, you're very perceptive today on the grammar and I don't like it really, I don't like face to down racism. I don't think it's an accurate summation. Yes. He, he still broke the record and he lived despite many threats on his life. Yeah. But I don't think he was triumphant in it really. He just survived it.

I mean, I think

he

[00:07:47] Michael: was, in terms of how he led by example and the dignity he carried himself with. But whether or not that was by happenstance or by something he did, I mean it Martin Luther King faced down racism in a way.

[00:07:58] Amit: Yes. That's rights. That is what I'm

[00:07:59] Michael: saying. Civil rights leaders face down racism.

And Hank Aaron, I think he's not exactly a reluctance, civil rights figure, but he became a more. Important civil rights figure than you might have thought at the beginning of his career. But you seem like you're not as good with it.

[00:08:16] Amit: No, because I, my account of the story, it was, it was just, it was so unpleasant, you know?

And it wasn't him, it wasn't him braving through it, forgive the pun. Yeah. It was him, you know, scared and suffering, but, but still persevering. Yeah. And it doesn't sound like he was, you know, standing tall against it. He was, he was staying as low-key as possible so he could do his job and be an excellent home run

[00:08:43] Michael: hitter.

Some of us wanted to take time out to go and, and be part of the march, and we talked it over and we decided that the best thing to do is just, just continue to do baseball because things were, you know, we were seeing little progress in baseball. I know. I, when I first started in Jacksonville, You know, blacks and white could not mingle together.

And then at the end of the season they were started to go together and shake hands and be able, because it was for one thing, and that's to try to win a championship. You, and I mean you myself, you were making progress as far as trying to help bring equality yourself. Well, all right, what else? So, I mean, everything else I kind of absolutely love about this, you know, eclipse Babe Ruth as Baseball's home Run King.

Here's the other thing, I think maybe to ask about the most celebrated record in sports. That's a superlative. That's not one of the most, they said 755 homers and holding the most celebrated record in sports for more than 30 years. I don't know if I totally have a whole lot I wanna quibble with there, but I don't know, whenever anybody says the most what, what elder candidates are there, there's

[00:10:03] Amit: nothing but nothing has the history that baseball had at that point for

[00:10:07] Michael: more than 30 years.

So I guess that's what they're talking about from 1974 till bonds breaks it in 2007 or whatever with an asterisks.

[00:10:15] Amit: Yeah. I don't know. I tend to agree with them. I don't think that they ran sort of a, a statistically significant survey to see if it was the most celebrated record in sports. Right. But you look at like the top scoring basketball things.

LeBron just broke something in. Yeah, the last third time points record. I don't think that matters as much. Yeah. I feel like the media coverage of the home run Chase is bigger. Yeah,

[00:10:37] Michael: I agree with that. Well, I need to come up with my score. Do you have your score?

[00:10:40] Amit: Yeah. I, I think you made some good arguments.

I like the deference. I like the, has died. I don't really like the racism right off the bat. Inclusion, and I, I think you convinced me that that face down is not appropriate. So yeah, I'm going middle of the pack. I'm going to five. That's

[00:10:55] Michael: a lot lower than I would've got. I'm going nine. What? Yeah, I think he does face down racism in as much as a thing can be done by virtue of his behavior and how he carried himself and how he responded to people.

Then I think like everything else about it is actually really elegant and captures a whole lot. I also do like the way the sentence is structured with he has died. There is a nod to his, you know, inherent dignity that I applaud. So I'm actually very pleased with this. I won't take that from you five and nine.

Well, you can't. It's mine. All right. Category two, five things I love about you here. Amit and I work together to come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the first place. You wanna lead? Okay,

[00:11:39] Amit: I'm gonna start with, uh, cross handed hitter. Yeah. Do you know what that means?

[00:11:43] Michael: I learned about it in the research. Right. It's not he held his bat, quote unquote, the wrong way. Correct. Because no

[00:11:49] Amit: one taught him. But was he a left-handed

[00:11:51] Michael: hitter? He was a left-handed hitter, yes. No, I didn't actually. I should have noted that.

[00:11:54] Amit: Yeah. So the reason he did that is just because no one taught him any other way.

Yeah. And he just thought that when he picked up a baseball bat, that's how he did it. And so up until he was into his professional career, that is how he bated, holding the bat the wrong way.

[00:12:09] Michael: My parents couldn't afford to buy a bat. They couldn't afford to buy a ball. And so actually we did everything we could in order to pretend like we was playing baseball.

You know, we would take rags and wrap 'em up tight and throw to each other, you know, or we would take. Pop tops, like soda tops and throw and try to hit balls with a broom stick. But nobody never taught me any different and I was doing pretty well. So I just continue to do things the wrong way.

[00:12:39] Amit: What I love about this is, this is what actually gave him his superpower because holding the bat the wrong way and being a good hitter, he was developing immense wrist strength.

Yeah. And they say the other thing that he developed immense wrist strength was really just his growing up as a poor kid. A lot of the childhood labor that he had to do as a very young age, carrying bags of ice. Yeah. He just had really strong risk in rural

[00:13:05] Michael: Alabama, right Outside mobile.

[00:13:07] Amit: Yeah. So you look at this 180 pound man who is just extremely average size Yeah.

As the greatest home run hitter of all time

[00:13:16] Michael: slugger, where we have this association to that point with big bodies

[00:13:18] Amit: Right point. And it was all in his studying of the game and the strength in his wrists. Yeah. And so much of it came from this accident of just not knowing the proper way to do it. So this is, uh, what I love about this is I would sum it up this way, right?

You can, you can do things if you do things the right way. Mm-hmm. Consistently, you can be excellent. Mm-hmm. Uh, if you do things your way, you can be exceptional. All right. Well

[00:13:44] Michael: that's a pretty good segue to my number two. Okay. This is kind of a baseball point, but it's, I hope beyond that, I wrote Old guy athlete.

Yes. One of the things about Hank Aaron, and we should say Hank was what everybody else called him, the inner circle. Everybody called him Henry. He preferred Henry. I feel like Hank is coming more naturally to me, so I'm gonna say Hank. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things about Hank Aaron is that, I mean, his real superpower in a way is durability and longevity.

Mm-hmm. So he was alluded to in the quiz, you know, one of the statistics that I learned about, he hit between 24 and 44 home runs every year. He never got to 50, and yet he had the record for most home runs of anybody for 30 years, you know, and he's number two on the list Now after Barry Bonds. What I love about it is fitness into old age.

Yes. I really like the idea that, you know, I'm gonna keep having a consistent performance as best as I can with whatever physical activity I do for as long as possible. And I love the consistency of that. It's a pretty simple thing, but it's absolutely something I aspire to as I age. I have a buddy who I exercise with and he quit watching football years ago.

Uh, and he is like, well, I still like Tom Brady. I'm like, really? You like Tom Brady? And he is like old guy athlete man. Yeah. He's just, he's rocking it. Same thing with LeBron. Same thing with Kareem. I mean, there are actually not that many people who are this good for this long, and I love that about Hank Aaron.

[00:15:18] Amit: Yeah, I completely agree. I had it as one

[00:15:20] Michael: of mine. Okay, excellent. All right. Why don't you take number three?

[00:15:24] Amit: Okay. Donuts and BMWs.

[00:15:26] Michael: Ah, do you know about this? Is this his post baseball career?

[00:15:30] Amit: Hank Aaron, after he retired in 1976, worked as a front office executive for the Atlanta Braves. While doing that, he also became an entrepreneur in automobiles and restaurants.

Mm-hmm. So he owned several BMW dealerships, and he also owned a series of restaurant franchisees. Amongst them were Crispy Kreme donuts and churches. Fried Chicken slash Popeye's. Yeah. I think they're all Popeye's now, but I think it was a mix at the time, or maybe it was in all churches. By the way. That just occurred to me.

This is our second chicken entrepreneur after Kenny

[00:16:03] Michael: Roger's. Kenny Roger's Chicken. Yeah, of

[00:16:04] Amit: course.

[00:16:06] Michael: I would say Hank Aaron's chicken entrepreneurship is more successful

[00:16:09] Amit: and still around. Yeah. And it's still calls 7 50, 755 Restaurants limited. And I believe his son-in-law is at the helm of it. So yeah, here's what I like about it.

Yeah. So he took his discipline that you talked about that gave him this career well into his forties and he applied it to something else. He, everything you hear about Hank Aaron and read about Hank Aaron, it's all baseball, baseball, baseball. And I think that's something you and I were very nervous about.

Yeah. In this episode. So we had to kind of dig to find more of it. Yeah. But yeah, there was, I mean, he had two crispy Kres, several BMW dealerships and 17 chicken restaurants, and they said that when he went around and did his side checks, he was doing this like a baseball coach. And a quote I found from one of the, Executives at afc, which is the parent company of churches, Popeye's.

Mm-hmm. Said, uh, Hank went to the restaurants every day to learn. He worked behind the counter. He checked the grease traps, he timed the employees and talked to the customers. So he wasn't sitting there like working the counters every day. Yeah. But he wasn't just attaching his name to it. He actually, he was a true manager, a true manager.

He was learning the business, and so I guess what I like about it is simply he's more than a baseball guy. Yeah. He was a pretty astute businessman. And we'll get there when we get into net worth about where we think this all comes from. Yeah. But I also like the pivot and how he applied the discipline that made him a baseball hero into being a pretty efficient operator.

All right. Am I number

[00:17:35] Michael: four? I wrote perspective on records in 2007. Barry Bonds is about to break his record. My reading of the situation is that Hank Aaron was a fan, but as the steroid controversy. Grew and Barry Bonds came under more and more scrutiny. Their relationship was strained. There was some real pressure on Hank Aaron to be at the ballpark when Barry Bonds broke the record and he decided not to do that and instead sent a 52nd message.

It was a on the teleprompter. I would like to offer my congratulations to Barry Bonds on becoming baseball's career home run leader. The home run has held a special place in baseball, and I have been privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years. But here's the thing I want to draw attention to.

He ends up by saying, my hope today, as it was on that April evening in 1974, is that the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams. I like that a lot in that records are about dreams. Stats are not necessarily about, I'm gonna break that. It's about having a dream that you might break it and that what he is saying in that message is set your own goals.

And that, that's how I interpret the record that I held. I Hank Aaron held for 30 plus years and that's how anybody should interpret their own records. That it's not necessarily about crossing that finish line, it's about the journey and setting the goal there. His relationship to that record, I think is something that he really had to reckon with.

And he came to understand it as what was at the heart of it was a young kid who wanted to break a record, you know, who had a dream. And I love that about him. Yeah. Does that point make

[00:19:27] Amit: sense? It does. I mean, what you're saying is that records are meant to be broken. Yes. Right. And that the fact, which is something people say all the

[00:19:33] Michael: time, but what does that mean?

[00:19:34] Amit: That everybody can have a dream. Any record out there is breakable and you could be the one to do it. Do

[00:19:39] Michael: you have a dream? Or a record you wanna

[00:19:41] Amit: break. Um, so these are personal records, right? Yeah. One I had was to hit a hundred countries. By the time I'm 50,

[00:19:48] Michael: I do want to go to, uh, seven continents and I've been on sex.

[00:19:51] Amit: A lot of people have that around countries and travel. Um, yeah. All right. But it's good to think

[00:19:56] Michael: about though, isn't it? I mean, I guess this is the thing to love, right? I mean, it's not just set goals for yourself. Like set a record you wanna break even if it's a personal record you want to break. I'll give you another one.

How many days I do yoga in the morning consistently?

[00:20:08] Amit: You mean like

[00:20:09] Michael: a hit a streak? Yeah. I'd like to be able to wake up and say, I've done yoga every morning for 500 days straight. Goals are good, and records are good in a way, as long as they're tethered to. Dreams to life aspirations. Right. And I think that's how Hank Aaron came to see the Home Run record and he, what he says to Barry Bonds in that moment, I hope that this achievement will inspire others to chase their own dreams.

Yeah, I think those words are really like succinct and right on the money. My hope is that this is about inspiration. My hope is not that to say that you are the better man, and I, I won't even mention the steroids. I, I think it's just, it's, it's, it's the right way to look at statistics.

[00:20:53] Amit: Yeah. You won me over.

Well, that's my number four. Okay. Uh, so number five. I will close it out with eyesight. Yeah. I saw this. So I love that you brought this up. You know, I, I opened by talking about wrist strength as being one of his unique superpowers that made him such a good hitter. Yeah. The other thing is he was very good at watching the ball all the way to crossing the plate.

He studied pitchers, he studied the way that balls left pitcher's hands, and that's one reason he was able to hit the ball in the sweet spot so many times. So he valued his eyesight and he knew that that was one of his biggest assets. And so he protected his eyesight so much so that he wouldn't go see movies.

His early days in the leagues, you talk about racism, were very different. He wasn't, you know, sometimes he couldn't stay at the same hotels, right as his teammates. He had to travel separately. But you know, people were going to movies on off nights and he would never do it because he said that he didn't wanna stare at these large screens and mess with his eyesight.

Cause his eyesight was too valuable to how he played

[00:21:49] Michael: the game as a thing you love. This is like valuing that

[00:21:54] Amit: sense. It's taking a complete different angle to. Achieve excellence. Yeah. Other home run hitters might just be, hit the weight room work on the biceps. Right. Hanker was maintain the eyesight in the quickness and the way that he probably saw the ball coming off of somebody's hands and crossing the plate.

It went at a time sequence much slower than anybody else perceived

[00:22:18] Michael: it. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like, and I, I don't mean to be making it so much about football players, but football players who do Pilates or drink avocado shakes, there's like an attention to your body and what makes you excellent. That I, I can't go to the movies.

I, I care too much about my eyes. Yeah. That's a sacrifice.

[00:22:34] Amit: Yeah. It is a sacrifice. This, this man is all about sacrifice. Oh, cool. Okay. But I, yeah, so if I were to summit, what I love is there's more than one way to win a game. Yeah.

[00:22:43] Michael: All right. I think we have our list of five. So you said thing number

[00:22:46] Amit: one, wrist strength developed accidentally.

[00:22:50] Michael: Thing number two, I said old guy, athlete thing.

[00:22:53] Amit: Number three, donuts and BMWs. And

[00:22:55] Michael: I had an addendum to that. Also relationship with money overall. Okay. Uh, my thing number four was perspective on records and what they mean. Records and dreams, maybe that's the way to put it. And then thing number five, uh, attention to eyesight.

Yep. Excellent. All right. Category three, Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people can take a little portal into John Malkovich mind and have a front row seat to his experiences. I wanna talk about the home run record a little bit. One thing that's interesting that I didn't know, okay.

You asked when we were talking about the first line of the obituary, if I. Knew about, um, the racism he faced in the mid seventies and kind of like most clearly, you know, seen in the volume of hate mail and death threats that he's getting at the time. There's a lot of mail that was praised, but I saw somewhere other than politicians, he was getting more mail than anybody else in the country.

Yeah. 3000

[00:23:52] Amit: letters a day at its peak.

[00:23:54] Michael: Yeah. So it was not clear for a long time that Hank Aaron was gonna be the guy who would break this record. People really thought it was gonna be Willie Mays, but Willie Mays started to fall off a little earlier than expected. And one thing in the book I read that I did not know is that Willie Mays and Hank Aaron had a pretty contentious relationship.

It's complicated cuz Willie Mays is sort of known for being more flashy, a little bit more of a showman. May 31st, 1972 is when Hank Aaron surpassed. Willie Mays on the home run list. It is the first time where the only person standing between Hank Aaron and the all-time record is Babe Ruth. The media attention had started a little bit before then, like maybe in the late sixties.

People had started doing the math. Looking at how consistent Hank Aaron was year over year and how if he keeps this up, at some point he might actually be within reach of this most important statistic in all of sports, all time home runs. I wanna know what it felt like to pass Willie Mays at that point, because I wonder how much he had an idea of what was in front of him.

On one hand, he must have known and he mu he experienced, you know, Segregation. He experienced oppression. Um, he faced racism in his professional career and certainly throughout his life growing up, you know, in a poor family in rural Alabama. On one hand, it's exciting. On one hand it is about the dream. On another hand, it's gotta be a little bit scary, knowing like this is within reach and that he's going for it and he's gotta commit to it.

He's about to climb a mountain here, and he doesn't know what's in ahead of him. So mostly I'm honing in on this as a malkovich moment because I have curiosity. I wa I want to know how he imagined this. I don't know. I could see a whole swirl of emotions. The moment he is at 648 home runs still dozens away from Babe Ruth's record.

That's it.

[00:26:16] Amit: You wanna know who he imagined it? Yeah. I mean, I don't know which theories. What's

[00:26:21] Michael: that? Theories. I don't think he saw what was coming. Oh God, no. So I don't know. I want to know.

[00:26:29] Amit: Okay, you're welcome Richard. Okay, so the famed record that he broke was on the night of April 8th, 1974. Yeah. This is when he hit home run number seven 15.

As we've both alluded to, the two years leading up to this was full of lots of death threats. He had to have a bodyguard. He had to check in the hotels under assumed names. He had to basically be in hiding almost, except for when he was on the field. Yeah, there's a horrible, horrible two years leading up to breaking this record.

He has even called it the worst two years of his life. Yeah. So the night comes that he is going to perhaps break the record, right. He's won Home Runaway. It's April 8th, 1974. We actually talk about this in our Bill Buckner episode because uh, bill Buckner played a role. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I actually think we have a clip that we can just reuse that clip in these show notes.

Cause it's the same thing. So he is up at bat and he hits. A ball, which is clearly gonna be a home run. Yeah. So the crowd erupts, standing ovation. There is still a lot, this is in Atlanta, we should say this is in Atlanta. Uh, there is still a lot of nervousness in Hank Aaron. Yeah. You know, he still has to round those bases.

Yeah. And he doesn't know if there's gonna be a sniper. Right. Or what could possibly happen because everything that's led up to this instant says that there is a. Pretty good chance that something nasty might happen at this moment. Yeah. So he rounds the bases, two kids jump over the fence and run the bases with him after second base.

Yeah. And these are like 18 year old kids. Yeah. They're like 17

and

[00:28:03] Michael: 18. Yeah. Then they, you see them on the famous clip, you know, between second and third base, like coming up

[00:28:09] Amit: alongside him. Hank did not know what these guys were doing. Yeah. Hank's bodyguard had a rifle. Yeah. And he had to make a decision whether to take these guys out cuz he didn't know what they were doing.

They were breaking the law by jumping over the fence. But you also don't want to kill, you know, two 17 year olds that are just celebrating. Right. He rounds third and he heads home. Yeah. Who is there to receive him first? Not his teammates, not his manager, not his coach, his mother. Yeah. To embrace him to say it's gonna be okay and you're still alive.

It's a remarkable moment that he. Escapes death in his eyes, into the hands of his mother.

[00:28:55] Michael: It's a beautiful moment, and it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron who was met at home plate, not only by every member of the Braves, but by his father and mother. He threw his arms around his father, and as he left the home plate area, his mother came running across the grass, threw her arms around his neck, kissed him for all she was worth.

There's so much going

[00:29:26] Amit: on in there, so much going on. But I'm saying that one, I'm taking this the two seconds. Yeah. That he crosses the plate into arms, his moms. Yeah. And this goes to your old guy athlete. He's 40 years old at the moment. Yeah. And he still needs his mother, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with it.

That is humanity. Yeah.

[00:29:42] Michael: Shout out to moms. Yeah. Let's pause for a word from our sponsor.

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[00:29:51] Amit: I am. I'm actually looking at your bookshelf. I wanna see if there is anything that I can give as a gift to

[00:30:00] Michael: somebody, uh, with my permission, I assume.

[00:30:03] Amit: Well, no, I was just gonna take it off your shelf.

[00:30:06] Michael: Wait, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't take it from me. I put time into this bookshelf.

I actually want these books there. However, if you're looking to get some of these books, no. A great store, you can go to Half Price books. They're likely to have this entire catalog in their bookstore, and if not, in their bookstore there, they

[00:30:23] Amit: can order it for you. But the thing is, I trust you. There's nowhere else that I can find a trusted book seller to give me an equal recommendation.

[00:30:31] Michael: Sir, I disagree. You can find a. Trusted book seller at Half Price Books. Ask a Half Price Books book seller. If you don't know what to read next or if you're looking for a gift idea. Really? Oh my goodness, yes. The Half Price Books book sellers are knowledge keepers. They're there to help you navigate.

They're tremendous catalog. Excuse me, I've got to go now. Oh good. Because Half Price Books is the nation's largest new and used book seller with 120 stores in 19 states and Half Price Books is online@hpb.com.

Okay. Category four, love and marriage. How many marriages? Also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? Marriages? So we have two. There's Barbara, they marry in 1953. Divorced, 1971. So they're married about 18 years. Hank was 19 when they married, 37. When they divorced, they had five children, and then Billy Williams, Hank was 39 when they married.

This is in 1973. He died at age 86, so they were together about 48 years. Uh, she had a child from a previous marriage that he adopted. She was the first I saw this. She was the first African American woman in the southeast, so in the deep south to regularly co-host a television show, starting with her debut on today in Georgia.

I heard an interview with one of his biographers, Howard Bryant. One of the things he said is that, you know, when he decided to do this biography of Hank Aaron, it really took years to build trust to get any kind of access to sit down with him. He said one of the things is that he wasn't able to devote much time in the biography to what happened during the divorce with the first wife, in part because.

Hank Aaron was extremely guarded around press, so I looked into that divorce a little bit more. It sounds like part of it is, I think the schedule part of it is absolutely the segregated life for not just ball players but ballplayer families. Right? Like how much she is welcomed into the room anywhere.

It sounded like it got a little acrimonious, cuz around the time that they got divorced was also the time that for a very brief period, Hank Aaron had that biggest contract of any baseball player of all time. He was the first player to sign a contract worth over $200,000 a year. Mm-hmm. And so, uh, she filed the lawsuit.

I don't know what happened with it, but like, didn't sound like it ended well. And then there's Billy, his second wife, who sounds really like a, how, how would I put it though? It was a real counterbalance to him, was more of an extrovert. Cuz he is an introverted guy. Yeah. I mean he's He's media shy. He's

[00:33:24] Amit: reserved.

Correct. She was a very vocal civil rights advocate. Right. Hanker and to this point was a civil rights advocate, but he was never known for being extremely vocal Yeah. On anything.

[00:33:34] Michael: So that's the story. What do you wanna talk about? I wanna

[00:33:37] Amit: just point out one thing that I, I think was great about him. Some journalists confronted him because she was this vocal civil rights advocate and when he started taking up more civil rights causes post-retirement, some journalists like posted a picture in the Atlanta paper of him and Billy and it said, Hank Aaron is his wife, Billy's mouthpiece for civil rights, and he found the sh list and threw a basket of strawberries in his face.

I,

[00:34:04] Michael: it's, I think

[00:34:05] Amit: I saw something that, and I guess that's more of a, a, a, a, a sort of self-esteem thing than it is an actual act of love. Yeah. But I, I just like that story as it relates to the defense of his marriage. What I am curious about is five children and one stepchild through this long old man career.

So

[00:34:22] Michael: what do you mean? How the hell do you do that? Oh, I don't think you do. Are you just an absent father? Yeah, I mean this, this, this is a recurring theme on the show, man. Like, he came from a family of seven brothers and sisters. I think he's sort of, you know, accustomed to, to big family. I think it was a close family too.

Yeah. Um, you know, I, I think that that's also where he found a lot of solace and joy in his life. I mean, and as much as you can, he would sneak into mobile apparently, and. Like sometimes go on like fishing trips, you know? Um, I mean, I think that he's got a connection with the Deep South as a way of home that is like tightly linked with family, you know, as somebody who has that kind of opportunity for a whole new livelihood and whole new opportunity.

I mean, I think you're on the road a lot and you're just not thinking about like, getting home to play with the kids. This is an obligation of a father in this time. Yeah, I I, there's a, there's a part of me that doesn't even feel like I can begin to broach the question with Hank Aaron, given his background, you know, given the culture of oppression that he was raised in, given the tight-knit family he was raised in, given the.

Next level opportunities that were suddenly afforded to him financially, but also the next level pressures that came with those opportunities. I don't know how the hell to think about it. I mean, the thing I thought you were gonna talk about is the fact that the guy was married at 19, two years, divorced and died.

I mean, he was mostly married in his life entirely. Yeah, yeah. Almost entirely for his adult life, was mostly married. It's very

[00:35:58] Amit: possible. He dated two women and he married them both. Yes, exactly.

[00:36:02] Michael: I don't know that I have a whole lot more to say because, but in part his life was so private that I just didn't feel like I ever got any deep insight into the marriage.

Did

[00:36:12] Amit: you? No. Other than with Billy, with his second wife, that she was pretty dynamic. Yeah. And, and we touched on that, but there's certainly not a lot public around the divorce, around any turmoil. He was, he was a private guy for all the reasons that we've explained. Yeah. Even in his biographies and all the interviews, he guards his family life for very good reason.

Yeah.

[00:36:31] Michael: Although I, I did see, and this didn't come up when we were talking about your Malkovich, that one of his major frustrations with going after the record was, it wasn't just Hank Aaron that was facing death threats, it was his children. Yeah. And to the point where the f b I had to visit one of his daughters at college and like station people around in undercover to keep an eye out for.

The bad guy. Yeah. Isn't that confusing as fuck to you that people care that much? I don't know. I mean, like, I love sports, but it's odd to me in a way that the level of vitriol and overt racism would come out around this record. I just, I don't get it. And maybe. I feel like I'm missing something I'm supposed to not miss.

I

[00:37:13] Amit: don't, and forgive the hippie-ish take on this, but I, I think that that we're all built of a lot of energy and everything that we experience and read and see and live through adds more energy to it. And there's all sorts of outlets for that energy. And that can be love, that can be exercise, that can be creativity or it can be hatred.

And I think in a lot of people it just ends up hatred. And I think that is the same thing that comes out with a lot of random acts of violence. It comes out with people taking their sports too seriously and forgetting that they're actually. Knives and souls involved. Yeah. And so, no, it doesn't surprise me.

It disappoints me, but it doesn't surprise me. What's

[00:37:51] Michael: surprising to me is the expression of it in sports, again, I, this has come up every time we've done an athlete. I do enjoy sports and I have been a rabbit fan and I have gone to football games and yelled my head off and, and cared a lot and been sort of surprised at the level of emotion.

But, but then you stop when

[00:38:09] Amit: you get home. Exactly.

[00:38:10] Michael: I, I never, I don't quite get to like the next level of. Death threats. Right? Like that, there's something so fucking sick about that. That, and I'm, I'm, I'm trying to make more of a comment here about sports than I am about racism in a way. Yeah. You know what I mean?

What I don't totally get is the symbolism of sports that you would feel so dedicated to a record that was set by a white man decades ago who's been gone from this earth for a while, whose accomplishments you never, maybe, never even saw. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't get that. Babe Ruth was an icon, you know, and really, and you can say he was a white icon and he is a black player.

That is in the major leagues. And he just got here. And when I said, just got here five or six, 10 years ago, and here he is challenging one of the most cherished records in all the sports, you know, so you can look at it two ways, you know, uh, you can look at it and say, A black player. Would they have done a white player like that?

I don't know. I, I don't think so. But I think that, uh, the reason that they did me like that is simply because the fact that, uh, we were still trying to make our marks. We were still, you know, black players were still trying to come in and make the mark in the major leagues, you know, and people were not accepting that, you know, and I was challenging a Babe Ruth record.

Oh, no. I guess I'm just surprised the weight of pressure that Hank Aaron felt. Mm-hmm. I consistently underestimate just how much anger is out there and just how many people are

[00:39:47] Amit: pissed off. That is exactly what Hank Aaron said at the end of this run is that I was seen a side of America that I was not completely aware of and it tore my heart out.

[00:39:56] Michael: Yeah. I don't get that, but I, I don't know. I guess I just don't get people

[00:40:02] Amit: That's Yes. Um, that is, that is part of the point of this show. Yeah. That's it. It's, we're trying to get people Yeah. That could be our new, that could be our new subhead.

[00:40:10] Michael: Famous and Gravy. We're trying to get people like it. That's category, category five network worth.

I saw 25 million.

[00:40:17] Amit: Yeah. Good. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:20] Michael: I was happy about that. Mentioned this earlier, near bankruptcy in the early seventies, so in addition to everything else he's going through as he is chasing down Babe Purdue's Home Run record, he lost almost all his money. He made what sounded like bad investments.

He got a little swindled by some real estate enterprise. This, again, is a thing I love. I saw him, the quote was, I was wiped out. It was a bad time to invest in real estate, and here I was doing it and losing my butt. But then he said I was angry, but I wasn't helpless. I still had my name and time to recoup.

I decided to be more careful with my money. I love that he matures, right? And he sees like, okay, wait a sec, I've still got earning potential here. So you know that he landed at 25 million. Ultimately was really happy about that.

[00:41:12] Amit: Yeah, it's a really good number. It's, it's a donut car and chicken money too.

But I think he also, he was a front office executive for the Braves for, what was that, like 30, 35 plus years. Yeah.

[00:41:22] Michael: Among his other accomplishments, he was one of the first, uh, people to be in executive leadership of any sports organization.

[00:41:28] Amit: Yeah. And that's a well paying job. Yeah. You know? And to do that for that long.

Yeah. And then finally make some wise investments. All right. Next

[00:41:35] Michael: category or unless, do you wanna say something more? Un net worth?

[00:41:38] Amit: I had a few things written. Because they're important when it comes to celebrity as his endorsements. Yeah. Right. So he was, uh, he endorsed o Henry Can Bars, which a lot of people mistook.

That was actually named after him. Yeah. It was not Magna Box. And then finally, like right up into the run of his record, Atlanta's own Coca-Cola, he had an advocate saying, you guys are complete idiots if not getting hanker and on board to promote your product. Yeah. But again, those were, were early days. I don't think that was significant money, and I think played almost nothing towards his final net worth.

[00:42:08] Michael: Well, and then there's the famous, uh, the Charles Schwaba from when Brad Bonds was about to break his record. Do you remember this one? No, I don't. I don't. It's great. Barry Bonds is in the stadium, like practicing by himself, and then he hears this voice that's like, you know, this omniscient voice of God's

retirement.

You cut it out already. Hank, Hey, who? And he's like looking shyly like Hank, who's Hank? You know, it's really good. Category six. Yes. Category six, Simpson, Saturday Night Live or Halls of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons as well as impersonations.

I saw nothing on The Simpsons. I saw nothing on Saturday Night Live, although there's definitely some parodies around Barry Bonds and Halls of Fame. There's no Arsenio Hall show, but yes to Baseball Hall of Fame. Yeah, of course, obviously. Um, There are a couple of other very interesting and noteworthy touchpoints.

He was a frequent guest on David Letterman and was even on like the third appearance of the Letterman show. It's like one of the few times I saw Letterman not in a suit and tie. He's like wearing a sweater. It was, it's that old. After I hit the home run, I went back to left field and I was standing in my position to catch a fly ball and Donald Davis and our traveled secretary was running down left field line.

He was telling me the president was on telephone. And I said, well, fine Donald. I said, but what do you want me to do? Stop the ball game. I said, just put the president on the hold and I'd be right with him. And, and sure enough, right after the inn and I went running up the steps and coach president was on California, he was inviting myself and my wife to be his guest at the White House Uhhuh this, now this would be President Nixon.

Mm-hmm. Right. You said it. But anyhow, I answered. He said, He said, Henry, I said, I would like for you to, um, to be my guest at the White House. I said, well, fine, Mr. President. I said, thank you very much. I said, when do you want me to be your guest? He said, as soon as possible. Hell, I didn't get there quick enough.

Yeah.

And then are you aware of the Mc Hammer story? Hank Aaron's nickname was The Hammer.

[00:44:29] Amit: Yes. And, uh, Stanley Burrell, um, was a small kid in Oakland, loved baseball and resembled at a young age, a young Hank Aaron. And so his nickname, uh, around the streets of Oakland and around the neighborhood was the hammer.

[00:44:48] Michael: You can't touch this. So, MC Hammer got his name kind of from Hank

[00:44:52] Amit: Aaron entirely. Yeah. I don't even think it's a kind of, yeah. Yes. You can't touch that, Michael. That is the exact origin of Mc Hammer's name. So,

[00:45:00] Michael: halls of Fame, what to make. I mean, I think that there is a narrative out there that Hank Aaron was underappreciated, certainly in terms of offensive excellence.

For some reason, his name doesn't come up as readily as it should for how excellent he was. Maybe the greatest offensive baseball player, if not the greatest baseball player of all time. People don't necessarily think that. Yes. And um, I, you know, I think that part of it is that there's, there's not the showmanship that sometimes goes with, you know, superstars.

I don't know. I was kind of surprised to not see more Simpson, Sarah and I live

[00:45:37] Amit: here. Yeah. I mean, some of it is era, right. Sarah and I live Yeah. Started in 1975. This br this record was broken in 74, but you think could have been OpenLink season and

[00:45:46] Michael: his name comes back into public consciousness when Barry Bonds breaks his record.

Yes. I mean, I, I think it's a little bit subsumed by the steroid scandal. Right. And, um, and the. You know, all, all the baggage that comes with it. But I guess I just would've expected to see a little bit more in terms of cultural references to Hank Aaron. He

[00:46:07] Amit: does have accolades, right? Yeah. He has the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Yeah. Um,

[00:46:11] Michael: but yeah, let's not blast past that. That's a like, holy shit, right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:15] Amit: But I don't know. It's a, he's a tough one in terms of measuring notoriety. Yeah. Because it is this one thing and it is the story surrounding it, and it is the fact that he surpassed Babe Ruth. Yeah. But as a figure, he's just not that easy.

To parody. Yeah. You know, he's not Yeah, that's a good point. He's charismatic maybe in an interview, but he's not like, you know, it's not like when Muhammad Ali showed up on different strokes to give Arnold a pep talk. Yeah. Like, that's not who Hank Aaron was.

[00:46:42] Michael: You don't see comics like chomping at the bit to do an impersonation.

[00:46:46] Amit: My interpretation is part of the reason this guy was so great was his discipline. Yeah. And he was also just thankful as hell. Yeah. Right. You know, he had a lot of gratitude within him because he, he came from absolute nothing to this level of competing for a home run title. Yeah. And so you take a, a discipline, somewhat reserved person, and you put him under two or three years of death threats and the worst years of his life, which would've otherwise been for a white person, probably the most joyous.

Yeah. And you layer on that just further retreating into being more reserved, more private, and. Harder to feature, harder to

[00:47:22] Michael: parody. Yeah. I guess I would've expected him to have a couple of Hollywood cameos though, or something like that. I mean, do you remember when, um, was it Reggie Jackson who was in Naked Gun?

Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. I

[00:47:33] Amit: I loved that. Yeah. Um, you're supposed to kill the queen. Yeah.

[00:47:36] Michael: Yeah, exactly. I could have seen something like that. I don't know, maybe it just wasn't of interest to him. Yeah. All right. Category seven. Over, under, in this category, we look at the life expectancy for the year somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds, and as a measure of grace, life expectancy for a man born in 1934 was 59.3.

He made it to 86, so he beats it by about 27 years.

[00:48:03] Amit: Remarkable. Yeah. I think actually for being born in rural Alabama into poverty, yes. Everything was man achieved, but living 86

[00:48:10] Michael: especially. Yeah. I don't have a whole lot to say. I mean, I think, you know, he get, he gets a little heavier as he gets older, but in a way that looked pretty common.

[00:48:19] Amit: He was fit, he was working out into his seventies, I think he had a couple of bad falls. Yeah. And, and a hip thing, but. I think up until the end, uh, he, he looked pretty good and pretty intact. Very coherent in speech and I

[00:48:31] Michael: think that there is a stat out there about baseball players tend to have longer lifespans than other professional athletes.

The non-contact nature of it. Yeah. Or something like that. There's something about the sport itself that like conditions you, for longevity, it's helpful to be stronger obviously, but only to a point. Right. It's not like football and basketball where size really makes a big difference in terms of competitive advantage.

Mm-hmm. All right, great. Very graceful man. All right, let's pause for another break. Jennifer Flowers.

[00:49:05] Amit: Jennifer Flowers is alive.

[00:49:07] Michael: The rules are simple. Dead are alive. She is 72 years old, still with us. Christ. We are so old. John Cougar Mellencamp alive, very alive, still rocking in the free world. Uh, that would be Neil Young think it's still our R o c k N.

In the s a at 71 years old, Charlton Heston and his cold dead hands. So I'm assuming he's still alive. His hands are actually dead and hell, we lost him in 2008. Test your knowledge. Dead or alive app.com. Okay. In this part of the show, this is when we get to the more introspective questions, where we take our best guess at what we think it would've been like to have been this person, category eight man in the Mirror.

What did they think about their own reflection? What do you think?

[00:49:56] Amit: Uh, I'm saying no, here's my evidence. Okay, so one, the death threats, right? Like there was trauma in that. Yeah. The fact that he had to sort of hide himself for quite a while, I think just meant to this idea of cowering, I think number two, uh, wait

[00:50:14] Michael: a sec.

Doesn't that way proceed? The death threats? I mean, doesn't that mean like growing up in the segregated south with the KKK out the door, which was true. I mean, he talked about

[00:50:23] Amit: Yeah, true. That he was ordered to hide under the bed.

[00:50:26] Michael: Yeah. He and his brother would, you know, hit bottle caps and his mom would be like, it'd start, get inside.

[00:50:30] Amit: Yeah. So very good point. And right. And then you've got 30 something years beyond that. And again, same thing. So there's just a lot of having to hide for awful, awful reasons. Yeah. That's one case against it. I think. Number two, he never even really liked the name Hank. He was Henry Aaron. He looks in the mirror and he sees Henry Aaron.

And maybe that is an argument for, you know, when he looks he gets to actually be Henry anytime he is referred to outside. He's Hank. But I'm just putting that in the lose column that was taken from him. It was assigned a nickname that wasn't his choice and he preferred to go by the other one.

[00:51:05] Michael: I think I need to ask a more complicated question about your first point.

Okay. Because doesn't that same line of thinking apply to any black person who grew up in the segregated

[00:51:14] Amit: south? No. Which, which is No, no, because I we're, what we're layering on top is the trauma of the experience of the early seventies, which is

[00:51:23] Michael: a result of hyper visibility by virtue of fame and your success on the field and

[00:51:28] Amit: threatening a beloved white man's

[00:51:31] Michael: record.

Yeah. I take the point, I just sometimes don't know how to think about this as a white guy. Right. I remember you telling me a story once. It was like a post nine 11 story. You were in like a big box store. Like a Yeah.

[00:51:44] Amit: Tar A kids' arrests. Yeah. Yeah. So what happened, I was gonna a baby shower. This was probably like November, 2001.

Yeah. We were, I was gonna a baby shower in, back then you had to go to Kids r us to get uh, baby toys. Yeah. Uh, and so I went there with my mother and we were driving and some guy with his kid, uh, like cut us off and made some gesture. I had no idea like what the hell he was doing. I just. Thought that this was not even directed at us.

Yeah. And then we go into kids are us, um, and the guy sort of confronts me and says something to the effect of, if you are going to live in this country, you need to learn how to drive. And this was after he, you know, essentially cut us off.

[00:52:23] Michael: And to be clear, you're born and raised in Dallas, Texas.

[00:52:25] Amit: Yes. I do have brown skin to this guy's eyes.

I am the same complexion of Al-Qaeda. Right,

[00:52:30] Michael: right. So Right. And that's what, okay, so my point in asking you to tell that story is obviously I've never had anything like that happen to me. I might go into a gas station and have an ugly interaction with somebody behind the counter because we're both having a bad day.

But at no point do I walk out and think, is he doing that because of the color of my skin? This is the impossible, empathetic imagining that white people need to do to try and understand. You know, discrimination overall, racism overall, I guess I wanted to like think about that with a man who felt an experience just about as much derogatory comments, like how does that play into man in the mirror Ramit?

Yeah. So,

[00:53:09] Amit: so for me, and if you're gonna take that story for me, it translates into pride, right? All it does is build up the pride and it builds up more pride in my, in my complexion of naturality. That's with

[00:53:18] Michael: my man in the mirror in a way. I think it's, and maybe you're making a good

argument,

[00:53:21] Amit: maybe you're making a convincing argument, you

[00:53:23] Michael: know?

He certainly sees his body as being a set of God-given talents. He says that, you know, God gifted me with my ability to hit the ball. Great hand eye coordination, strong risks, focus, determination. I mean, uh, he sees these things as being, you know, the hand he was dealt. And I do think there is absolutely a tremendous amount of pride and dignity.

So I guess when I look at the man in the America category, I'm always wondering like about self-judgment. And I do understand him to be a religious man who does not know God's plan, but who does see a higher power as having endowed him with certain attributes and qualities. And my feeling is that he looks at the things he faced as like, I guess this was my destiny to be tested this way, and when I look in the mirror, I'm gonna see pride.

So I went, yes. Did you sense, get the sensation of, of how important you were to the black, uh, community with what you were doing, what you were going through? Yes, I did. In some ways, I, I felt the importance of what I was doing was really sending a signal to the world, was telling people that, Hey, yeah, all you wanted to do was have the playing field level.

Just give me an opportunity. Yes, I felt that way. I felt that way, that not only that I had a, the world on my shoulders as far as baseball was concerned, but also had the world on my shoulders to demonstrate the people that, hey, just give me opportunity. That, that was part of why I guess, I, I broke his record, was the fact that a lot of people thought that it couldn't be done and, and a black person doing it.

It was not something that they wanted to see done. If I'm

[00:55:10] Amit: taking my own perspective and flipping it, I think you're right. I think you convinced me.

[00:55:16] Michael: All right. That wasn't my goal, but I'm glad I did. Usually

[00:55:19] Amit: it's just goes the other way. This way. This, this never happens. Now this

[00:55:21] Michael: is Mark, this moment. Uh, all right.

Category nine, outgoing message, like man in the mirror. How do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine or outgoing voicemail? Also, would they have used the default setting or would they record it themselves? I'll walk you through my thinking. I don't think he likes talking.

I think he learned it to be a better good interviewee. I do think he's got a tremendous amount of charm. I think his voice is exceptional. He does look at, yes, I love it. Um, so I went, yes. And I also think he would've felt an obligation to record. I think he would've to, to, to say you've reached the voicemail of Henry Aaron.

I think he would've felt like that was being asked of him. Mm-hmm. Uh, for the voicemail and when he liked it. But I'm persuadable on this one. Where'd you

[00:56:11] Amit: go? I didn't have a strong opinion, but I did notice that, that he's not exuberant. Yeah. You know, like he doesn't like to talk. Yeah. But no, I, I think your points are the right ones.

I, I think he speaks well. I think he has a nice voice. I think he's humble and I think that's the biggest argument for is yeah. That he's humble.

[00:56:30] Michael: All right. Category 10 regrets. Public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night? I have two in the public. One.

We've already talked about the bad business deals in the seventies, and then I also heard him say he never won the triple crown. Yeah, I have that written down. Did you too? Yeah. Which is, uh, batting average home runs and rbis. Yes. Right. Leading in all three of those categories. And it's only been done a handful of times, so I saw him be a little regretful about that.

Take it easy on yourself, Hank. It's okay. And then the big one for me is chasing the record. Did he have second thoughts about it? Biscuits, back to my Malkovich. Did he know how much could he have seen what he was up against? And he certainly describes when he finally did break the record as like, I just wanted it to be over.

I just wanted the relief of it. And his career. I mean, he plays a few more years, right? He's in Atlanta at that point. He goes back to Milwaukee and they have a new baseball team. Yes. The brewers. And you know, his career kinda winds down, you know? But it does seem like around that time he stopped enjoying the game.

Yes. He was just really good at it. And he, and I think there's the facing reality that any professional athlete has to face, which at some point, father time catches

[00:57:50] Amit: up. Yes. And he was paid. He was finally being paid. Well, yeah, too. And so I think that was another reason for doing those. Last few seasons that he didn't necessarily play well.

Right. But to go to your question of chasing the record, I want to put a twist on it, and I think that's the choice of teams. So it's moving with the Braves when the Braves moved to Milwaukee to Atlanta.

[00:58:13] Michael: From Milwaukee to Atlanta. Yeah. So, which, by the way, did you see that that was the first professional sport in the deep South?

Like, oh, football, baseball, basketball. When the Braves moved to Atlanta in the mid sixties, it was the first time there was any professional sport in the deep South. Really? Isn't that amazing? I that, that

[00:58:30] Amit: sort of surprised me. So, so that's my point exactly. Is, you know, he did make a comment once that if he played for New York like Willie Mays did Right.

He probably would've had more MVPs. Yeah. Because he would've been a black man in New York rather than a black man in the deep South. So I just say, you know, by the time that he had proven himself to be a good ballplayer, to be an exceptional ballplayer, he chose to stay in Atlanta and he chose to remain in the deep south, which probably made those years in that chase that much more rough.

Yeah.

[00:58:59] Michael: Um, yeah, obviously, I mean, this is what Vince Scully says when he breaks the home run. He is like, what a remarkable moment this is as he's. As he's rounding the bases and his mom's waiting there. Fin Gully says, what an incredible moment. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the deep south for breaking a record of an all time baseball

[00:59:20] Amit: idol.

And I don't think, I mean, I just, I don't think we can discount how, um, God, I hate to use the word brave, but how, how brave he

[00:59:28] Michael: was. Yeah. I agree with that. I don't see it as a regret. I

[00:59:34] Amit: think it's a wonder. Yeah,

[00:59:36] Michael: it's, you gotta wonder, Hey, that's a good way of putting it. All right, next category. Good dreams, bad dreams.

This is not about personal perception, but rather, does this person have a haunted look in the eye? Something that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, or unresolved trauma. Yes.

[00:59:53] Amit: I wrote No, you wrote No,

[00:59:55] Michael: I wrote, I expected to see something in the eye, but I really looked. At the interviews and I didn't see it.

I

[01:00:02] Amit: see. Kind of hunch shoulders. I, I mean there's distance,

[01:00:05] Michael: you know? Yeah. There, there, there's, there's a reserved nature. There is a, you know, a, a Mary Tyler more like, I'm only gonna be so present here with you.

[01:00:14] Amit: Yes, exactly. And so I'm, maybe it's not the eyes or the answer here, but I think all of bad dreams.

Yeah. I think all of that led to what he had to

[01:00:23] Michael: experience. I, I think that's, It's the right answer. I was surprised not to see it in the eyes. Yeah, and maybe that's interesting, right? Maybe that's important. Maybe there are demons and thoughts, but there's also self-awareness or something. I, I, I mean, I guess, I don't know the point I'm trying to make, but when we did Gandolfini, it was like, do you see it?

Like, oh yeah, there was like, it was unmistakable and I would've imagined an unmistakable haunted look in the eyes, which I didn't see. But I do also agree that maybe that's not the place to look this time. Maybe it is. Let's just assume bad dreams and move on.

[01:01:01] Amit: Yeah. Another thing that is not at all talked about, um, he had a brother, Tommy Aaron, who was on the Major leagues, who also played the major leagues.

Yeah. And they hold the record for combined home runs by siblings. Oh, really? Yes, it is. Uh, that probably won't get broken. No. Well, uh, you never know. Yeah. Who can come up. There have been some pretty good siblings, but I don't think many of them have been power hitters. Yeah. Uh, there was, I remember like Roberto and Sandy Amar from my childhood of course, but none of them went to that level.

So, I mean, hangar contributed, um, 755 home runs and Tommy Aaron contributed I think like 13.

[01:01:38] Michael: Look, we honestly haven't talked enough about his baseball excellence. His records and his statistics go well beyond the home runs. Yeah. I mean, what was it in all but two seasons? He made the Aus Star team. Yes.

Like that's incredible. Yeah. Um,

[01:01:53] Amit: yeah. My, my favorite, uh, interpretation of the statistics is in total basis. So the amount of time, yeah. Straight basis. He's traveled, he's traveled 12 miles further than the second place. I

[01:02:04] Michael: saw that. I saw that. I think actually Sally mentioned that as well. That's a great stat.

Okay. Category 12, cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. This may be a question of what drug sounds like The most fun to partake with this person or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of who we are most curious about.

Arrow cannabis. I think he's got good vibes. I want to hang out and I want to talk a little bit about your, the cross handed thing and I, I, I want to talk about, I wrote Athletic Creativity. I, I I, I, I am very interested to have a conversation with him about his relationship to his body, to how he understands athletic excellence.

And I, I would love to hear a few pointers and I kind of just like the idea of being high I in a more sort of like creative exploration. I just like his energy. Yeah. And it's that simple.

[01:02:57] Amit: Uh, that's good. I wasn't expecting you to go there. Yeah. What do you mean? Um, I went coffee and the word I wrote down was intuition.

So the things that I applauded him for of seeing how critical eyesight is and seeing that you can hit home runs by focusing on the way the ball leaves a pitcher's hand. I want him to just look me up and down and, and make some intuitive. Suggestions or advice on anything? Nothing to do with sports. Yeah.

I just think this guy's got, I, I think he looks at, uh, well

[01:03:23] Michael: he was sort of, I mean, not exactly a talent scout, but basically that was his role with the Braves, right? Is like looking at people in the minor leagues and deciding if they were ready. That was my understanding of his, one of his responsibilities when he was in management.

[01:03:35] Amit: Yeah. So I just think he's got a special eye for these things on, on what small changes can make huge adjustments. And maybe he'd just look at me and be like, grow a mustache. Yeah. And that would be, that would change my life.

[01:03:45] Michael: I'm, I think you should consider the

[01:03:47] Amit: mustache. Uh, it could work, but yeah. Coffee with Hank Aaron for his intuition.

[01:03:52] Michael: All right. We've arrived the VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said in varsity Blues, I don't want your life.

[01:04:02] Amit: What do you think, Amit? The theme of all of the research, all of the documentaries, all of the books were like how hard this guy's life was for that period around chasing the record.

Yeah. And I heard one, and it was one of his biographers that said that like it was the, the most unfair thing is this guy was robbed of joy. Yeah. You know, that he should have had so much joy leading up to him, breaking that record. And I think he sees it that way too. I think you're right. However, I don't think that.

He let it define him. This is the result of this conversation. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm switching from where I thought I was going to where I've landed. And that is to go all the way back from 1930s Alabama to donuts, BMW's 25 million, holding a record, still being known as one of the best players of all time being a family man, having no burned bridges, having the respect of everyone.

You're not the king of charisma. You are not, uh, celebrated throughout a pop culture. Uh, but you are a dignified human being who beat a ton of odds. Yeah. And to take it from Sinatra, you know, he, he did it his way. And I think that is an internal source of pride. And I'm not gonna, I. See that robbing of joy in what should have been a joyous moment as a lifetime trauma that would affect the decision to live this life.

Because no matter what happened, he still broke that record in the way that he played the game, the way that he chose to play the game. He got to play longer than anybody, any broker record, which still, depending on what you believe stands, they say Barry Bonds broker. And whether

[01:05:53] Michael: it does or not, and maybe it doesn't matter that

[01:05:56] Amit: much, maybe it doesn't matter, like you said somebody else, it's still there, right?

It's, it's at whatever number it's at, and it can be some kid's target down the road. This is a lifetime of beating the odds. Achievement of family and dignity. I don't think it looks like a ton of fun, but I don't think that's the name of the game. With Hank Aaron. I think the name of the game for Hank Aaron is gratitude, and if I can live in the seat of gratitude, which I think he did, then yes, I want your life.

Hank Aaron.

[01:06:29] Michael: I mean that all makes sense. You know, to hear him say a record is about chasing a dream. What I hear in that is, and that's what I did. I got to chase a dream and I got to realize a dream, and that came to a focal point in the public consciousness when I broke the record. But there were all the years leading up to that, and there were things that happened after that that were part of chasing a dream.

Obviously, I don't think any of us, I know I can't. Imagine the pain, imagine the weight of oppression. Imagine the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of discrimination and prejudice that you must have felt. I do see in him, I mean I think it, the word dignity is kind of interesting here because that feels like something that he grew into, right?

I don't know that anybody is necessarily quote unquote, born with dignity. I feel like dignity is like wisdom. It's something that comes through life experience and that you build up towards and carry, and I think it exists because you discover an inner resource, an inner confidence, and probably an inner humility on some level that allow you to hold that and and allow it to be shown.

I do think that so much of Hank Aaron is like best understood as actions speak louder than words, and when I look at his actions and how admirably he carried himself, What I have a hard time sorting through is the level of inner pain because I, I don't feel like he lets anybody in on that. You get like little glimpses and hints into it years later.

He says, those were the two hardest years of my life, and he's not expressing that at the time. So it just raises all kinds of questions of like, how much are we seeing of what the internal struggle looks like and how to weigh that against the internal struggle that all of us are dealing with on some level.

Given the cards you're dealt, how do you play the hand and how, what is the journey you go through and what does it all mean in the end? I, I wanna say yes, I want this life, not because he achieved iconic status, but because he played the hand so well in a way that I feel like I can extrapolate some things out.

It's exactly the hand I want to play. I want to grow to be a dignified man. I want to have a good relationship with my body. I want to be a family man. I want to have inner reserves. I want to have a better relationship with finances as I age. I mean, it's actually the global points here and the metaphors more than the specifics of his life that lead me to, uh, yes.

And I, I think you laid the groundwork for my point in what you had to say. So I also want your life, Hank Aaron. Yeah. I'm still not all that into baseball. Ahed, you are Henry Aaron. You have died and, uh, you are meeting St. Peter the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife at the Prairie League Gates. What is your best case for why you should be led into whatever?

It's behind the Parley gates, so

[01:09:43] Amit: St. Peter, Henry Aaron, it, it's quite simple. Two words. Keep swinging. This is what I set off on when, whenever people ask me in interviews, what do you do when hardship falls on you, when you're threatened? And I say, keep swinging. And that's what I left this world with is that stuff is gonna be thrown at you literally.

But if you keep swinging, If you keep persevering, you can do things into any age. You can still achieve your dreams. You can break the records you want to break, and nothing can stop you if you keep swinging. Let me in

[01:10:27] Michael: Famous and Gravy listeners, before you leave, I have a request. If you are interested in participating in our opening quiz where we reveal the dead celebrity, then send us an email. You can reach us at hello@famousandgravy.com. Send us an email. We can find time for a recording. It's usually pretty fun and it only takes about five or 10 minutes.

We love hearing from you, so if you're interested, drop us a note. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you're enjoying our show and you don't feel like emailing us, then tell your friends about us. You can find us on Twitter. Our handle is at Famous En Gravy. We also have a newsletter, which you can sign up for on our website, famous en gravy.com.

Famous en Gravy was created by Amit Kapur and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thank you for listening. Tell your friends. See you next time.