The Henry Aaron Biography

Howard Bryant – The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

The book starts out with Wilcox County, Alabama, one of the country’s biggest slave trade centers before the war. Herbert Aaron, Henry’s father, left Wilcox County for Mobile to give himself a better a shot at life. There was no reason to stay in Wilcox County. The author talks of the original Henry Aaron, our protagonist’s paternal grandfather. Little is said of his mother’s origins.

Henry’s mother Stella wanted him to go to college, but her son was not academically oriented. As a matter of fact, he did not finish his senior year of high school.

He wanted to play baseball. He had no Plan B for his life. A man named Ed Scott, who was connected to a Negro team called the Indianapolis Clowns, talked Stella into letting Henry give professional baseball a try. He told his mother he could come back finish high school if he didn’t make it in baseball. Father Herbert was on board with baseball. This was in 1951. P. 35

In the first quarter of the 20th century, more blacks were lynched in the state of Florida than any other deep south state. P. 36

Hard to believe that in the same general time period, growing up in Mobile were Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, and Tommy Agee, all great major league baseball players.

During his career, Aaron would be paired with and compared to Mays and Clemente (a fellow right fielder) and ultimately Babe Ruth, but his role model was always Jackie Robinson. P. 167

Robinson may have been his role model, but his idol was Musial. P. 179

In winning the 1957 World Series, the Braves were fighting the mystique of the New York Yankees. As that Series began, the nation was focused on events in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the integration Central High School. The leader of the Braves was Eddie Matthews, at that time 200 homers ahead of Ruth at the comparable point in his career, and it was believed that Matthews had the best chance to catch The Bambino. Henry Aaron was only 23 years old.

Henry Aaron obviously had an internal rivalry with Willie Mays. His “fire glowed with the sight of Mays in the other dugout.” P. 245

Henry Aaron liked Westerns.

He encountered James Baldwin at the 60’s height of the civil rights movement. From Baldwin he realized that the time to wait for equal rights was over. Aaron was to the left of his black contemporaries. P. 273-74

The recently deceased Furman Bisher wrote a demeaning article on Aaron for the “The Saturday Evening Post,” and as late as 2008 wrote that Aaron is a nice man but is “easily led.” Ouch! P. 279

Henry Aaron paid proper respect to Willie Mays, but The Say Hey Kid never returned the favor. The self-absorbed Mays was a great baseball player but is a jerk as a human being, unable to credit anyone but himself.
It seems that Henry Aaron has carried a lot of bitterness over a lot of things over the years, including his induction into the Hall of Fame in 1982. P. 461

After two years back in Milwaukee, Aaron returned to Atlanta and has had success in the business world. Good for him, but you get the impression that he still carries a lot of bitterness.