Henry “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron was an outfielder with the Milwaukee Braves, Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers. He was a 25-time All-Star, was elected to the MLB Hall of Fame in 1982, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. He holds the MLB career records for RBI (2,297) and total bases (6,856), and was baseball’s home run king from 1974, when he hit number 715 off the Dodgers’ Al Downing, until 2007, when he was surpassed by the cheater Barry Bonds, who made a mockery of the most hallowed page of the MLB record book. Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001 at the age of 37, and as Reggie Jackson said at the time, he would have hit 100 if anybody had pitched to him (he also had 177 walks). Aaron never hit more than 45 home home runs in a single season. Muhammad Ali once called… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Hall of Fame
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Al Kaline
Al Kaline played all 22 years of his career as a right fielder for the Detroit Tigers, played in 18 All-Star games, won 10 Gold Gloves, a World Series in 1968, had 3,007 hits, 399 home runs, a .297 batting average and was a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He died today at the age of 85. On his 80th birthday, he said: “To this day, I can’t believe the life I’ve had. I wanted to be a baseball player — and do the one thing I was good at. “Even now, I love it so much.” RIP Al Kaline Read more →
You Could Be Someone Special
Thanks for pushing me and always preaching to me, “You could be someone special, if you really work at it.” I took that to heart, pops, and look at us today. — Frank Thomas, induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame Read more →