Not just a power hitter
When he retired, Aaron’s 624 doubles ranked sixth on the all-time list, today he’s number 13, and the only non-DH in MLB history with 620 or more doubles and 00 or more homers.
Only Ty Cobb and Stan Musial reached 3600 hits in fewer PA that Aaron’s 13090 or games than his 3076 as a Brave.
He reached the 3600 hit mark in his last at-bat of his last game as a member of the Atlanta Braves, and it was game 163 of the season; why they played the game is a mystery.
Aaron ended his career batting .305/.374/.555/.928, a 155 OPS+, 153 wRC+ and a .403 wOBA. In addition to holding the all-time, non-cheaters record for homers with 755, The Hammer also holds baseball’s all-time lead with 6856 total bases and 2297 RBI.
Epilogue
He remains the Atlanta Braves’ best ambassador, and as this quote from Bill Johnson’s biography of Aaron on SABR points out, an American hero.
"Hank Aaron not only passed Babe Ruth as Major League Baseball’s career home run leader, but he also made a giant leap in the integration of the game and the nation. Aaron, an African-American, had broken a record set by the immortal Ruth, and not just any record, but the all-time major league home run record, and in doing so moved the game and the nation forward on the journey started by Jackie Robinson in 1947. By 1974 Aaron’s baseball career was within three years of sunset, but the road he’d travelled to arrive at that spring evening in Atlanta had hardened and tempered him, perhaps irrevocably, in ways that only suffering can produce. Aaron finally shrugged off the twin burdens of expectation and fear that evening, and few have ever stood taller."
That’s a wrap
It’s impossible to say something new about one of baseball all-time great all-around players, so I’m not going to try to wax eloquent.
This wraps up the outfielders; I’ll head back to home plate for the catchers in the next post.