[ARETE] Hank Aaron

[Hamblin, Robert]

HAMMERIN’ HANK: #715

“I never saw them,”
you said later of the two college kids,
both white, who climbed down
from the bleachers and trotted alongside
as you rounded third and headed
for baseball immortality.

And no wonder.
You weren’t about to let two honkies
intrude upon this moment.
Not after the miles and years
you traveled to run these 90 feet.

So what if you were now
the toast of Atlanta,
the most Southern of all cities,
and to whites as well as blacks.
So what if no hotel clerk.
minor or major league,
could anymore dare to refuse you
service with your white teammates,
send you across town to sleep and eat
in the colored section of town.
So what if even those fans
who once wore hoods
and voted for Lester Maddox
would now be more than happy
to invite you home for dinner,
let you sign an autograph or two for the kids.

Could that atone for the long,
lonely youth in segregated Mobile,
the long bus rides in the Negro League,
the boos and obscenities in the Sally League,
the cold, condescending stares in Milwaukee,
and now, finally, as you approached the summit
no one was expected to climb,
the death threats contained in letters
that claimed “no n----- will ever break
the Babe’s record”?

They were all determined to make you
stay in your place,
admit you were different.

 Well, you were different,
you certainly showed them that,
though not in the way they anticipated,
or preferred. Sullen and speechless,
you answered them all with your bat.
It helped that the ball was white.

--From Keeping Score: Sports Poems for Every Season (2007)

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