[ARETE] Hank Aaron

[richard crepeau]

Thanks Robert, it was great to read this one more time.

Dick
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Subject: [ARETE] Hank Aaron








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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