I missed the news last year when the United States Postal Service issued a “forever” stamp in honor of Hank Aaron. But a lovely surprise arrived in the mail the other day.
A friend and former Associated Press colleague had stuck one of the stamps in a notecard and mailed it to me in an envelope sent with one of the Hammerin’ Hank stamps.
My friend Paul knows I’m a baseball fan and remembered that I’d begun my AP career in Milwaukee, the same city where young Henry Aaron broke into the big leagues of baseball.
The stamp, a wonderful token of kindness, shows Aaron in an Atlanta Braves uniform later in his career. I absolutely love it, and I’m on the fence on whether I should keep it or send it on a letter to my young grandsons in New York City.
Either way, I want them to know about Hank Aaron, how he came from the American South and broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. When these two toddlers are a little older, I’ll tell them how Aaron overcame the demeaning prejudice of so many cruel Americans who taunted and threatened him merely for the color of his skin.
I had the privilege of hearing Hank Aaron speak about his life in baseball at what was then the newly opened Miller Park in Milwaukee. The event was a newspaper conference held in Milwaukee not long after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. I am pretty sure my colleague Paul was there, too. We had arrived on some of the first commercial flights once they widely resumed after 9/11.
Years later, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I watched on TV as Barry Bonds broke Aaron’s career home run record. That was great in the moment, but Bonds’ record was tainted by the “cream and the clear” allegations of steroid use.
No stamp for Barry. But Hank? He deserves it.
The Ball Caps Blog 
Man, I enjoyed this….more tributes to Aaron. You write it well Dan and add to the well deserved tributes. i just started reading “I Had a Hammer” and am in the early parts of Aaron’s life growing up in Mobile and Mobile seems like a place to visit, kind of an international city because of it being a port city and all the different people coming and going I guess. I’ve never been to the deep south other than florida.
Thanks, Steve. I need to read that book. I’ve been to 47 states, and Alabama and Mississippi are my next targets. I’ll definitely hit Mobile.
I don’t know that I knew about the stamp either…and, in my many visits to the post office, I don’t know that I saw this one up on their bulletin board. Will look next time. (I hope you sent it to your grandsons…)
That’s the plan!