Hank Aaron‘s career stat line
 

He’s the only player in history with a career stat line of:

.300+ AVG (.305)
500+ HR (756)
2,000+ RBI (2,297)
2,000+ Runs (2,174)
3,000+ Hits (3,771)

I’ve followed baseball and baseball history closely my entire life and have never seen this stat before. Mays and Williams probably get there without their military service but it’s still remarkable.

I think Aaron is very underrated...

Most fans don't realize that if you subtracted his 755 career home runs, he would STILL have over 3,000 hits!

Pujols is damn close, but he will fall short on runs and his BA is 1 point below .300 now and likely will not rise above and may drop a point or two before he retires. Still, it shows how great of a player he was as well.

If Babe Ruth hadn't spent his first few years as a pitcher, he easily makes that list.

Good point.

He also didn't have to play against any black players

Nor did he play night games, face specialty pitchers, or travel coast to coast. Nonetheless, I have a sneaking suspicion that those factors would not have derailed his production.

Definitely not doubting the Babes status as a Legend but I feel people underrate Hank and what he did in his career

I think everyone considers Aaron an All-Time Great, who underrates him?

I agree they consider him an Alltime great but I don't think the casual fan ever puts him up in the conversation as the greatest. We forget that this board has more knowledgeable fans than the general public and we rate him higher here(justifiably so)

I believe that if a player like Aaron would have been allowed to compete during Ruths time he would have similarly dominated the game. Personally I would take Hank Aaron any hitter in the history of the game.

I would take Williams as my first hitter building a lineup. But my first pick on putting a team together would be Mays.All great points above mine!

I under-rate him, I confess. Probably because he was so damn consistent throughout his career. You could basically mark him done for 40 and 100 every year. Didn't he hit 44 HRs 5 times?

By the way, has everone on this thread donated their $73.83 to the NLBM? It would be great to get to 100 donations.

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Or against any Latino players.

I'd say the general public doesn't have a clue about all-time greats.
They might hear names on TV, maybe in a magazine or newspaper article, perhaps see a few common short names in crossword puzzles (Mel Ott is a crossword puzzle legend!!), etc.

If you don't know the game well enough, you can't really offer a meaningful opinion on who were the greatest.

Thought this was funny, was on the phone with an ebay rep today about an issue and he saw I buy baseball cards. He had an accept, not sure buy possible latin American, and he pulled Sandy Koufax out of his butt, but said he knows of no other baseball player? Where does that one come from? Good pick, but does he just know that one name???

He also never hit over 50 homers in a season. A remarkable stat considering his 755 home runs. As people have mentioned he was just consistently great.

And I think 2 WS and 1 WS win early in his career and then only one other playoff appearance in Atlanta late hurt him as well - especially when that was the only way people were seeing many players - especially players outside of NY/LA, etc.

I was born in 72 and took a shine to Aaron very early on in life. When I was in elementary school, the library had 3-4 Aaron books. I read them and I memorized his statistics. I remember reading about the two sandwiches that he left Mobile with on his way to playing for the Indianapolis Clowns.

When I watch the replay of 715, I can only imagine the fear when the two guys rushed the diamond to round second base with him. Yet, throughout his career, he continued to show grace and forgiveness when I would have harbored anger and resentment.

I count my '54 Aaron as my favorite card in my collection. I have an autographed picture of him hitting 715 on my wall - the former SI cover. I have an autographed picture of Hank and Willie that I bought when I was in cooperstown with the boys in 2012. I have autographed baseballs of Hank and Willie that sits on a shelf below the picture.

I remember thinking about how crazy it must have been in '73 when he finished the season one home run short. This would have been one season after Clemente finished with exactly 3000 hits and then perished in the offseason.

I guess that is a long-winded way of saying that I never saw Hank play. I was only 4 when he retired and don't remember ever watching him. I read about him, wrote to him when I was a kid (and he sent back and autographed picture), and studied his career. Without question, he was my favorite player over all active players in the early '80's and he remains my favorite today.

Supposedly that was the only reason that his hitting career wasn't possibly ruined (if he'd come up as a position player, teams in his first years would've likely tried to coach the big swing out of him). The norm in the dead ball era.

But by the time he'd been in the league a few years and had the, well, pitcher's chance to keep hitting the ball to the moon, I imagine no one wanted to mess with what he was doing by then.

Actually this isn’t really true. During the teens and twenties there were a number of Latin players - including Dolf Luque, Mike González, Armando Marsans, Rafael Almedia and a number of others. In addition Ruth lead a barnstorming trip to Cuba in 1920 and played against all of the Cuban Greats

Too bad that "damn close" doesn't count.

IF you allow the definition of "damn close" to include "not close at all" then I could have joined Aaron in his group which currently numbers one member.

And I would argue that Stan Musial is "damn closer" than Albert.


Yep... IF

I would have joined Mr. Aaron on that list of one, making us a great duo... IF



Doug "I coulda been a contender" Goodman

Walt No-Neck Williams is the ONLY player in Baseball history with the stat line: .270 BA; 33 HR; 173 RBI; 284 Runs; and 34 SB. No other player in baseball history ever matched that stat line! Should be in the HoF.

First ballot Hall of Famer. Holder of significant records. Baseball Icon.
...and STILL underrated.

Yeah! No-Neck has more career HRs than HoFer Ozzie Smith. More SB than HoFer Harmon Killebrew. Higher career batting average than HoFer Mike Schmidt. Struck out less than Babe Ruth. Higher career slugging percentage than HoFer Rabbit Maranville. He has a lower career ERA than Sandy Koufax!

The worst is when people say "he has the highest/most __________ of anyone not in the HOF", unless they elect every single player into the HOF, there will always be someone with the highest/most not in.