NEGRO LEAGUE TO MAJOR LEAGUE STARS: HANK AARON

On the blog today, we add the great Hank Aaron to my new thread celebrating Major League stars who began their careers in the Negro Leagues:

Turns out Aaron would be the last player active in the Majors that played in the NBL, retiring in 1977 after one of the greatest playing careers any baseball fan would ever see.

Aaron made his professional debut with the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro American League in 1951, playing for three months and is credited according to some sources as hitting .366 with five home runs and 33 RBIs over 26 games.

Incredibly, based on his play there, he was offered two contracts, one by the Boston Braves, and the other by the New York Giants, who had a young Willie Mays on their team.

As Aaron remembered years later:

"I had the Giants' contract in my hand. But the Braves offered fifty dollars a month more. That's the only thing that kept Willie Mays and me from being teammates – fifty dollars".

Can you even IMAGINE what that could have been like?!

Aaron was the model of consistency, never hitting 50 homers in a season but hitting 40 eight times and 30 fifteen times! He also drove in 100 runs in a season 11 times while never topping more than 132, and had 3771 career hits while topping 200 in any year three times out of his 23.
For 21 consecutive seasons, Aaron was selected for the National League all-star team, and garnered M.V.P. votes nineteen straight years!

Think about that, every single year between 1955 and 1973 the man got some attention for Most Valuable Player. That is incredible!

L-E-G-E-N-D!