Book We're Reading: "The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron" by Howard Bryant
What a terrific read early on. This is a REAL book: a serious book about a compelling subject, written by a very talented and opinionated African-American writer familiar to Red Sox fans for his outstanding "Shut Out", concerning the racist history of the Yawkey ownership.
We here at The 'Pent are so very excited to delve into this one. It's long, about 550 pages or so, but compellingly and charmingly written thus far (we're about 50 pages in).
Henry (not "Hank", at least to his friends) Aaron was, for many years, the home run king of baseball. And we would guess that, at least for younger fans of the game, that is as far as their knowledge of the legendary slugger goes. But there is so much more to know and to learn: Aaron apparently never even graduated from high school while growing up in segregated Mobile, Alabama. He played in the frigging Negro Leagues, for crying out loud, and was the last Hall of Famer to play in that historic era. He had to deal with the racist southern "gentlemen" that destroyed so many millions of lives, both black and white. And so much more.
Can you imagine growing up in a world where just looking a white person in the eyes could get you reprimanded, and where a comment lacking the proper "Sir/Maam" could get you whipped, and a whistle to a white woman could get you killed? We have a hard time imagining this, but that was the childhood and early adulthood of Aaron. What must it have been like to be a boy in that world, especially for someone as lacking in driving intellect as Aaron?
---------
"The Last Hero" looks to be the book we'll remember most from this summer, though we have yet to get to "War" and "The Bridge."
We here at The 'Pent are so very excited to delve into this one. It's long, about 550 pages or so, but compellingly and charmingly written thus far (we're about 50 pages in).
Henry (not "Hank", at least to his friends) Aaron was, for many years, the home run king of baseball. And we would guess that, at least for younger fans of the game, that is as far as their knowledge of the legendary slugger goes. But there is so much more to know and to learn: Aaron apparently never even graduated from high school while growing up in segregated Mobile, Alabama. He played in the frigging Negro Leagues, for crying out loud, and was the last Hall of Famer to play in that historic era. He had to deal with the racist southern "gentlemen" that destroyed so many millions of lives, both black and white. And so much more.
Can you imagine growing up in a world where just looking a white person in the eyes could get you reprimanded, and where a comment lacking the proper "Sir/Maam" could get you whipped, and a whistle to a white woman could get you killed? We have a hard time imagining this, but that was the childhood and early adulthood of Aaron. What must it have been like to be a boy in that world, especially for someone as lacking in driving intellect as Aaron?
---------
"The Last Hero" looks to be the book we'll remember most from this summer, though we have yet to get to "War" and "The Bridge."
posted by joe sweeney at 6:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home