Ralph & Henry

This isn’t a prison blog. Then again, everything I think about, everything I experience, everything I remember is felt through the prism of this place.

            Last week baseball Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner died at the age of 91. Between 1946 and 1952 no ballplayer hit more homeruns than Kiner. Seven straight years he led the National league in homeruns. No other player – not Ruth, Bonds, no one – ever did that. For a time he was the highest paid player in baseball. Then, a back injury (which eventually cut short his career) “weakened” him to only 22 homeruns in 1954. The next season Kiner agreed to sign with the Cleveland Indians only after requiring them to cut his salary 25%. You don’t see many men willing to ask for that.

            Kiner played before my time, but he became the voice of my beloved New York Mets. Every game he’d have the star on after the last out and talk baseball – real baseball, not this talking head clap trap that passes for analysis today – on “Kiner’s Korner.” Most of what I know about this amazing game came from listening to Ralph Kiner.

            Even at 91, after Bell’s palsy and strokes slowed him and slurred his speech he went to the ballpark and talked baseball. He wasn’t as successful at marriage (4; of course, in his prime he dated Elizabeth Taylor and Janet Leigh), but he lived life to the fullest.

            Every time one of these guys leaves here I simply tell them “You have years ahead of you. Lead a beautiful life.” I thought about those words and smiled when I thought of that amazing ballplayer Ralph Kiner.

            And then there is Henry Aaron. A few weeks ago an oil painting of Aaron was dedicated at the National Portrait Gallery. I’m not sure we truly appreciate the likes of the Henry Aarons of the world. He grew up in Alabama at a time when his mother would yell to the children at 4:30 a.m. to “hide under the bed!” because the KKK was marching through. That was America back then. I shudder when I hear people say those were the “good old days.” There was nothing good about the violence and degradation black Americans lived through in the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, even into the ‘60s.

            Aaron was one of the five greatest ballplayers in history yet for years wasn’t allowed to stay in certain hotels or eat in certain restaurants with his teammates; countless indignities were piled on this remarkable athlete. Yet, he never faltered. He never surrendered his pride, he never sacrificed the lesson his mother told him when he was a boy, “remember the Golden rule; do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Even when box loads of death threats came in when he was chasing Babe Ruth’s home run record Aaron never changed.

            Young guys in here spend a lot of time trying to emulate rappers; I always tell them they’d be better off being a little bit more like Mr. Aaron. Of course we all would.