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Summary: The Hammering Home Run King, Baseball Odyssey & Sport Legend
Review: 'I Had a Hammer':The Hank Aaron Story, is quite a remarkable book. Mr. Aaron had a magnificent career as one of the greatest baseball players of all time, yet he was not as flamboyant and luminous as other figures in the game that most fans are accustomed to remembering such as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio or even Babe Ruth. Aaron was a methodical productive hitter that was a reliable back bone of the Braves organization going back to it's Milwaukee days. He was the man who hit the game winning hit that propelled the Braves into the 1957 World Series, and I later years the only man to break Babe Ruth's home run record making him still the all-time home run king in Baseball. What is sometimes over-shadowed by his home run title is the fact that he was also a very all around hitter throughout his career. Aaron had 2297 RBI's, 240 stolen bases, 98 triples, 624 doubles, 2174 runs, 3771 hits out of 3298 games he played and batted .305 in his career. Incredible all around numbers, and a man any coach would die for in their starting line-up. This story tells much of the untold story of Aaron's career which he candidly lays out in detail for the reader. The high pressure racism he experienced from his early days in the negro leagues, the South Atlantic League and throughout his days as an Atlanta Brave. The flood of death threats and hate mail for his sole 'crime' of being a black man approaching Babe Ruth's record. The book is beautifully presented and is extraordinarily engrossing in it's dignified manner in which Aaron breaks his long year's of silence portraying a tale of an illustrious career and a thrilling American triumph. Mr. Aaron is a legend, and this is more than just any other sports biography. I strongly recommend this book to anyone, as it shines a light on our country's history that is seldom told. I found this to be an astonishing tale about the baseball odyssey who hit the glorious and impossble 715 in more ways than one.
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Summary: Very Powerful
Review: Hank AAron is a True Soilder.He overcame so Much To Being The Best.I feel He is Still a Bit Underrated.If Folks Who Enjoy Sports Truly Know what he had to go thru too Reaching the Heights he did he Would Be Honored alot More.This Book is Very Deep With alot Of Depth.He Sacrificed alot Too Get Where He Got.A MUST READ.
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Summary: I enjoyed this interesting look at Hank Aaron.
Review: Hank Aaron is one of the greatest men to ever live. To gain knowledge of his life in an entertaining way has been a light in my otherwise dark and dreary life. Also, I found the fact that there are other records which The Hammer set that he is more proud of interesting. As my personal compliment to Hank Aaron I won't mention the record or the man who some people can't resist mentioning when speaking of Hank Aaron. Hank Aaron would be a great man without the record, just not one who we remember. Afterall the record didn't make the man, the man made the record.
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Summary: One From The Heart.
Review: Henry Aaron is probably the most underrated baseball player of all time. His story is seldom told or mysticized like other baseball gods. 'I Had A Hammer' is story from the heart. Honest and bold, it tells of Aaron's and other black players' struggle to make it in the big leagues. A must read even if you have the slightest interest in baseball.
Rating:
Summary: One From The Heart.
Review: Henry Aaron is probably the most underrated baseball player of all time. His story is seldom told or mysticized like other baseball gods. 'I Had A Hammer' is story from the heart. Honest and bold, it tells of Aaron's and other black players' struggle to make it in the big leagues. A must read even if you have the slightest interest in baseball.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating look at an interesting man and his times
Review: I got this book for my 13-year old son, but we both enjoyed reading it. The prose is wooden and we learn little about Aaron's personal life. But as a depiction of what he went through as part of the "second generation" of black baseball players, this is great stuff. Aaron was one of the last great players to start in the Negro Leagues. He was also one of the players who helped break the color barrier in the minor leagues in the south. We learn the many hardships and dangers he faced long before his historical chase of Babe Ruth's record. Aaron also "tells it like it is" about the great and not-so-great men with whom he played. If you admire men like Stan Musial, you won't be disappointed. Aaron also tells a compelling story of how the white media consistently misportrayed him. Finally, this book has a lot to offer about baseball. You'll read impressive testimony from men like Eddie Matthews why Aaron, and not Willie Mays, was the greatest player of his generation.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating look at an interesting man and his times
Review: I got this book for my 13-year old son, but we both enjoyed reading it. The prose is wooden and we learn little about Aaron's personal life. But as a depiction of what he went through as part of the "second generation" of black baseball players, this is great stuff. Aaron was one of the last great players to start in the Negro Leagues. He was also one of the players who helped break the color barrier in the minor leagues in the south. We learn the many hardships and dangers he faced long before his historical chase of Babe Ruth's record. Aaron also "tells it like it is" about the great and not-so-great men with whom he played. If you admire men like Stan Musial, you won't be disappointed. Aaron also tells a compelling story of how the white media consistently misportrayed him. Finally, this book has a lot to offer about baseball. You'll read impressive testimony from men like Eddie Matthews why Aaron, and not Willie Mays, was the greatest player of his generation.
Rating:
Summary: Best Read If You Are A Fan
Review: I Had a Hammer is a wonderful book if you are a fan of Hank Aaron or of baseball in general. Aaron gives insights into what it was like to come out of Alabama during the Jim Crow era from his days as a boy, to playing in the Negro Leagues, signing with the Braves, all the way up until his retirement from baseball. That's the good part. As a life-long, Aaron fan I loved it. Unfortunately, the book lacks much of the passion and drive that led Aaron to breaking Ruth's unbreakable career home run record.
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Summary: One of the most interesting people in the sports world
Review: I heard part of this on NPR when it first was published as a book. Hank Aaron came across as a warm-hearted, positive, wonderful person. His stories entertain, but they also educate us on what it was like to grow up African American. This set of audio tapes would be great for listening to while driving to and from work. His story is an inspiration to us all.
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Summary: One of the most interesting people in the sports world
Review: I started following baseball when we moved to NJ in the late 60's and, serendipitously, the first season that really captured my attention was 1969. We had a color TV (a rarity at that time--it was a big old console job with stereo & turntable built-in. You sometimes had to bang underneath the picture tube with a hammer to fix the vertical hold) and our next door neighbor Joe Koberlein would come over to watch Mets games.) Unquestioningly loyal to our beloved Amazins, my brother and I had little doubt that Tommie Agee and Cleon Jones (both of whom happen to have come from Aaron's hometown of Mobile, AL) were the two best outfielders in baseball, maybe the two best ever. Our Father, who had doggedly remained a Dodger fan despite their move West, would put in a word for Duke Snider. We lived in Yankee country, so Mickey Mantle still had his backers and their were those residual Giants fans who stumped for Willie Mays--who also won allegiance from many black fans on racial solidarity grounds. But I really don't ever remember a Hank Aaron fan. Sure we knew he was good, especially during the NLCS were we reminded of how dangerous he was, but he just wasn't terribly glamorous or personable and he played for a team that noone rooted for, so to our minds he was barely worthy of notice. The, seemingly all of a sudden, we realized the guy was about to catch Babe Ruth. I remember NBC breaking into their regular programming to show his 715th HR live. Then began the arguments over just how good he was; arguments that always seemed to have a whiff of race about them. In the ensuing years this argument has hardly died down and the racial overtones have certainly not faded. In fact, the subtle assertion that the only reason you would deny Aaron primacy is that you are a closet racist has added an additional layer of bitterness to his legacy. All of this combined with Aaron's own demeanor, whether he is aloof or shy or whatever, has always led me to view him somewhat askance. There's that visceral level on which I just can't grant him equality with Ruth, let alone with the more personable Mays. So it came as a great surprise and a pleasure when this book was published, to find in its pages a Hank Aaron who was not only a great baseball player but a compelling hero and human being. Beyond simply providing a complex portrait of a gifted and proud human being, the book serves to provide some context for the pure numbers that Aaron put up in his career and, more importantly, reminds us of the backdrop of persistent racism against which these feats were achieved. We all find things easier to comprehend if they follow an easy narrative form, so when we say that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier it is easy for us to misperceive this as meaning that racism in baseball ended in the late 40's. And Aaron, because he was so good for so long, seems to us a figure of the 60's, or even the 70's. But the book reminds us that Hank Aaron began in the Negro Leagues (with the Indianapolis Clowns), played in minor leagues which had only just lowered the color bar, had to stay in separate hotels and eat at different restaurants on road trips, etc. And still, some thirty years later, as he approached the Babe's HR mark, received virulent hate mail. Aaron's incredible career takes on a patina of real grace when considered against this pervasive and corrosive pattern of racial animus. His accomplishments, monumental in themselves, must be judged as singular when taken in conjunction with the unique challenges he faced. If I were picking my all-time team today, I'd still take Ruth and Mays over Aaron (Aaron vs. Ted Williams is a tougher call.) But if you were trying to judge them all as men, I think this book makes a compelling case that Aaron is one of the really great men in the history of sports and even one of the great men in our nation's history. A lot of people have been yammering about the stupid things that John Rocker said in Sports Illustrated, but when I read Aaron's comments that he found them unacceptable, I was struck by how much more moral authority he brought to the question. So many of the great men of the Civil Rights era are gone--Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, etc.--it is important to recognize that one remains, and he just happens to have been a great hitter too. GRADE: A
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