The Braves slugger occupied the rarefied space of a player who stands out in every crowd — even one full of Hall of Famers.
It was another day of mourning for Reggie Jackson and the rest of the greatest baseball players who ever lived. Another of their brethren had died, this one, perhaps, the greatest of all: Henry Louis Aaron. “It’s kind of settled in with me over the last three hours,” Jackson said on Friday from California, his voice catching over the phone. “It’s beating me down. When you see your guys, your idols, the people that taught you so much about how to act and how to do things in life — it’s really hard.” Jackson spoke of the sorrowful Sunday morning in October when Joe Morgan’s wife, Theresa, called him before dawn to say her husband was gone. It was not a surprise. Others had been asking Jackson for updates on Morgan — Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Ozzie Smith, Commissioner Rob Manfred — and he could only guess the worst. “He knows I’m calling, and he’s not calling back,” Jackson would say. “He’s in trouble. He’s in trouble physically. I think Joe’s dying.” The Baseball Hall of Fame has lost 10 of its members in the past 10 months: Al Kaline in April; Tom Seaver in August; Lou Brock in September; Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford and Morgan in October; Phil Niekro in December; and Tommy Lasorda, Don Sutton and Aaron this month. Their playing careers stretched from 1950 to 1988 — all were active in 1967 except Lasorda, who was inducted as a manager — and they would gather almost every summer in Cooperstown, N.Y., to welcome new members at the Hall’s induction ceremony. “You get to know them, you get to know their families — they become teammates, in a sense, and that’s a great thing,” Jim Palmer said on Friday. “It’s a fraternity, but it’s also a family. So every time somebody passes away, it’s like you lose a family member. And then you think about how important these people were to the fans who rooted for them and cheered for them.” Joe Torre was teammates with Aaron, Brock, Gibson, Niekro and Seaver. He wore Yankees pinstripes like Ford, and Dodger blue like Lasorda. He competed and managed against Morgan and Sutton.
