The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He wielded his hammer with incredible grace
Atlanta Public Schools changes its plans to reopen classrooms.
We think of him in that moment, that Monday night in April, NBC and Curt Gowdy on hand, Al Downing throwing, the bat whipping the ball high and deep, Bill Buckner attempting to scale the fence in left-center, the ball settling into Tom House’s glove in the bullpen, more than 50,000 people in the stands and millions more around the world having seen history of many sorts — sports history, sure, but also U.S. history and world history — been made. It remains the greatest moment in the annals of Atlanta sports. It’s on every 10-best list of significant sports moments.
April 8, 1974, 9:07 p.m. Eastern time: Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, eclipsing Babe Ruth’s longstanding record. That moment has now outlived its author; indeed, every obituary worldwide this weekend will refer
to the moment in its first paragraph, if not its first sentence. It was the moment that changed the headline on Hank Aaron’s life, but the man himself was far more than any moment, even that gargantuan one. He wasn’t just a hitter of homers, a grown-up playing a kid’s game. He was a man who lived his life as if he knew one day he would have such a moment. By the time it arrived, he was more than ready for it.
He was a man of willpower, a man of grace. He was a Black man who grew up in the South. He faced slurs and discrimination growing up. He faced more slurs as he began to close in on the beloved Babe. He could have lashed back. He didn’t. He would remember the slurs all his life — how could he not? — but what we remember about Henry Louis Aaron is how he managed to rise above the insults, how he led life on his terms, how he, like Jackie Robinson before him, proved that there was more about a Black man than athletic grace. There also was an inner grace that made Aaron, again like Robinson, the absolute right man at the absolute right time.
Roger Maris’ hair began to fall out during the summer of ’61, the one when he chased Ruth’s other great record. Aaron’s pursuit of 715 was frazzled — lots of press, lots of hate mail, a whole offseason separating Nos. 713 and 714 — but the man whose greatest asset as a player was his matchless consistency didn’t allow the tumult around him to become a tumult within him. He was the guy who’d flown under the radar until deep into his career, playing not for the New York Yan
kees (like Mickey Mantle) or the ex-new York Giants (like Willie Mays). Aaron worked in Milwaukee and then Atlanta. His first graced the cover of
Sports Illustrated on Aug. 16, 1969. He was 35, then in his 16th big-league season.
Wednesday, July 16, 1969: A 13-year-old who liked sports had made the trek up the Ohio River to watch the Reds at Crosley Field. The kid had brought a ball for players to sign. The gaggle of autograph-seekers began to disperse after the Reds took BP, so there were only a few left when the first Brave emerged. He was smoking a cigarette. The kid from Kentucky — and nobody else — recognized him. “Hey, Henry,” the kid said. “How about an autograph?” The man obliged and then moved onto the field. The only autograph signed that night by one of the greatest players ever sits in a plastic case on a shelf 15 feet from where I’m typing.
Superstardom came late to Aaron, who made the All-star team in each of his big-league seasons except the first and last. The world came to know him because of his home runs, but home runs weren’t really what made him a great player. He never hit more than 47 in a single season. He batted .301 at age 39. He never struck out 100 times in a year. And here’s the best Aaron stat: If you took away his 755 home runs, he’d still have had 3,016 hits.
I apologize. On the day Henry Aaron died, we shouldn’t be playing fun with numbers. (Although, you must admit, his make for great fun.) He was bigger than his biggest moment, more than his fattest number. His temperament and his surpassing skills made him the only man to take that historic swing. He left all those expressing vitriol because he happened to be Black looking the way such cretins deserve to look. He never gave in to the hatred, never lashed back. He kept on keeping on. He led a long full life.
To borrow the title from the autobiography he wrote with the late Lonnie Wheeler, he had a hammer. He was Hammerin’ Hank, great player, great Atlantan, great man. As we mourn his passing, we must also recognize the reality: We were, and we remain, ennobled by his life.
Atlanta Public Schools is delaying the return of in-person learning for students in third through 12th grades, while Gwinnett County Public Schools will resume in-person instruction Monday for all students who chose that option.
APS late Friday announced changes to its plan to reopen school buildings.
But Atlanta’s youngest students, those in prekindergarten through second grade, as well as some special education students, will still have the option of returning to classrooms Monday as planned.
Students in third through 12th grade had been scheduled to return to buildings the first week of February. Now, APS says students in third through fifth grades will go back Feb. 8. Middle and high school students will return Feb. 16.
Meanwhile, Gwinnett County Public Schools will resume in-person instruction after switching to full digital learning this week due to staff shortages amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Associate Superintendent Steve Flynt told the school board at a Thursday meeting that 780 staffers were quarantined, including 473 teachers — 13 more teachers than when the decision was made to close.
Flynt said few cases could be traced back to exposure at school.
“We believe in the school is actually a very safe place for students and teachers and we can mitigate the spread there,” he said.
The Cobb and Fulton County school districts have, like Gwinnett, offered parents the choice of in-person or digital learning since the fall semester. Fulton County paused in-person learning districtwide last week as COVID-19 cases surged. Cobb County switched to onlineonly this week, but is set to reopen classrooms next week.
Atlanta, Clayton and Dekalb County school systems are among the few that have remained entirely online since mid-march. Dekalb plans to review whether it will reopen classrooms next month.
One-third of Atlanta students enrolled in the district’s traditional schools want to return to buildings, with the rest opting to remain enrolled in virtual classes.
As of Thursday, 1,763 students and 1,059 staffers in Gwinnett had reported testing positive for COVID19 since school buildings reopened in August, according to an AJC analysis of the school district’s COVID reports. The school district, Georgia’s largest, has more than 177,000 students and 23,000 employees.
At the Gwinnett school board meeting, Flynt said teachers with Covid-related concerns should work with human resources.
“Thereareaccommodations that could be made, depending on the situation,” Flynt said.
But Katie Nelson, a seventh grade science teacher, told school board members that the district denied her request to work from home although she has a chronic condition that causes shortness of breath. Nelson said she had been out on medical leave and will leave Gwinnett next school year to work for another school district.
Seventy-five people addressed the school board at Thursday’s meeting, extending the meeting past midnight for a battle between teachers and parents about reopening schools and the overall performance of Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks, who has the sole authority to open and close campuses.
Some said COVID-19 case numbers were too high for in-person learning or asked the school district to come up with metrics, such as positivity rates, that would trigger school closures so the decision-making process would not seem arbitrary. Many teachers wore black T-shirts printed with the words “In Loving Memory of Maude Jones” and “Say Her
Name.” Jones, a special education paraprofessional at Rock Springs Elementary, died Jan. 4 of COVID-19 after becoming sick while quarantining due to exposure at school.
“Our worst fears have been realized,” said Amber Karasik, a teacher at Jenkins Elementary. “Maude deserved better. Every GCPS staff member deserves better.”
Dozens of parents said special needs children should be allowed in classrooms even when the rest of the district is closed, citing federally mandated services they said could not be accomplished virtually. Parents also said Gwinnett should close individual schools with staffing shortages rather than the whole district.
Laurie Farley said her son is a sophomore at Paul Duke STEM High School, where there are three current positive cases out of 1,100 students, according to school district data.
“We’ve taken away the ability for in-person learning because of three sick people,” she said. “I pay taxes for my child to go to a school building . ... I recognize this is a logistical challenge. Let’s figure it out. What we’re doing isn’t working.”