Oh Henry...A Tribute to Hank Aaron

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"Sorry 'bout last week," he drawled. "You got no idea."

During the decades since, we became acquainted. I would never use the word "friend," though I somehow always wanted to. He knew who I was, always had a smile and a handshake, and I was just honored at the moment.

There has never been, in my surroundings at least, a classier human being than Henry Aaron. He stood up to that pile of garbage thrown daily at his feet and rose far above it. Upon the occasion of his arrival at the door to immortality, he simply smiled that glorious smile, lifted a hand to the sky and gave silent thanks for quick wrists, fleet feet and Jackie Robinson.

What, though, has he become in the decades since walking through that door? Will we forget, in his silence, what might be the greatest all-around player in baseball history? It should not even be argued, though it always will be, and yet he would not be happy with me as his trumpeter.

"Let 'em think what they want," he would chuckle. "I know, my teammates knew, all that matters."

He smiled that day one more time, tucked in his white workout shirt, and trotted off to get the last treadmill. His body thicker now, his hair patchy gray, his legs a bit gimpy. But still...

I sat back down at my cubicle. I had just changed clothes in a locker room next to Henry Aaron. The Henry Aaron. Not Henry Aaron the car dealer, not Henry Aaron the front-office consultant, not Henry Aaron the civil rights advocate.

No, The Henry Aaron.

And no one - no matter what kind of pharmaceutically-induced numbers in the books - will ever come close to that.