I know there have been a few posts on Hank Aaron after his passing recently, but I thought one on a focused area may be of special import. I recall reading a book around 2nd grade on Aaron (he was still playing back then, but was already a legend), so he’s clearly someone I knew about, even though I’m not a big follower of baseball. I also don’t watch much TV these days, but happened to have the TV on earlier tonight and sat down to eat a quick dinner. I flipped through the channels to find something worthwhile for a few minutes and landed on PBS. Up here when they run *regional* segments it’s mostly Minnesota/Wisconsin or Michigan stuff. What I caught was an episode of Wisconsin Home Town Series, the Eau Claire episode.
This episode covers some interesting things i did not know about. I grew up a couple hours north of Eau Claire and have been to and through EC many times over the years. So though I’m familiar with the area, there is a lot I don’t know about the deeper history of the Chippewa Valley region, and this episode was a nice close to home history snippet. Including a bit on logging, Old Abe (an eagle), how EC played a big role in ski-jumping, an important tire factory (Gillette), and also the Eau Claire Bears (a minor league/farm team for the Milwaukee Braves for many years).
It was this last segment that had some fascinating moments. Even without the recent passing of Aaron, this is worth the watch and time. If you go to Aaron’s Wikipedia entry it does not actually list his EC stint in the sidebar for playing years….they go from his year prior in the Indianapolis Clowns straight to the Braves. They do, however, discuss the year with the Bears in the text of the article:
The Braves assigned Aaron to the Eau Claire Bears, the Braves' Northern League Class-C farm team.[8] The 1952 season proved to be very beneficial for Aaron. Playing in the infield, Aaron continued to develop as a ballplayer and made the Northern League's All-Star team.[8] He broke his habit of hitting cross-handed and adopted the standard hitting technique. By the end of the season, he had performed so well that the league made him the unanimous choice for Rookie of the Year.[17][8] Although he appeared in just 87 games, he scored 89 runs, had 116 hits, nine home runs, and 61 RBIs.[8] In addition, Aaron hit for a .336 batting average.[8] During his minor league experience, he was very homesick and faced constant racism, but his brother, Herbert Jr., told him not to give up the opportunity.
You can watch just the baseball segment of the episode by clicking here.
A few interesting bits from this short 7.5 minute video:
1) One guy points out that there is a strong argument that the progress of civil rights really started with baseball, even before other major civil rights milestones. I think there’s some value in his perspective that many of us don’t even think about.
2) Loved the gal that said her father had a rooming house where they booked the first negro players into the Eau Claire team. Since it was a big controversy at the time, they said *we have four players* we need rooms for and he said *send ‘em over* and they said *but two of them are black* and he said again *send ‘em over*….like it didn’t matter, just send ‘em over and they have rooms.
3) In 1994 Eau Claire unveiled a statue of a young Aaron, with the man himself in attendance. He spoke to a gathering at the time and one of his points is very interesting. He basically said that he always appreciated his time in EC and the people of the area and how they opened their arms to him and how much that mattered to him. He continued that it had meant so much to him that if EC had *not* treated him well, who knows what the next 23 years of his life might have been like.
That last bit is repeated by someone else in the video, and is worth thinking about. He basically implies that his one year in EC and the positive experience he had (at a time when racism was at a peak and he was part of the early breaking of that barrier) made a difference in his life, and career. So much that he wonders how things would have gone if he had not had a positive experience there and then.
This is an important point in ALL our lives, even here and now. In a way you could argue that Eau Claire played a positive support role. While most of us encounter too much negativity around us. The latter are dream-killers and who knows how many lives have been ruined by such negativity. It’s just so nice to hear and read about instances where a person, or people, or even an entire region, play a positive role in someone’s life. All the more so when it’s an early period of influence in that person’s life. And even all the more so when it’s someone who went on to achieve and be all that a man like Henry Aaron was and was able to accomplish in his life.
And that may not have happened if it were not for the people of the Eau Claire, Wisconsin region. For this small token we owe the city and area of Eau Claire a toast of gratitude. It appears there are a few local brewers in the EC area these days. But the one most likely to be found in a wider range is Leinenkugel. Whatever you prefer to toast…..cheers! Thank you, Eau Claire!