Tom Brennan - Hank Aaron and Willie Mays Were True Baseball Iron Men

How sad to see # 44, the great Hank Aaron, pass on.  We lost a lot of class that day.

Aaron and his competitor for greatest NL player of his era, Willie Mays, were true Iron Men.

True, they got more unscheduled days off due to doubleheaders.  But they also had to play those doubleheaders.

Hank played 3,298 games. That's the equivalent of more than 20 years of 162 game seasons. Ed Kranepool has the Mets' record: 1,853 games.  Not...even...close.

Subsequent to his 20 year old 1951 rookie season, Hammerin' Hank missed just 7 games over the next 7 years.

Over the following 7 years, he missed just an average of 7 games per season.

His next two seasons, his 16th and 17th, at ages 35 and 36, he missed 25 total games, but still averaged 150 games per season.

Over the next 4 years, ages 37-41, he averaged 128 games per year, before his final year at age 42 with 85 games.

All adding up to an amazing 13,941 career plate appearances (3rd all time - just 51 behind Carl Yastrzemski but still almost 2,000 behind perennial lead off hitter Pete Rose, who was up an astonishing 15,890 times). 

Hank compiled 1,497 extra base hits, and 143.1 WAR.  By comparison, David Wright had 49.2 WAR in his career, and just a Mets record 6,872 plate appearances, just 49% of the Aaron's career number.

And along the way he managed to hit 7 HRs off Sandy Koufax and 8 off of the great Juan Marichal.  He even got Tom Seaver 4 times, even though most of the prime of Aaron's career was already past when Seaver joined the bigs in 1967.  

Willie Mays

The Say Hey kid outdistanced Aaron with 156.3 WAR.  (Of course, who else but Babe Ruth, as a hitter and pitcher, has the all time major league lead in WAR with 182.5.)

Willie produced this WAR total despite losing 4 months early in his career in 1952, and all of 1953, to military service.

When he got back, he returned with a superstar year in 1954 at age 23.  From 1954-66, a span of 13 years through age 35, he missed just 40 games.  Doubly amazing, considering all the greater wear and tear from added travel distance from the west coast.  In his 5 seasons from 36 through 40, he averaged 136 games per season, still very impressive.  

1,323 extra base hits plus an untold number of lost homers due to the Candlestick Park frequent cold gale force winds. How many? Hall of Fame writer Bob Stevens said, "In any other ballpark, Willie would have hit 800 home runs."   

Maybe yes, maybe no, but he sure did lose a bunch there. And of course he lost over 260 games due to military service.  Say HEY!

Today's greatest players over the course of their careers are likely Mike Trout and Albert Pujols.

Trout started out in Iron Man fashion from ages 21-24, missing just 12 games in 4 seasons.  In the next 4, however, he's missed 103 games, a substantial uptick.  Iron Man no mas.

Pujols has shown great durability, having racked up 12 seasons with 152 or more games.  But over his 19 full seasons, he averaged "just" 149 games, because in the 7 seasons he didn't rack up 152 or more games, he averaged just 125 games per year.  

The former 13th rounder was passed over by the Mets again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again on draft day that year.  Since the Mets passed him over, he has compiled 12,394 plate appearances and 2,862 games, still incredible numbers. Probably as close to an "Aaron Iron Man" as there is in today's game.

The great Henry Aaron.

The classy Iron Man.  

We will all miss him.