[clydepepper]

This is getting to be so hard. As part of the Braves' fan base, loosing Hank was loosing a family member...and that's three in a month...Hank was voted one of the Franchise Four along with May, Bench and Koufax.

As a player, he was forever underrated, but one of the elite of the elite.

As a Man, he was more than that.

I was allowed down into the Braves dugout, prior to a game early in that first season in Atlanta- 1966. My cousin, Whitlow Wyatt, was the Braves' first pitching coach. He got the team to autograph a ball for me- including Hank and Phil. I did not appreciate it at the time and lost the ball somewhere...as a collector, I have replaced it with a ball signed by fourteen of the 1966 Braves...again including Hank. It is one of my prized possessions. I'm constantly looking for a full team-signed ball.

Mom drove us up to see a Braves game every year and, because she had to work the next day, we would leave early - and listen on the radio on the way home. I cannot tell you how often, Hank came up to bat late in the game and delivered, frequently with a homer. We were in the left-field stands and less than 100 feet from where his Home Run in the 1972 All-Star Game.

I just finished reading Tom Stanton's, 'Hank Aaron and the Home Run that Changed America'. - and it did and the book was great.

Hank went through so much - so those that followed wouldn't have to.

Mr. Aaron- I appreciate your walk on this rock and will miss you and think of you every time I look at my digital clocks when it indicates 7:14. Seared in my memory. Rest in Peace Sir.