Aaron's first collectible?

[steve B]

Ok, I'm convinced. Wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong.

I started paying atention to baseball late in 73, and the two erliest things I recall are the 73 series and #715 so the image stuck in my head of Aaron is more the older more filled out Aaron.
Plus, I'm not that great at faces for some reason. You'd have laughed a lot at my couple autograph hunting trips I went on with an aquaintance. He'd run off and come back with something signed and I'd be asking where was that guy? right over there? who? you're kidding?! I pretty much couldn't recognize most players without the uniform.


I think the picture shows him with an odd expression that makes him look very different. Whatever, the distance between the nose and the top of his upper lip is almost double and there's not much delineation between the lower lip and chin.
I looked at a bunch of pictures of him loking for older ones, and his look did seem somewhat variable.

The info about the cross handed thing seems unclear, although the two sources seem pretty solid. I first read about it in a 70's biography I think written with input from Aaron. I'll have to find it, I don't remember the title. That one said he got to the minors and was still hitting cross handed. It also claims the manager wanted to wait till he was settled before fixing it since he thought too many changes at once wouldn't be good.

Steve B