Sometimes it was ordinary fawning, occasionally it was an honest question, and often, Hank Aaron knew, it was something not nearly as innocent, an inquisitor attempting to trap him into declaring himself superior to the beloved Babe Ruth. Aaron never said that, of course. He never said he was a greater home run hitter than Ruth or any other American hero. He just pointed out that he hit more of them than anybody else, a feat for which he would staunchly not apologize.

It has been 22 years since Aaron chalked up his 755th home run, and people still misunderstand how he did it. He was not Ruthian. He was not even McGwirian. It was never his custom to launch baseballs in majestic arcs toward the upper deck and beyond. What he did, instead, was lash an unrelenting and epic succession of line drives, a number of which happened to exceed the dimensions of the playing field. Until the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta and his distance was extended by physical maturity and Georgian air, the remarkable lifetime achievement for which Aaron seemed destined was 4,000 hits. Even in his power years, he was an accidental slugger, one distinctly not of the awe-inspiring variety.

The latter, however, have come to be considerably more common. You might recall that when Darryl Strawberry broke in with the New York Mets in 1983, sending home runs soaring with his long, rhythmic swing, the possibilities created a wave of public speculation: Would he be the one to someday overtake Aaron as the all-time home run leader? Three years later, when Jose Canseco muscled onto the scene with Oakland, media types and even opposing players gathered around the batting cage to witness what raw strength could do to a baseball and ask the same question.

In both instances, the prattle would soon be dismissed as silly. Blinded by the pyrotechnics in the bats of the young bashers, observers had failed to recognize that home run records are made of more stuff than firepower. By the second or third time the cops stopped Canseco's speeding sports car, and the second or third time they were called to the Strawberry home, it was evident that both would self-destruct long before they were close enough to make out the numbers on Aaron's back.

Aaron's genius, it turns out, was not in his wrists but in his gift for self-preservation. He was an artist in that respect, possessor of a dazzling insight into how to pace his energy and conserve his strength. It had to do with his eating habits and his sleeping habits and even the way he slow-chased fly balls. The whole idea was to remain strong enough for 150 games a season. When younger Braves came to him for advice, expecting wisdom about hip turns and working the count, he would tell them simply to pick their spots -- when they could be hurt, when they could stay out partying -- because they were only allowed two days off a month.

Dusty Baker once said that the thing that most impressed him about Aaron was the way the great man played with pain.

"Many times," recalled Baker, now the manager of the San Francisco Giants, "he'd limp into the clubhouse like he could barely make it to his locker. Then he'd sit down with his newspaper and not even look up as everybody else came in and got dressed and fooled around. I believe he was thinking away the pain. He'd sit there for the longest time, and his eyes wouldn't even move. Then it would be time for the game to start, and he'd get up like there was not a thing wrong with him. He'd pound the ball and run the bases like a kid. Then, when the game was over, he'd come limping back into the clubhouse like he was on his last legs."

And thus it was that Hank Aaron hit at least 20 home runs -- up to 47 -- for 20 consecutive seasons. Thus it was that Aaron's total bases, if laid out end to end, would put him exactly 12.3068 miles ahead of the next guy, Stan Musial.

Considering Aaron's record and reputation, a surprisingly low percentage of those bases were accumulated by home runs. His career home run average was .061, which leaves him entirely out of the top 10 all-time. Even Strawberry has pulled ahead of him, at .062, which is still behind Canseco at .065 and Ken Griffey Jr. at .067.

The all-time leader in this category has historically and overwhelmingly been Babe Ruth, whose 714 homers came at an .085 clip, but the dizzying events of the last two seasons have suddenly left Mark McGwire atop the list with an amazing .087 average for his 13-year career.

What this means is that, of all the men who have played major-league baseball, the St. Louis first baseman is the most likely to hit a home run when he steps up to the plate (one every 11.5 at-bats). To surpass the inimitable Ruth in that respect is a monumental feat -- one more revealing, certainly, than the single-season record of Roger Maris that McGwire is currently pursuing at a wildly successful pace.

As for the matter at hand, meanwhile, the percentages are clearly on McGwire's side, suggesting that he is better equipped to hit 62 home runs in a season than anyone else in history. Maris, however, taught us that past performance is not a vital indicator for such a salient accomplishment (aside from his 61 in '61, he never hit more than 39 in any other season), and Hank Aaron demonstrated that power alone does not bring in the big numbers.

And so Mark McGwire must prove not that he can change the weather with one swing -- been there, done that -- but that he can play 150 games in a season. He did it last year, the result being 58 home runs, but in each of the previous five he was significantly compromised by one injury or another.

Griffey, too, played a full season last year for the first time in four, and consequently wound up with 56 long ones. Sammy Sosa, the third serious challenger to Maris's record, appeared in all 162 games last season for the Cubs, but had missed considerable time the previous three.

The bottom line is that none of these fellows has enrolled in the Hank Aaron School of Putting Up Numbers.

Nonetheless, in the expansion season of 1998 home runs have become so cheap that all three are capable of crashing into the 60s if they get a little lucky -- luck, in their cases, being only a matter of not getting nicked. Of all the contenders, however, only McGwire will hear the question if he breaks the record.

"Mark," somebody will ask, and then somebody else, "do you think you're the greatest home run hitter ever?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he'll answer, hating that he has to talk about such a thing.

But he will have a case. He will have hit more homers than anybody else in a single season. He will have hit more homers than anybody else over two seasons. He will have a higher home run average than anybody else.

And, at age 34, he'll be only about 300 home runs short of Hank Aaron -- which, incidentally, is more than Roger Maris hit in his entire career.

Back

(Lonnie Wheeler is a former newspaper writer and the author or co-author of eight books, including "I Had A Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story." He wrote this commentary for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. He lives in New Richmond, Ohio.)