Andy Hartung

Blog Post 5

At this point in my journey through research and beginning my paper I feel that I am in a pretty good spot. However, much more research is going to be a must for me, the sources I have been finding give me very specific information that I am unable to write a significant amount about and there my project may require more sources than I had previously anticipated. The big research question that I had aimed to answer was how Hank Aaron’s time spent with the Eau Claire Bears had helped to develop him into the player he would eventually become. The best answer I can formulate as of now is a quote by Aaron in “A Summer up North.” Aaron states, “Eau Claire was a great stepping stone. If people had not accepted me in Eau Claire, my career would have stumbled a little bit. I don’t know what would have happened to me in baseball.” I may have to alter my research question, the one I currently have might be a bit too specific. There isn’t much documentation of Aaron’s time spent in Eau Claire because it was only a minor league team and nobody really knew he was going to become as good as he was. However I could also try and look at local newspaper articles of that time and see if they have any articles on Aaron and his Eau Claire experience.

If I were to alter my research question I would consider looking more at the history of Aaron’s life, when he started playing baseball and what it was like for him growing up. I could also look at events in his life that were significant to him and who was his baseball inspiration. I know his younger brother also played for the Eau Claire Bears so I could look at their childhood life together in terms of baseball.

Andy Hartung

Blog Post 4

                This next source I will be taking a look at is a very specific source and is a source that I probably won’t be able to extract too much information from. Nonetheless I still think this is an interesting source that will give me some solid information on Aaron’s beliefs and standards post baseball career. The source is, “The Courage to Succeed,” it is a speech given by Hank Aaron recorded by the Media Development Center of The University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire. The speech was recorded live on January 25, 1982.  This source is where I actually generated the second part of my research question from. So obviously this speech will be the main component in answering that question.

                Rhetorically speaking I don’t see why there would be any sort of bias in this, this is a man’s belief, the only way I could think of any bias is if whoever was in charge of editing the video cut out some of Aaron’s opinions which I find very unlikely. This is kind of a unique source in terms that I can’t describe information about the source; the source is simply UWEC, the college’s visual editing team essentially.

                In the speech Aaron talks about some things he experienced playing for the Bears and also while playing in the major leagues. He specifically talks about how it’s about the money for the people in the big leagues. The argument or point Aaron is trying to get across is to challenge his audience is to find solutions to problems of selfishness throughout the world.

                My response to this speech is inspiration; Aaron does a good job in his speech motivating his audience. He describes the right ways to be successful and how to not be so selfish to make the world a better place. It’s quite difficult to doubt anything that comes from a man of this stature, obviously he knows what he is talking about when being successful, is his perhaps in the top three of the greatest baseball players of all time. I agree with his points on being successful, that one does not have to be selfish in order to obtain success.

                I am hoping with a few more sources I can tie them all together and try to answer my research questions. I would like to explore in further detail Aaron’s time spent in Eau Claire. However, I also wouldn’t mind focusing on the bigger picture of his life including his time spent in the major leagues. There will be endless sources about his major league baseball career so that will make source searching easier.

A statue created in memory of Hank Aaron sitting out in front of Carson Park where at one time the Eau Claire Bears once played.

Andy Hartung

Blog Post 3

                The next source I will be further investigating is a book called, “A summer up North: Henry Aaron and the legend of Eau Claire baseball,” This book was written by Jerry Poling. This book will be a crucial secondary source for my research; it will be extremely helping in assisting me in answering part of my research question, which is how did playing for the Eau Claire Bears help to shape Henry Aaron into the magnificent baseball player he would eventually become. I will also get important back ground information regarding his time spent here in Eau Claire, did he like it here, what were some things he experienced while living here? I also have an alternate research question that came up when I was doing my research. It was brought to my attention that Aaron experienced racism during his minor league days and I would like to explore if some of that occurred while he was in Eau Claire or if it was later in minor league days.

                Author Jerry Poling is a new-wire editor and columnist for the Eau Claire Leader Telegram. In his book Poling tells the story beginning with when Henry Aaron got off of the plane and arrived in Eau Claire, Wisconsin where he would be spending the summer. Poling invents his ethos by telling us the audience this story, he wants to the audience to be intrigued by his writings. We can trust Poling’s credibility because he wrote more than one book therefore we can trust him as an author.

                Poling’s is essentially a timeline of Henry Aaron and what he did. It looks at his early baseball days and looked at how individuals had an impact on the sport, such as Henry Aaron. I have not yet read any parts of the book so will not attempt to speculate the argument he is trying to make, however as I continue my research I will at least read some chapters to get a better understanding of the book.

                With this source I can look at “with and against the grain” points. Some areas of it that I might have some doubt about would be when the author is talking about the Eau Claire Bears because there might be some bias there, because he is from Eau Claire. However, I believe a lot more of what he is saying than I doubt. He works also as an editor so we can assume he has experience in avoiding any type of bias, but also we can trust statistics that he gives us because as a journalist that is his job, to get reliable statistics.

                This source will have a strong contribution to my project, from this book alone I can probably get all of my back ground information on Hank Aaron’s life while he was in Eau Claire. The book will talk about what times were like for African-American s during this time period in the world of baseball. This book will be very useful in answering my research questions, I will be able to see how Aaron developed as a baseball player during his time spent with the Eau Claire Bears.

Andy Hartung

Blog Post 2

                The source I am looking at came from a search on credo reference website, the specific article I am looking at came from a book called, “Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience,” written by, Jessie Carney Smith and Linda T. Wynn, however this specific excerpt from this book was written by, Cheryl Jones Hamberg. I chose to select this source because throughout my research I learned that Hank Aaron had to go through dealing with racism a lot in his early career and even while playing for the Eau Claire Bears. This excerpt from this book will help to answer my research question because it gives me a bit of information about what it was like for Hank Aaron in his early baseball days.

                This book was published in 2009 and wrote about many different civil rights experiences including sports. Hamberg has written many different pieces on African-American civil rights which shows the audience she is compassionate about this topic and that helps to invent her ethos. Hank Aaron was passed by Barry Bonds in 2007 as the all-time homerun leader; we see Hamberg’s kairotic thinking by publishing this two years after this event had happened and there was a lot of talk circulating about Hank Aaron again.

                The source starts off talking about where Hank Aaron was born and talks a little bit about his early child hood, it then progresses into his minor league baseball days, where he first started off playing for the Indianapolis Clowns the Negro Leagues.  Aaron’s contract was then bought out by the Boston Braves who proceeded to send him to their minor league team in Eau Claire Wisconsin. The article than talks about the racism he faced, it was really bad when he was the first African-American playing in the Sally League where he played for the Jacksonville Suns. Aaron then faced strong racism again when he began to near Babe Ruth’s previous home run record.

                I believe in many of the points the author is trying to portray its well-known that at this time period racism was still very much so a problem. My article doesn’t really look at other perspectives so it’s hard to bring up “against the grain points.”

This source does a good job helping me to answer part of my research question. I learned a lot about what Hank Aaron’s life was like when he began his baseball career. However, I still would like to strengthen my focus on what his life was like specifically when he was in Eau Claire. Was the racism just as strong here or was it better for him here? I would like to research further into his one summer that he spent in Eau Claire by  looking for other secondary sources, I know there was a book published about his summer here and that is something that I will definitely have to look into.

Andy Hartung

Blog Post 1

My research topic is Henry (Hank) Aaron and the one summer he spent in Eau Claire playing minor league baseball for the Eau Claire Bears. The research question I am exploring as of now is what was Hank Aarons stay in Eau Claire like for him, and how playing for the Eau Claire Bears helped to shape him into the player he eventually became. This topic interested me because I am a sports fan and because I didn’t have much previous knowledge about the history of Eau Claire and I heard Hank Aaron was here for a summer and it immediately caught my attention. He is a hall of fame player and second on the list of most career home-runs in the MLB, this guy is extremely famous so I thought it would be interesting to learn a little bit about where baseball all started for him.

                The reason I find this research question to be important is because I am curious as to what his opinion of Eau Claire was during his stay, and also because I would like to know how playing for the Eau Claire Bears helped him to develop into such an amazing major league baseball player. However another research question that I didn’t previously state, but I still want to look into is what Hank Aarons keys to success were. The reason I am interested in this is because about 20 years after he played for Eau Claire he came back and gave a speech on how to be successful. This question seriously caught my attention because a man who had so much success in something probably has a few tips and pointers to give on being successful. As of this time I do not have a satisfactory understanding of these questions because this is something that I have never done any previous research for.