Hank Aaron is one of the greatest baseball players in history, famously breaking Babe
Ruth's home run record. Mickey Mantle called him the best ball player of his era, and he's
remembered as an icon on and off the field. This is the untold truth of Hammerin' Hank
Aaron.
Henry Louis Aaron was born February 5, 1934, to Estella and Herbert Aaron in Mobile, Alabama.
Like many Black children of the era, young Henry idolized Brooklyn Dodgers star Jackie
Robinson, who broke baseball's color barrier when Aaron was 13 years old. Aaron told his
father he would make the pros before Robinson retired.
At 18 years old, Aaron dropped out of high school after being signed by the Indianapolis
Clowns in the Negro American League. According to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Aaron
spent one season with the Clowns, making $200 a month and batting a league-best .467 average.
Next, his contract was sold to the Braves - at that time still located in Boston but
soon to move to Milwaukee - for $10,000. The Braves assigned Aaron to the Eau Claire Bears.
In 1953, he became one of the first players to integrate the South Atlantic league. Playing
in the South, Aaron faced a barrage of racist taunts from fans and players.
In the first integrated game in Atlanta, Aaron hit a home run in the first inning, and fans
attempted to hit Aaron with rocks, leading to the game being stopped. Still, Aaron won
the Most Valuable Player award in his only year in the minors. By 1954, Hammerin’ Hank
would be a Major Leaguer.
Before making the Majors in 1954, according to author Ralph Wiley, Aaron hit a ball so
hard that Boston Red Sox star outfielder Ted Williams ran out to the opposing clubhouse
to see who had hit the ball. He didn't suspect that the culprit would be an unassuming player
who had yet to make the majors. Despite his immense talent, Aaron's bat was the only thing
that talked.
Throughout his career, Aaron did not play in a major media market like Mickey Mantle,
and his playing style wasn't known for being "flashy" like Willie Mays. Aaron himself said,
"I didn't do things with a flair by no stretch of the imagination."
His quiet demeanor often led fans to overlook him throughout his career. Despite being consistently
at or near the top of the home run list year after year, it wasn't until 1970 that people
began to notice how close he was to the all-time record. The few times he did appear on the
biggest stages, Aaron proved he had no equal.
Yankees superstar Mickey Mantle looked at Hank Aaron as the greatest player of his generation.
Mantle certainly isn't a minority in this assessment, either, as Aaron's contemporaries
were left in awe from watching him. They had plenty of compliments for him as they were
interviewed following Aaron's selection for Baseball's All-Century Team.
Aaron, known for his steady consistency throughout his 23-year career, left some painful memories
for pitchers who had to face him. Jack Mann of Newsday remembered a nickname Dodgers Hall
of Fame pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale gave to Aaron: "Bad Henry." Koufax had this
to say:
"For me, he was the toughest out. Everybody else, I had a plan. For Henry, I just never
figured out what I was going to do."
Pitchers employed different strategies to deal with "Bad Henry." The "brushback pitch,"
or a pitch thrown intentionally inside to intimidate a batter, was used often against
Aaron. Fellow Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry recalled about the strategy,
"When you knocked Aaron down, you weren't doing yourself any good because he got tougher."
When one thinks of Hank Aaron, the first thing that comes to mind is breaking the all-time
home run record held by Babe Ruth. Ruth's career record of 714 was so great that it
was believed to be unbreakable. However, as the 1970s began and Aaron's consistent performance
continued, many fans and outsiders in the sport made sure Aaron knew how they felt about
a Black man overtaking Babe Ruth.
Aaron received thousands of pieces of hate mail, threatening him and his family if he
kept on pace to break the home run record. On the 20th anniversary of breaking the record,
Aaron spoke candidly about the experience to The New York Times. He recalled,
"My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats, and I had to live
like a pig in a slaughter camp. [...] I was getting threatening letters every single day.
All of these things have put a bad taste in my mouth, and it won't go away. They carved
a piece of my heart away."
Terence Moore, a longtime sports journalist based in Atlanta, had this to say about the
hate Aaron faced during his pursuit of the all-time home run record:
"It's a lot worse than we even know, trust me. Hank doesn't like to talk about it. [...] If
people truly knew the story of what he endured and for him to go through it with dignity
and still be productive [...] it's just astounding."
After a long winter concluded, the 1974 season was set to begin with Aaron sitting at 713
career home runs. One to tie, two to win. However, during this time, the commissioner
of the MLB, Bowie Kuhn, and Aaron began to butt heads.
Atlanta opened the season with a three-game road trip in Cincinnati, and Aaron and the
Braves wanted the record to be broken at home in Atlanta. However, Commissioner Kuhn ordered
Aaron to play in at least two of the road games.
Aaron began the season by tying the record with a home run on April 4, but he was fuming
behind the scenes. Aaron had reportedly asked that there be a moment of silence in honor
of the six-year anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. His request was
denied, with time constraints being blamed. Aaron actually sat the bench game two, and
then went homer-less in the third game in Cinci, which meant he returned to Atlanta
only one home run away from the record.
In front of a celebrity-packed crowd and with millions watching on television, Aaron broke
Babe's record. Missing from the celebration was Commissioner Kuhn, the commissioner citing
scheduling conflicts for his absence.
This, coupled with what he felt was unfair treatment of Black players, led Aaron to resent
Bowie Kuhn. In 1980, Aaron reportedly refused an award from his old rival in celebration
of his record-breaking home run, criticizing the MLB's treatment of retired Black players.
In 1961, Yankees slugger Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's single-season home run record
by hitting 61 in a season. During the season, according to Newsday, the pressure led Maris
to suffer from anxiety and hair loss. So imagine years instead of months chasing Ruth?
In an interview looking back on the home run chase, Aaron called 1972 and '73 as "two of
the toughest years" he had as a baseball player.
"Once I reached something like 650 -- I was way up in the 600s -- I thought that I had
an outside chance, you know, if everything would fall in place."
Then April 8, 1974 came. The attendance that night was 53,775 people, the highest in the
park's history. Against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Aaron stepped to the plate in the fourth inning.
His teammate, Dusty Baker, who was batting after Aaron, recalled Aaron saying,
"I'm tired of this, I'm gonna get it over with."
Being the veteran, savvy player he was, the sequence went as predicted, and Aaron smacked
the ball into the Atlanta Braves' bullpen for No. 715.
"Aaron waiting, the outfield deep and straight away… Fastball, it's a high fly to the deep
left center field, Buckner goes back to the fence — it is gone!"
As he was rounding second base and the crowd was exploding in a frenzy, two white fans
ran onto the field. Aaron's wife, Billye, remembered being terrified for a moment at
the sight of the two men following her husband. However, the fans simply patted Aaron on the
back and congratulated him.
Hank Aaron's home run record is commonly regarded as being his legacy in baseball, only surpassed
33 years later by Barry Bonds -- with great controversy, as Bonds admitted to using performance-enhancing
drugs during his pursuit of the record.
"It's kind of hard for me to digest and come to realize that Barry cheated."
But some of his other records remain untouched by other players. Baseball record books still
show Hank holding the record for career runs batted in, at 2,297, as well as the record
for total bases at 6,856.
Aside from that, Aaron was an elite defensive player. After spending his pre-professional
career as an infielder, Aaron found a permanent spot in the outfield, which worked out, as
Aaron's infield abilities were not at a professional level. After a preseason game prior to being
promoted, Dodgers outfield Duke Snider recalled about the minor leaguer Aaron,
"I don't think much of him as a second baseman, but the way he swings a bat, they're going
to find a place to play him."
Aaron played 2,174 of his over 3,000 games as a right fielder, according to Baseball
Almanac, and won three Gold Glove awards, given to the best defensive player at a specific
position. Unlike many other power hitters, Aaron's strikeouts remained very low, averaging
only 68 strikeouts per season. By comparison, Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth averaged 83 and
86 per season. The late Tom Seaver said it best when describing "Hammerin' Hank":
"The thing that people should know about Henry is [...] how good an all-around player he
was. That's one of the most overlooked aspects of his career."
Beyond the home run chase, Hank Aaron was on the front lines of civil rights during
and after his career. Aaron was one of the baseball players in the early 1960s who pushed
to desegregate Spring Training facilities in Florida. In 1966, the Milwaukee Braves
became the first professional league to move to the Southeast, becoming the Atlanta Braves,
right in the heart of the Civil Rights Movement.
Aaron entered the league only two years before Jackie Robinson's retirement. After idolizing
Robinson as a teen, Aaron told Dan Patrick in an interview that he would talk to Robinson
during and after games, learning from his hero.
Still, the home run chase and the racism he endured during that time remains the greatest
testament to Aaron's strength. After the 1973 season ended with Aaron one home run shy of
tying the record, he told reporters he feared he would not live to see the next season.
Lewis Grizzard, the sports editor of the Atlanta Journal, had privately written an obituary
for Aaron on the all-too-real chance he would be killed before breaking Ruth's record. Aaron
kept and occasionally read many racist letters he received, saying of them,
"They remind me not to be surprised or hurt. They remind me what people are really like."
For a player and man as great as Hank Aaron, it would be an injustice if his retirement
in 1976 was the end of his time in the spotlight. With very little debate, Aaron was elected
to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1982. Upon retirement,
Aaron was hired by the Atlanta Braves as the director of player development. He was the
first African American to hold a senior-level management position in baseball. Aaron remained
connected with the Braves organization throughout the rest of his life.
According to ESPN, in 1999, the MLB announced that the best hitter in both the American
and National League would receive the Hank Aaron Award. At the 2015 All-Star Game, Aaron,
along with catcher Johnny Bench, outfielder Willie Mays, and pitcher Sandy Koufax (the
man who referred to Aaron as "Bad Henry"), were honored as the four greatest living ball
players.
In 2002, President George W. Bush awarded Aaron with the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
the highest honor one can give a civilian. In 2015, the National Portrait Gallery honored
Aaron by making him one of their first five individuals selected for their gala.
After years of being left out of honors and celebrations because of his quiet posture
and the color of his skin, the twilight of Henry Aaron's life saw him properly celebrated
for his accomplishment.
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