This Day In Baseball
History: April 8, 1974
It was on this date in 1974,
that outfielder Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves, became baseball’s all-time
home run king when he powered the ball over the left-field fence at Atlanta’s
Fulton County Stadium, in the fourth inning of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al
Downing.
As the 1973 season ended, Aaron
finished with 40 home runs, leaving him at 713 for his career, one shy of
Yankees’ legend Babe Ruth. During the off-season, he was besieged by racial,
hate mail, from bigoted people (I won’t even call them fans) who didn’t want to
see a black man break the record of one of baseball’s most beloved stars. Aaron
even mentioned that his only fear was that he might not live to see the 1974
season, such was the racial tension in America.
As the 1974 season begun, the
Braves played their first three game in Cincinnati. The team’s management
considered to sit him out for the first three games as they wanted Aaron to
break the record in Atlanta. However, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn demanded
that he play at least two of the three games. (How Kuhn would have dealt with
the Braves and a questionable injury would have been interesting.)
In his first at-bat of the
season, Aaron tied the record by hitting a home run of Reds’ pitcher Jack
Billingham, but did not hit another the rest of the series as the Braves headed
to Atlanta for their home opener against the Dodgers.
On April 8, 1974, a crowd of
53,775 people packed Fulton County Stadium, hoping to witness history. Hammerin’
Hank didn’t disappoint. As he circled the bases after his record-breaking home
run, Dodger play-by-play announcer, Vin Scully, had the best commentary (as
always) that could have been provided:
“What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for
Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and
the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for
breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for
all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron. ...And for the first time in a
long time, that poker face in Aaron shows the tremendous strain and relief of
what it must have been like to live with for the past several months."
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