Hank Aaron's Journey to Home Run Royalty

On April eighth, nineteen seventy three, hammering Hank Aaron Babe roofs home run record, hitting his seven hundred and fifteenth home run of his career, becoming the home run King. Here's the story behind how all this happened Today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Today, we're going to focus mainly on how Hank Aaron got to his seven hundred and fifteenth home run, not his whole backstory. We'll just give you a brief overview of that, because his tenure in baseball spans a very unique time, going from where he started to play in the Negro leagues before making it to the major leagues and then going on to become one of the most consistent hitters ever. Now, he started with the Braves all the way back to when they were with Boston, That's how long ago he started. He didn't make the Braves professional team until nineteen fifty four when they were in Milwaukee, and stayed with him through the time when they went to Atlanta. And one of the just unique things about him was how consistent he was. He was never the greatest hitter of all time. He was very rarely the best hitter every year. He was just so consistent for the first twenty years of his career. He never hit less than twenty home runs, but he never exceeded more than forty seven home runs. He was always within that veering more towards the forty than the twenty, but really was just a good hitter overall. He still holds the record for the most bases, meaning from walks to hits. He ran the most basis of any player ever. He also made twenty one All Star Games and is in the top five for RBIs and finished his career hitting over three hundred with over three thousand hits and over two thousand RBIs. And in nineteen fifty seven he won the nl MVP, including three Gold Gloves, and was the Batting Champion for two years and only had the most home runs in the National League four times during his twenty two year career. It's amazing for a guy that went on to have the most home runs in history before Barry Bonds eventually broke his record. So now we come to his record breaking home run as his career in life deserves its own episode has had another time, but his record breaking home run was set up and had so much build up to it because he finished the nineteen seventy three season with seven hundred and thirteen wins. Babe Ruth had seven hundred and fourteen home runs in his career. This was way before African Americans were even able to play in the major leagues, so we had the whole off season to ramp up to Hank Aaron breaking his record, which was going to happen as long as a crazy injury did not come. He would have the chance to make the record. And on Opening Day the next year, he hit a home run, tying Babe Ruth, but they were on the road, so after that game they held him out for the rest of the series because they wanted him to break the record down in Atlanta in front of the home crowd. So we come to April eighth, nineteen seventy four, facing the Dodgers at at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and Hank is facing Al Downing, an veteran pitcher coming up on the end of his career who also wore number forty four, and Atlanta had jumped out to a one zero lead in the second inning, which was scored by Hank Aaron. But then the next inning the Dodgers came back and scored three runs in the third, so the score was three to one. So the bottom of the fourth comes up and the Braves are trailing three to one. In the third, baseman Darryl Evans was able to get on base due to an error, bringing up Hank Aaron to the plate to potentially tie the game. At this point, every time Hank Aaron got to the plate, the fans cheered because they knew they might be witnessed to history. And there was over fifty thousand fans in attendants that day and they were all screaming as that as they could. When Hank Aaron stepped into the box. The first pitch was just outside the strike zone, called a ball, and with every pitch the tension continued to grow and now downing, the Dodgers pitcher comes back and throws one right over the middle of the plate and Hank Aaron swings his bat and makes perfect connection to the ball as it goes right over the left center field wall and the stadium erupts. Everyone is cheering. There are fireworks going on, the announcer goes, it's out of here. It's gone seven point fifteen. There's a new home run champion of all time and it's Henry Aaron. Aaron is just jogging across the bases, not cheering. Then after he passes the second base, comes two fans running onto the field. We eventually find out their names are Britt Gaston and Cliff Courtney, who were both only seven at the time and just wanted to think Aaron for everything he did, as you can see them running with him in this iconic video from this moment, patting him on the back. Now, this moment led to them spending the night in jail, although they were eventually released, but this was a scary moment and had many hold their breath because these two kids were white. And I know it was nineteen seventy four, but race was still a big factor and many of you didn't want to see Aaron break the record of Babe Ruth because he was black. So when these two young white kids come running up to him when he's all alone, there's no one around him. Everyone else's gathered at home plate to thank him. When he gets there, they all hold their breath and luckily it was a good moment in a great moment in history. Then Hank Aaron eventually makes his way to home plate, greeted with everybody on the team, and the game stops for eleven minutes, and his mother's even there to give him the biggest hug he's ever had in his life. He's even said he's never felt more happy than getting in that hug from his mother. And after this eleven minute delay, the game against eventually starts back up and Downing gives up two more walks and they eventually pull him from the game, which would be and the Atlanta Braves go on to win the game, making a story book ending to this great moment in sports history. Now, Hink would go on to hit forty more home runs in the next two seasons and even play another season in Milwaukee, where he originally started for the Milwaukee Brewers before retiring with seven hundred and fifty five home runs, which would eventually be broken by Barry Bonds years later. But for many, Hank Aaron is the home run King. Thank you for listening to to Day's daily sports History. 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