There is no dearth of tributes, short or long, circulating about Henry Louis Aaron (aka “Hank”, “The Hammer” or “Hammerin’ Hank”) in honor of his life and legacy, which is as it should be. Below are some links to some of them, as well as some information on his career highlights.
If you only have time to watch one thing today, GBN encourages you take four minutes and check out the moment when Aaron, while playing for the Atlanta Braves, broke Babe Ruth‘s all-time home run record on April 8, 1974. As Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully says:
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 the record of an all-time baseball idol and it is a great moment for all of us and particularly for Henry Aaron.
Regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Aaron’s 755 career home runs stood as the Major League Baseball record for 33 years, and he still holds many MLB offensive records to this day.
Over the course of his 23 seasons in the MLB, Aaron hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973, andis one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times. In 1982, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
To read more about Aaron:
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I remember this so well. I was in junior high and the night he broke the record I was doing my homework & listening to the radio. At every game we wondered if that would be the night. My father as always was watching baseball and when I heard the crowd roar, I turned down my radio and heard the announcement that he broke Ruth’s record. I felt a sense of relief because I knew what he was facing with the usual racism. I smiled and went back to doing my homework.
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