Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, June 15, 2007, Washington Post

Henry Aaron: A Record of Excellence

The big baseball story this summer is Barry Bonds closing in on the major league record for career home runs. The San Francisco Giants slugger has 747 home runs. He needs nine more to break the record. So lots of fans, including kids, are talking about him.

While most kids have heard of Bonds, my guess is that not as many know about Henry Aaron, the Hall of Famer who holds the record of 755 career home runs.

Henry Aaron's 715th home run broke Babe Ruth's record. Barry Bonds now is approaching Aaron's career mark of 755. (By Joe Holloway Jr. -- Associated Press)

Aaron was born in 1934 in Mobile, Alabama. He played football and baseball as a kid. But his family was poor and young Henry received so little coaching that he batted cross-handed: He hit right-handed but placed his right hand on the bottom of the bat and his left hand on top.

Aaron's weird way of hitting did not stop him from playing pro ball. As a teenager, Aaron played for the Indianapolis Clowns, an all-black team in the Negro Leagues. In 1952 he joined the Braves organization (playing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and later Atlanta, Georgia).

Aaron, who by now had learned to hold his bat the correct way, was a terrific player for the Braves from the start. He was an all-star in his second season and the Most Valuable Player in the National League in 1957, batting .322 and leading the league with 44 home runs and 132 runs batted in.

While Aaron was a great hitter, no one thought he would challenge Babe Ruth's record of 714 career home runs. Fans thought that Willie Mays (who finished with 660 career home runs), Mickey Mantle (536) and even Aaron's teammate Eddie Mathews (512) had a better shot at Ruth's record.

But Hammerin' Hank kept piling up home runs at a clip of 20 or more for 20 straight seasons -- 1955 through 1974. In eight of those seasons, he hit 40 or more, and by 1973 he was approaching Ruth's mark.

Some people did not like the idea of a black player breaking a white player's record. They sent Aaron threatening letters and called him terrible names. At first, he kept the nasty letters a secret. But when baseball fans, including thousands of kids, found out, they wrote to Aaron saying they were pulling for him to break the record. That year, he received about 930,000 letters.

The threats didn't stop Aaron from playing, or hitting home runs. On April 8, 1974, he belted number 715 and became the new home run king. He added 40 more to his total before he retired in 1976 after two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Henry Aaron holds several major league records, but he's not just a name or number in a record book. He was a real ballplayer and a real man.