Home run king Aaron dies at 86
Keeping an eye on the world of sports during the pandemic:
Hank Aaron, who endured racist threats with stoic dignity during his pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home run record and gracefully left his mark with 755 homers and a legacy as one of baseball’s greatest all-around players, died Friday. He was 86.
The Atlanta Braves, Aaron’s longtime team, said he died peacefully in his sleep. No cause was given.
Aaron made his last public appearance just 2 ½ weeks ago, when he received the COVID-19 vaccine. He said he wanted to help spread the word to Black Americans that the vaccine is safe.
“Hammerin’ Hank” set a wide array of career hitting records during a 23-year career spent mostly with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves, including RBIs, extra-base hits and total bases.
But the Hall of Famer will be rememberedforoneswingabove allothers,theonethatmadehim baseball’s home-run king.
Former President Jimmy Carter, who often attended Braves games, described Aaron as “a personal hero.”
On April 8, 1974, before a sellout crowd at Atlanta Stadium and a national television audience, Aaron broke Ruth’s home run record with No. 715 off Al Downing of the Dodgers.
But Aaron’s journey to that memorable homer was hardly triumphant.
He was the target of extensive hate mail as he closed in on Ruth’s cherished record of 714 — much of it sparked by the fact that Ruth was white, Aaron was Black.
Aaron was shadowed constantly by bodyguards and forced to distance himself from teammates. He kept all those hateful letters, a bitter reminder of the abuse he endured and never forgot.
“This is just the way things are for Black people in America,” he once said. “It’s something you battle all of your life.”
Aaron spent 21 of his 23 seasons with the Braves — first in Milwaukee, then in Atlanta after the franchise moved to the South in 1966. He finished his career in Milwaukee, traded to the Brewers after the 1974 season when he refused to take a front-office job that would have required a big pay cut.