No. 715! Aaron tops Ruth
( APRIL 8, 1974)
Then it happened. Fast ball, right down the pipe. With the short compact swing, Hank Aaron’s bat flashed at the old cowhide — and the ball took off, toward left-center. A roar ascended to the sprinkling black sky overhead. The people were on their feet, pushing the ball with their voices go ... go ... go.
Bill Buckner, the Dodgers’ leftfielder, turned and raced back to the wire fence, near the 385 sign. He dug his spikes into the mesh and went up, trying to abort history. You can’t fool Mother Nature.
Into the bullpen beyond, it sailed, and into the glove of a wind-jacketed Atlanta pitcher, who stuck up his hand near the rear wall.
Now Henry danced around the bases to the tune of 50,000 voices singing his praises — jogging in that shot-strided gate of his. When he reached second, he was picked up by a young convoy, two boys in their late teens who had appeared as if from nowhere. They jogged behind him by a step then left him at third base and dashed for the stands, two fully clothed streakers, hoping to escape the arm of the law. They failed.
Later, when asked what the kids might have said to him, Hank Aaron said “were there two boys running behind me?”
He was in a dream world. What was he thinking about? What does a man’s mind think about when he has broken one of the most revered records in the world?
“I just wanted to touch all the bases,” said the uncomplicated hero.
He started the last 90 feet alone and, as he approached it, there was Ralph Garr, little Ralph Garr, in the midst of the other Braves, to take Henry by the hand and guide him to the plate. There is something a little special between Hank Aaron and Ralph Garr.
“Ralph told me he was going to guide me that last step,” said Hank at the press conference that followed.
Before meeting the newsmen in a special conference room, Aaron had been toasted privately in the clubhouse by teammates, Moet Chardon champagne.
“I give you Henry Aaron,” proposed Eddie Mathews, one-time teammate and now the manager of the Braves, “the greatest ballplayer and the greatest guy I have ever known.”