More than a number

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough.

Finally today, the WORLD History Book.

Baseball legend Babe Ruth finished his career with 714 home runs; a record that stood for nearly four decades.

EICHER: That is, until a 40-year-old right fielder from Alabama tied, then broke it.

WORLD’s Myrna Brown takes us back to a week that changed baseball—and revealed something deeper about our country.

BASEBALL ANNOUNCER: A three, one pitch. There’s a drive into left field. That ball is going, going, and out of here…

MYRNA BROWN: April 4, 1974, Cincinnati.

BASEBALL ANNOUNCER: The crowd has given Aaron a tremendous ovation here. 714 has been hit.

Hank Aaron had finally done it.

HANK AARON ON THE FIELD: Thank you very much, and I’m just glad it’s almost over with. Thank you.

Henry Louis Aaron’s teammates and fans knew him as “Hank.” But his family in Mobile, Alabama, called him “Main.”

ALFREDIA SCOTT: My Godmother called him Main when he was born because he was so big…close to 13 pounds. And because he was that big, they called him Main…he’s like a man, that's what they said (laughter)

78-year-old Alfredia Scott is Aaron’s last surviving sister.

ALFREDIA SCOTT: My mother had eight children. Hank was number three.

As a boy, Aaron played unorganized ball in the neighborhood sandlots. Scott says even then, her parents knew Aaron had talent. So when he couldn’t play the game he loved because they couldn’t afford a uniform, his mother made one out of sack cloth.

ALFREDIA SCOTT: They were made out of the material that contained the cloth that you went and got your flour and meal and corn. ...And put little ribbons down the side to make it look like a baseball suit.

Still in high school, Aaron played for the Mobile Black Bears, a semi-pro baseball team. A year later in 1951, he made brief stops in the Negro Leagues and the minor leagues before settling in with the Milwaukee Braves in 1954. 

In a 1991 interview, Aaron recalled a decades-old conversation with his father.

HENRY AARON: He always felt like although baseball was there and someday somebody is going to come along to prove that blacks could play it as well as whites, if given the same opportunity. But he never did think…he didn’t know whether that day was going to come soon enough for his son to play baseball.

Aaron was a consistent producer both at the plate and in the field. 1957 was one of his best seasons. He captured the National League MVP Award and led the Braves to their first World Series Championship.

But it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that Aaron grabbed the national spotlight. 

Alfredia Scott says some people were angry about the prospect of a black athlete surpassing one of sport’s most cherished records.

ALFREDIA SCOTT: Although my brother was highly respected, there was still racism that was going on.

Aaron received thousands of letters, including hate mail.

ALFREDIA SCOTT: Somebody always having to guard him. I could hear my mother and him talking on the phone, talking about the fact that she was scared for him.

Then his moment arrived. April 8, 1974:

ANNOUNCER: Once again a standing ovation for Henry Aaron!

Fans packed the Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

RANDY LOUIS COX: I was working as the sports editor of the Valley Times News. That was in Lanette, Alabama, about 90 miles from the stadium.

Randy Louis Cox, a twenty-something year-old rookie, says the crowd seemed excited to be part of history.

RANDY LOUIS COX: All these celebrities were there, Sammy Davis Jr., Redd Fox, Jimmy Carter.

ANNOUNCER: One ball and no strikes…

Not far from Cox, near the dugout, Alfredia Scott sat between her mother and her father.

ALREDIA SCOTT: I have to tell you that I was very frightened. And then the crack happened. He hit the ball.

ANNOUNCER MILO HAMILTON: Here’s the pitch by Downing…swinging..that ball is going be….outta here! It’s gone! It’s 715!

After Atlanta Braves Announcer Milo Hamilton made the dramatic call, the stands erupted with applause. That’s when Scott says her elderly mother bolted towards her son on the field.

ALFREDIA SCOTT: I wondered how in the world that woman got out of that seat. She jumped over the rails and she ran toward first base.

Scott says the threats against her son's life propelled her mother into action.

ALFREDIA SCOTT: "If you break this record you will never touch home plate." And that’s what stuck in my mother’s mind.

As Aaron rounded the bases, Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully provided the memorable play by play.

ANNOUNCER SCULLY: He threw his arms around his father, and as he left the home plate area, his mother came running across the grass, threw her arms around his neck, kissed him for all she was worth…. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the deep South for breaking a record of an all time baseball idol.

Randy Louis Cox took about 100 photographs that night and made front page news.

RANDY LOUIS COX: Aaron swats number 715 to break Ruth’s record…that was my headline.

Today, 76-year-old Cox is a retired author. He kept all of those photographs and wrote a book about Henry Aaron's big night in baseball.

Aaron hit his final 755th home run in 1976. He was elected to the Hall of Fame six years later.

Henry Aaron passed away in 2021 at the age of 86, and was often regarded as a model of humility, dignity, and quiet competence.

HANK AARON: And I’m certainly not going to sit here and tell you or anybody else that I was as great a ball player as Babe Ruth. That’s for other people to judge me by... I think only time and history will put me in my property place. I think eventually people are going to say, he belongs where he’s supposed to be on top, or second or third. That’s where he’s supposed to be.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Myrna Brown.

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