The Night Hank Aaron Took a Swing for Racial Justice

“Where have you gone [Hank Aaron], our nation turns its lonely eyes to you….”   --Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, alt.

In the blizzard of news that’s been reported just in the past few weeks, it’s the kind of story easily lost in our 24/7 intense media cycle. What hasn’t happened lately? Our new President takes office issuing a slew of executive orders. The old President will have an impeachment trial come the first week of February. COVID is still such a huge threat and why is it taking so long for our nationwide vaccine program to get up to speed? Then there is the tale of a 43 year-old sports star leading his team to the Super Bowl, leaving us fans here in New England to stew at the fact the team we love just finished a dismal season, all without our terrific Tom Brady.

Here’s the story.

On January 22^nd, Hank Aaron died in his sleep at the age of 86, at his home in Atlanta, Georgia. You are forgiven if the name and the person don’t ring a bell for you.  It’s mostly diehard baseball fans like yours’ truly, who are so saddened by Aaron’s death.  You see, for a short time in the spring of 1974, Aaron was at the center of the media universe, caught up in a whirlwind of unprecedented publicity and press coverage, as he tried to best Babe Ruth’s lifetime career home run record of 714 home runs, a number that stood for almost forty years. 

On April 8^th, 1974, Aaron stood in the batter’s box, to face Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Al Downing. The stands were packed 55,775 raucous fans, pulling for Aaron, on a chilly spring evening in Atlanta.  A future President, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, was in attendance to watch, and like everyone there, he hoped, and maybe even prayed a bit, that this was the night for history to be made. Just one more home run off the bat of “Hammering Hank” as he was affectionately known.

Coming up to bat in the bottom of the fourth inning, Aaron took the first pitch for a ball and then leaned in, waiting for the next offering from Downing. At 9:07 pm, the ball was delivered and Aaron squarely hit it, sending that little white ball into the night, over the left field fence, for the 715^th time as a major league professional.  He was the home run king.  Play was stopped and Aaron was lauded by the fans and he offered this sobering assessment to spectators about what he’d just accomplished.

“I just thank God it’s all over.”  

What is often forgotten in remembering the triumph of that night, was the ugly and awful racism that followed Aaron, as he chased after the Babe’s record. By the time that evening rolled around, Aaron was under 24/7 law enforcement protection. He’d received hundreds of nasty and terrible racist cards and letters and anonymous phone calls, all threatening to kill him for daring to challenge Ruth’s record.  Recalling that time in an interview, Aaron said, “It really made me see for the first time a clear picture of what this country is about. My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats, and I had to live like a pig in a slaughter camp. I had to duck. I had to go out the back door of the ball parks. I had to have a police escort with me all the time. I was getting threatening letters every single day.”

Yet somehow, Aaron handled it all with courage and grace and humility.  No victory dance or a fist thrust in the air as he rounded the bases. For one who had grown up in the violence of the Deep South, who’d watched as the Ku Klux Klan try to burn his family out of their home, who’d played first in the Negro leagues, because major league baseball waited so long to be racially integrated, Aaron was an exemplar of toughness and commitment.  Later in life, after retirement from the game, he vocally advocated for those who came after him, especially for the hiring of the first Black baseball manager, which remarkably did not happen until 1975. 

At the end of his life, in one final act of being a role model for our nation, he rolled up his sleeve and got a COVID-19 vaccination to, in his words, help spread the word that the vaccine was safe.  Though his life was marked by strife and struggle, Aaron died quietly in his sleep. I wonder if he and the Babe are now comparing swings and talking baseball.

I’m not sure why Aaron’s death has so affected me, in a time when there are so many other seemingly more “important” new stories to follow.  I guess it might be because of the greatness of his character, his bravery in living through the racism of his day and our day too. Maybe it’s because as a lifelong baseball fan, I can still look to that field of dreams and watch as a select few of the players, do more than just swing a bat or catch a ball. In rare cases, players like Aaron transcend the sport and become icons, folks who embody our nation’s struggle to live up to its most noble and hoped for ideals: that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Then again, I also just loved watching him swing a bat and send the ball up towards heaven, flying so far and so high, it is as if it will never come back down to earth.

Thanks Hank.