Swing Away

It was on this date forty-two years ago, April 8, that Hammer'n Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit a home run to break a record set  almost forty years earlier Babe Ruth.  Ruth set his record on May 25, 1935.  In that game Ruth not only hit his last home run, but he went four for four at bat, with three of those hits being home runs.  I have never been much of a baseball fan, but most any sports fan can appreciate the power and skill of a home run ball.  I was fortunate to be able to attend two ALCS and one World Series game in 1982 as the Milwaukee Brewers' made a run to claim the title World Champion.

Hank Aaron, Milwaukee Braves

Hank Aaron began his baseball career with the Milwaukee Braves in 1954, less than a decade after the color barrier in baseball was broken by Jackie Robinson.  Twenty years later, while playing for the now Atlanta Braves he was hitting his record breaking 715th home run.  Aaron, who grew up in the south, was perhaps an unlikely candidate to hold the title of home run king until it was broken by Barry Bonds.  Due to the color barrier generations ago there was a Negro League, and Aaron was the last Negro League player to reach the Major leagues.  Aaron was quiet, and hard-working, and lacked the flash and bravado of other ball players who reach such a high pinnacle. But, that personality likely fit Milwaukee.  Milwaukee was community of hard-working blue collar workers, predominantly from German and Polish descent.

Just after hitting #715 on 8 April 1974

 Many of the Polish and German neighborhoods that made Milwaukee famous have transitioned to Latino or other ethnic groups.  As Milwaukee neighborhoods are in transition today, so was baseball and the nation at the time Hank Aaron played.  He was playing ball during the era of Martin Luther King, Jr.  He played during the turbulent 1960's.  He started his baseball career during the rise of the middle class of post World War II America, in the Eisenhower era of the 1950's.  The most home runs he had in a single year during his career was 47 in 1971.  1971 was the same year in which the nation saw the voting age lowered to 18, and the Supreme Court uphold busing.  It is also the year in which Walt Disney World opened in Florida.

Babe Ruth

While playing with the Milwaukee Braves in 1957, he was named Most Valuable Player.  The Braves won the National League Pennant.  In the World Series Hammer'n Hank would hit three home runs as the Milwaukee Braves would  upset the team a good number of persons love-to-hate--the New York Yankees. The Braves would relocate to Atlanta for the 1966 season, and Hank would play there until the conclusion of the 1974 season.  Aaron would return to blue-collar Milwaukee to play his last two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers.

1957 Milwaukee Braves

When baseball returned to Wisconsin with the Brewers in the 1970's, the team was in the American and not National League.  The more true to baseball nature of the National League left some in Wisconsin to become Cub fans.  Yet, Wisconsin enjoys its baseball.  I recall being at a Brewer--St. Louis Cardinal game in the 1990's when Mark McGwire, who was playing for the Cardinals and was chasing the record for most home runs in a single year.  The stadium was pretty much packed, and as McGwire came to bat even the Milwaukee fans stood to cheer to hope they could see him hit a home run.  This would be akin to Packer fans cheering for Tom Brady to get a touchdown pass at Lambeau field and set some sort of record.  The fans from Wisconsin were willing to set aside their home town allegiance for the glory to witness history.  Today there are probably as many persons who claim to have seen Aaron's record breaking hit as those who watched the Ice Bowl.

History is a single event, but those single events are interwoven among the milieu of America.   Hank Aaron, born one of seven siblings to a poor family from the divided south would rise to claim the hearts of many in the nation that evening 42 years ago.  He would swing away, go for broke to set a record.  Growing up he would hit bottle caps with sticks.  You have to wonder if he ever dreamt, as a young boy in the south, being in a major league stadium (the hit was in front of the largest crowd at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium of 53,775 persons) hitting a baseball out of the field for home run #715 and breaking an almost 40 year old record.