BaseBall superstars Hank Aaron hank aaron ty Cobb Hank Lou Gehrig Derek Jeter randy Johnson Aaron Mike Piazza kirby Puckett Jackie robinson Ichiro suzuki Bernie Williams BaseBall superstars Hank Aaron J. Poolos For Helena, who swings for the fence hank aaron Copyright © 2007 by Infobase Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, contact: Chelsea House An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Poolos, James. Hank Aaron / J. Poolos. p. cm. — (Baseball superstars) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7910-9536-2 (hardcover) ISBN-10: 0-7910-9536-3 (hardcover) 1. Aaron, Hank, 1934- 2. Baseball players—United States—Biography. 3. African American baseball players—Biography. I. Title. II. Series. GV865.A25P66 2007 796.357092—dc22 [B] 2007005916 Chelsea House books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com Series design by Erik Lindstrom Cover design by Ben Peterson Printed in the United States of America Bang EJB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. Contents 1 The Birth of a Legend 1 2 A Foot in the Door 11 3 The Minor Leagues 18 4 Class A 25 5 Breakthrough to the Big Leagues 34 6 Rising Star 42 7 The Greatness of Hank Aaron 53 8 Home in Atlanta 65 9 Home-Run Champion 76 10 A Life After Baseball 93 Statistics 103 Chronology 105 Timeline 106 Glossary 109 Bibliography 112 Further Reading 114 Index 117 1 the Birth of a Legend There is no greater feeling in sports than the one a player gets when his teammates are genuinely excited over one of his own personal accomplishments—excited just to be his teammate. What I remember is that everybody was right there celebrating with me, as if my record was their record, too. A player can’t ask for any more than that. —Hank Aaron, I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story At first glance, Hank Aaron’s story is that of a baseball player who broke one of the most coveted records in the sport: Babe Ruth’s long-held mark of 714 career home runs. But it is really the story of an important period in the history of the United States, a period that marked the emergence of racial equality in “America’s pastime” and, if not the end of bigotry in baseball, certainly the most significant step forward 1 2 hank aaron for black athletes in any sport. For it was during the course of Aaron’s career that Major League Baseball teams were at last allowed to add black players to their rosters, changing the face of the game, and of American culture in general, forever. It was between the white lines of the baseball diamond in the 1950s that African Americans, as players, were permitted to mingle with whites on a more-or-less equal basis. Blacks played on the same ball fields with whites. They traveled to and from games on the same buses, and they suited up in the same locker rooms. At the time, similar occurrences were unheard of in mainstream culture. Although the laws of segregation were less in force in the Northern states, interaction between the races remained nearly as limited there as in the South. Black people were regarded as second-class citizens in much of the United States. In the South, African Americans were segregated, or separated, from whites, in basic and profound ways. For example, as a rule, if a black man wanted to eat lunch at a restaurant that allowed African Americans (and many of them did not), he entered through the back door. Black people drank from separate drinking foun- tains than white people. Buses had “white-only” seating toward the front and middle, while blacks sat in a designated section in the back. As a general rule, individuals of each race came together only when one worked for the other. In the South, black nan- nies, maids, laborers, and farmers may have built relationships with their white bosses; otherwise, a black person did not go out of his or her way to speak to a white person unless they were spoken to first. This is not to say that healthy relationships between black and white individuals did not occur. Such relationships were common. But even among the vast majority of racially toler- ant Americans—blacks and whites—there was an acceptance of order: whites were citizens, and blacks served them. The opportunity for blacks to enjoy successful lives was limited. the Birth of a Legend 3 Hank Aaron looks up toward the camera in this portrait taken in 1957 in Milwaukee. That year, Aaron won the National League’s Most Valuable Player award. During the 1950s, African Americans were treated as second-class citizens across much of the United States, suffering segregation in many public places. On the baseball diamond, though, racial equality was beginning to emerge.