ESPN: Todd Boyd
Bonds and Race
On April 4, 1974, Opening Day for a new season, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn and Vice President Gerald Ford were in attendance at the Cincinnati Reds' home opener against the Atlanta Braves to witness Hank Aaron attempt to tie Babe Ruth's celebrated home run record. This record was held by the most beloved figure in the history of the game, and it was also a record that many felt would never be broken.
As Aaron got closer and closer, it became clear that it was only a matter of when, not if, the record book would be altered to accommodate the new home run king. Considering the iconic status that Ruth held in the game's history, the fact that baseball had been integrated a mere 37 years before and the lingering feelings of racial animosity that still existed in the decade immediately following the civil rights movement in America, many were not too happy with the fact that Aaron, a black man, would be displacing their beloved Babe at the top of the home run chart.
On April 4 six years earlier, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated on the balcony of a Memphis motel. Aaron had asked the Reds organization if it would honor the sixth anniversary of Dr. King's death with a moment of silence before the game started. The Reds refused to do so. Aaron, on his first swing of the new season, tied the record anyway. Four nights later, Aaron went on to break the record in front of his home crowd in Atlanta.
As Aaron approached the record, he started to get something like 3,000 letters a day. Most of those letters were hate mail of one sort or another, many even containing death threats. Aaron now traveled with an armed police officer for his own protection. At the peak of his sports life, a time when a man should be feeling nothing short of the unabashed joy that accompanies a major accomplishment like this, Hank Aaron could not fully enjoy the moment because he had to be concerned that he might actually lose his own life, simply for hitting a baseball.
To Read More: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=boyd/070508
Bonds and Race
On April 4, 1974, Opening Day for a new season, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn and Vice President Gerald Ford were in attendance at the Cincinnati Reds' home opener against the Atlanta Braves to witness Hank Aaron attempt to tie Babe Ruth's celebrated home run record. This record was held by the most beloved figure in the history of the game, and it was also a record that many felt would never be broken.
As Aaron got closer and closer, it became clear that it was only a matter of when, not if, the record book would be altered to accommodate the new home run king. Considering the iconic status that Ruth held in the game's history, the fact that baseball had been integrated a mere 37 years before and the lingering feelings of racial animosity that still existed in the decade immediately following the civil rights movement in America, many were not too happy with the fact that Aaron, a black man, would be displacing their beloved Babe at the top of the home run chart.
On April 4 six years earlier, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated on the balcony of a Memphis motel. Aaron had asked the Reds organization if it would honor the sixth anniversary of Dr. King's death with a moment of silence before the game started. The Reds refused to do so. Aaron, on his first swing of the new season, tied the record anyway. Four nights later, Aaron went on to break the record in front of his home crowd in Atlanta.
As Aaron approached the record, he started to get something like 3,000 letters a day. Most of those letters were hate mail of one sort or another, many even containing death threats. Aaron now traveled with an armed police officer for his own protection. At the peak of his sports life, a time when a man should be feeling nothing short of the unabashed joy that accompanies a major accomplishment like this, Hank Aaron could not fully enjoy the moment because he had to be concerned that he might actually lose his own life, simply for hitting a baseball.
To Read More: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=boyd/070508
posted by J.C. "Fanz23" Lewis, Jr | 9:50 AM
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