August 6, 1972: Henry Aaron breaks career home run record for one franchise before adding game-winning homer

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times in 1972 for Atlanta Braves superstar Henry Aaron. After signing a record-breaking contract before the season to become the first player ever to make $200,000 a year, he struggled after moving from his comfortable right-field position to a “disliked” full-time slot at first base.1 “He’s a miserable first baseman,” Braves vice president of player personnel Paul Richards said early in the season of the 19-year veteran, whom he was contemplating trading. “He can’t play right field. His arm is gone. He’s not hitting.”2 Aaron did indeed play subpar defense and post career lows in several key offensive categories in what was arguably his worst campaign since he was a rookie.

Nonetheless, Aaron still slugged 34 home runs in the strike-shortened season to finish only 42 away from toppling Babe Ruth’s career record. But with the [White] Bambino’s historic 714 homers now looking certain to be eclipsed by a Black man, racist people who equated the breaking of the hallowed mark with “flag burning” began flooding Aaron with menacing hate mail.3 And yet, despite an ominous “threat of death” forming over him, Hammerin’ Hank was “revising the history book of baseball” as “records seemed to fall every time he went to bat.”4

Aaron passed Ted Williams for second place in career intentional walks with his 259th on an 11th-inning free pass from the San Francisco Giants on May 28. Three days later, he became the second player to tally 6,000 total bases with his first-inning homer vs. the San Diego Padres. Aaron next hurdled Willie Mays for second place on the all-time home-run list with his 649th on June 10 against the Philadelphia Phillies. It was also his 14th career grand slam, tying him with Gil Hodges for the most in National League history. And Aaron’s two-run round-tripper against the Houston Astros on July 2 vaulted him ahead of Lou Gehrig for second place in career RBIs with 1,996; the 2,000 milestone was reached via another home run in the Astrodome a day later.

Aaron’s season reached its “peak, emotionally and artistically[,]” on July 25 when he dramatically homered off Gaylord Perry in the All-Star Game in front of many home fans at a packed Atlanta Stadium.5 However, of all his impressive achievements during the “hot and cold” campaign, Aaron’s first of two homers against the Cincinnati Reds on August 6 set a new mark that was among the most symbolically important as he made a “marathoner’s final kick” toward Ruth’s home-run crown.6

En route to a distant fourth-place divisional finish at season’s end, Atlanta entered the road contest 17 games out of first place in the NL West Division after having lost its past seven straight. “[The Braves] have become a disaster that I have ignored as long as I can,” Atlanta sportswriter Furman Bisher wrote. “The only act that remains for them to become one officially is for President Nixon to declare them one – a disaster, I mean.”7 The team had generally finished in no better than the middle of the standings since the 1950s aside from winning a division title three years earlier.

Conversely, the division-rival Reds entered the tilt having won the first three of the five-game set and found themselves firmly in first place on their way to winning the pennant. The Big Red Machine was stacked with Hall of Fame talent while enjoying its burgeoning decadelong league dominance. As for the game, the 29,149 fans at Riverfront Stadium experienced a cooler than average afternoon in the Queen City.

The Braves quickly jumped on Reds starting pitcher Wayne Simpson, who was coming off a disappointing campaign in which he was still recovering from a shoulder injury suffered during his sensational All-Star rookie season in 1970. Playing in only his second big-league game, Atlanta rookie Rowland Office led off the game with a walk. His outfield mate, Ralph Garr, immediately followed with a home run to right field to give the visitors a 2-0 lead that held through three innings.

Leading off the top of the fourth, the slumping Aaron – who had hit only one home run in his past 21 contests and was admittedly “tired” and “inconsistent all year” – “merely reached out and slapped” a Simpson full-count offering over the left-field wall for his 21st home run of the season.8 Although it “wasn’t long and majestic,” the homer nonetheless made a big impact in the annals of baseball.9 It was Aaron’s 660th home run as a Milwaukee/Atlanta Brave, breaking Ruth’s record for most career round-trippers for one franchise; The Babe hit 659 as a member of the New York Yankees. “News that the 38-year-old Aaron had replaced Ruth in still another category immediately went upon the message board, and a search for the home run ball was promptly launched,” Atlanta sportswriter Wayne Minshew wrote.10

Simpson settled down to hold the score at 3-0 through five innings before being replaced by bullpen arm Ed Sprague. After Sprague retired the Braves without incident in the top of the sixth, the Reds offense broke through against ace starter Phil Niekro in the bottom of the frame. Joe Morgan singled with one out and moved to third on Bobby Tolan’s base hit. Morgan scored on Johnny Bench’s single and Tolan advanced to second. Delivering Cincinnati’s fourth consecutive hit of the inning, Tony Pérez clubbed a double to clear the bases and tie the game. The knuckleballing Niekro retired the next two batters to stem the tide.

The score remained deadlocked, 3-3, as the game headed into extra innings. With two out and the bases empty in the top of the 10th, Aaron faced “hard-throwing” young swingman Don Gullett, who had replaced Sprague in the eighth.11 “I was looking for all fastballs off Gullett,” Aaron said.12 The slugger got one of the fastballs he sought and “that was all she wrote.”13 Aaron’s second home run of the contest gave Atlanta a 4-3 lead. And with Niekro closing out Cincinnati one-two-three in the bottom of the 10th to secure his complete-game triumph, Aaron’s extra-inning blast turned out to be the game-winner. “You just don’t keep trying to throw the ball by Aaron,” Niekro said of Gullett’s ill-fated attempt to overpower the Braves great. “You gotta be careful when he’s up because he’ll stay with you.”14

The contest was the last for Atlanta manager Lum Harris. Despite the victory, he was fired the next morning and replaced by Aaron’s former teammate Eddie Mathews. Harris, described as a “gruff-talking, bourbon-sippin’, fungo-hitting manager of a fading era,” never returned to baseball after spending well over 30 years in the game.15

While this organizational drama “that had been rumored almost from the start of the season” was brewing behind the scenes, the front-and-center focus was on “the fact that Aaron nudged Babe Ruth in the record book.”16 Becoming the most prolific home-run hitter ever from a single franchise “erased the last plateau between him and Ruth’s [career record of] 714.”17 Indeed, while in the dressing room after the game Braves catcher Earl Williams quipped to Aaron, “Well, another nail just popped out of Babe Ruth’s coffin.”18 And along with joking that the Hammer was only 661 home runs ahead of him, Reds manager Sparky Anderson said of Aaron’s chances of breaking Ruth’s career home-run record: “Fifty-four is still a lot, but I think he’ll do it. Pressure doesn’t bother him. … Nothing does.”19

Aaron himself downplayed the importance of his record-breaking 660th round-tripper. “This record does not have too much significance for me,” he said. “That 714 is still the big one to me. Or maybe 715.”20 Of his two home runs in the game, Aaron indicated he would take his game-winning homer rather than his record-breaker if given a choice. “It just feels good to win, that’s the main thing,” he said.21

Records continued to fall for Aaron later in the season. On September 3 he passed Stan Musial to become the career leader in total bases with his 6,135th on a first-inning single off ace Phillies hurler Steve Carlton. Aaron ended the 1972 campaign with 673 home runs, firmly distancing himself from a third-place Mays, who was now 19 homers behind and in “steep, heartbreaking decline” at age 41.22

Despite heading into the 1973 season within striking distance of Ruth’s record of 714 round-trippers, Aaron finished the year one short. An Opening Day 1974 blast against the Reds’ Jack Billingham tied him with Ruth. Four days later, Aaron became baseball’s new home-run king after notching number 715 on his famous shot into the Braves’ left-field bullpen off Los Angeles Dodgers hurler Al Downing. Aaron’s 733 home runs during his long tenure with the Braves remains the record for the most with one franchise (as of 2025). After departing Atlanta following the 1974 campaign, he added another 22 four-baggers in two years as a member of the American League’s Milwaukee Brewers to end with 755. Aaron’s record stood until it was surpassed in 2007 by Barry Bonds, who many believe was aided by alleged years-long performance-enhancing drug use.

SOURCES

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for box scores/play-by-play information, and other data.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN197208060.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B08060CIN1972.htm

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Archive.org, GenealogyBank.com, NewspaperArchive.com, Newspapers.com, Paper of Record, Stathead.com, and Weather Underground.

NOTES

1  United Press International, “Aaron of Braves to Get $600,000 Over Three Years,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/01/archives/aaron-of-braves-to-get-600000-over-three-years.html, March 1, 1972, accessed September 19, 2024; Tom Stanton, Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America (New York: Perennial Currents, 2005), 28.

2  Henry Aaron and Furman Bisher, Aaron (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974), 208.

3  Mike O’Brien, “Braves Back in Town, Lose 2-1,” Sheboygan (Wisconsin) Press, May 23, 1972: 16.

4  Howard Bryant, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron (New York: Anchor Books, 2010), 363; Aaron and Bisher, 209.

5  Aaron and Bisher, 210.

6  Earl Lawson, “Burdette Lucky Aaron Watcher,” Cincinnati Post, August 7, 1972: 35; Bryant, 360.

7  Furman Bisher, “Separate but Equal Sin,” Atlanta Journal, August 8, 1972: 1-C.

8  Wayne Minshew, “Hank Rips 2 Homers in 4-3 Win,” Atlanta Constitution, August 7, 1972: 1-D, 5-D; Bob Hertzel, “‘Hammer’ Stuns Reds, 4-3,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 7, 1972: 25.

9  Hertzel.

10  Minshew, 5-D.

11  Minshew, 5-D.

12  Minshew, 5-D.

13  Hertzel.

14  Lawson.

15  Ron Hudspeth, “Communications Gap Apparently Too Wide,” Atlanta Journal, August 8, 1972: 4-C.

16  Wayne Minshew, “Skidding Braves Hand the Reins to Mathews,” The Sporting News, August 19, 1972: 17; Minshew, “Hank Rips 2 Homers in 4-3 Win,” 1-D.

17  Ron Hudspeth, “Now Aaron Needs No. 714 for a Sweep of Records,” Atlanta Journal, August 7, 1972: 4-D.

18  Hertzel.

19  Lawson; Minshew, 5-D.

20  “Homers Too Expensive,” Atlanta Journal, August 7, 1972: 2-D.

21  Minshew, 1-D.

22  Bryant, 350.