May 22, 1956: Henry Aaron’s 4-hit night in Brooklyn leads to first NL batting title

Four weeks into the 1956 season, the follow-up to his sophomore-year breakout, Henry Aaron struggled to keep his batting average above .200. But a surge in the second half of May redirected him toward his first career batting title. Aaron was at his best on May 22, with four hits, including a home run, in the Milwaukee Braves’ 7-3 win over the defending World Series champion Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

Aaron became the Braves’ regular right fielder in 1955 and finished fifth in the National League with a .314 batting average. His 37 doubles paced the NL, and he was selected as an All-Star for the first of 21 consecutive seasons.

His horizons seemed even brighter in 1956, especially after he hit .370 with seven home runs in 108 at-bats during the exhibition season.1 This included battering the Dodgers at a .552 clip in nine preseason games.2 “Aaron, undoubtably the best 22-year-old outfielder in the business, may also add the batting title,” remarked the Milwaukee Sentinel on season’s eve. “The young man is little short of terrific, and he is improving.”3

Aaron had two hits, including a home run off Bob Rush, in Milwaukee’s season-opening shutout of the Chicago Cubs.4 But a 4-for-31 slide dropped his average to .167 by the time the Braves began a five-stop road trip on May 11.

Hall of Famer Paul Waner, Milwaukee’s batting coach, suggested that Aaron’s struggles resulted from lunging at the ball,5 but Aaron himself fingered the early-season weather.

From April 23 through May 10, an 18-day span, the Braves played just five games. Foul weather rendered Milwaukee idle for seven straight days in late April and washed out nine games of a scheduled 13-game homestand.6

Even when it was dry enough for baseball, the Braves endured temperatures in the 40s, or even the 30s.7

“It’s the bad weather,” Alabama native Aaron said in early May. “I’m not used to it, and I just can’t get loose up there. I feel tight around the shoulders when I swing.”8

When the Braves went on the road, their schedule proceeded with fewer interruptions, and Aaron began to hit. By May 22, as Milwaukee opened a scheduled two-game series in Brooklyn, the final stop on the road trip, Aaron had hit safely in nine straight starts and eight games in a row, and his batting average was .282.

“I got an ultimatum from my wife by mail,” he remarked as his average climbed during the road swing. “She wrote I’d better be hitting .300 by the time we get back to Milwaukee. If I don’t, she won’t let me in the house. She really means it, too.”9

Two starts removed from no-hitting the New York Giants on May 12, 29-year-old Dodgers right-hander Carl Erskine faced the Braves on Tuesday night. Brooklyn and Milwaukee trailed the first-place St. Louis Cardinals by half a game.

During exhibition play, Aaron had homered off Erskine – on a pitch at eye level.10

“Aaron doesn’t come to the ballpark looking for a base on balls,” Erskine had noted. “He’ll swing at anything he thinks he can hit, and a pitcher gets nowhere going outside the range of his bat.”11

Aaron started the scoring at Ebbets Field, leading off the second inning by pulling Erskine’s 2-and-2 pitch into the lower deck of the left-field stands.12 His fourth homer of the season gave Milwaukee a 1-0 lead.

Right-hander Bob Buhl’s strikeout of Gil Hodges had stranded two Dodgers in the first inning, but Brooklyn threatened again in the third, as Jim Gilliam singled with one out and took third on Pee Wee Reese’s single.

Duke Snider grounded to first baseman Frank Torre and Gilliam broke for home. Torre – a 24-year-old Brooklyn native appearing in his ninth major-league game, starting in place of .197-hitting Joe Adcock13 – threw to catcher Del Crandall. Trapped in a rundown, Gilliam was tagged out by third baseman Eddie Mathews.

Roy Campanella followed with a sharply-hit single to left. Reese tried to score from second, but Bobby Thomson, five years removed from his pennant-winning home run against Brooklyn as a member of the Giants, fired home to throw out Reese and keep the Braves ahead.14

Milwaukee answered Brooklyn’s near-misses by increasing its lead in the fourth, and Aaron was in the middle of the rally. His one-out single pushed shortstop Johnny Logan, who had led off with a single, to second. Thomson’s single scored Logan to make it 2-0, Braves.

Just three major-league teams hit more doubles than the Dodgers in 1956,15 and only the Cincinnati Redlegs and New York Yankees outhomered them.16 In the middle innings, however, Buhl consistently denied Brooklyn a potentially game-changing big hit. Jackie Robinson’s single and Sandy Amoros’s walk set up Carl Furillo with two runners on base in the fourth, but the veteran right fielder – hitless in 17 at-bats – grounded into a double play.

Campanella broke up the shutout in the fifth with a two-out RBI single off second baseman Danny O’Connell’s glove before Hodges’ fly out left runners at the corners.17 In the sixth, Robinson walked and Amoros sacrificed to put the potential tying run on second, but Torre reached over the railing in foul territory to catch Furillo’s popup.18 Dodgers manager Walter Alston sent up Randy Jackson to bat for Erskine, and Jackson grounded to O’Connell to end the inning.

Brooklyn reliever Clem Labine owned a 0.87 ERA in his first 12 appearances of the season, and Alston brought him in to keep the score close. Labine was on the verge of completing the seventh on seven pitches, with a groundout, a strikeout, and O’Connell’s routine-seeming grounder to first baseman Hodges. “His curve was snapping, and he looked like the Labine who had gone through eight straight relief chores without allowing a score,” observed the New York Daily News.19

But Hodges, playing back for a big hop, had a surprise smaller bounce hit off him for an inning-prolonging error, and Labine’s first two pitches to Logan missed the strike zone.20 The Braves’ shortstop drove the next offering off the façade of the upper stands in left field, giving Milwaukee a 4-1 lead with his third homer of the season.21 The next batter, Mathews, pulled a home run, his fifth, over the screen and inside the foul pole in right field.22

Aaron, who had singled in the fifth, continued the extra-base parade with a double into the right-field corner.23 It was Aaron’s seventh career game with four or more hits, including a five-hit performance in his ninth big-league game in April 1954.24 He moved to third on a wild pitch, but Thomson took a called third strike to end the inning.

Milwaukee center fielder Bill Bruton leaped against the wall in left-center to haul in Campanella’s two-out bid for an extra-base hit with Snider on first and two outs in the seventh,25 and the Braves poured it on in the top of the eighth. Three straight doubles – by Bruton, Torre, and Crandall – produced two more Milwaukee runs, making it a 7-1 game.

The Dodgers turned the scoreboard more respectable in their half of the eighth, finally unleashing their extra-base swings and animating the heretofore silent crowd.26 Hodges bounced a double into the left-field stands and scored one out later on Amoros’s first-pitch homer over the right-field screen and onto Bedford Avenue.27 After Milwaukee manager Charlie Grimm replaced Buhl with Dave Jolly, Furillo snapped his 0-for-19 drought with a double off the right-field wall.28

Alston then pinch-hit pitcher Don Newcombe for reliever Ed Roebuck – provoking what the New York Times described as a “storm of cheers” from the crowd of 18,60429 – and, after Newcombe walked, used another pitcher, 19-year-old rookie Don Drysdale, to pinch-run.30 The Braves snuffed out the rally by turning Gilliam’s grounder to Logan into an inning-ending double play; Torre completed the twin killing with what the Milwaukee Sentinel called “a fancy grab … of a wide, low throw.”31

Aaron had a chance at a five-hit game. Facing another young Dodgers pitcher in the ninth, 20-year-old lefty Sandy Koufax, however, he popped up to Reese at short.32 Jolly closed out Brooklyn in the ninth for a 7-3 win, as Bruton backed up against the fence to snag Hodges’ drive for the game-clinching out.33

The road trip’s final game was rained out, but Aaron’s 4-for-5 night in Brooklyn meant that he pulled into Milwaukee’s North Western train station with a .313 batting average.34 His fortunes waxed and waned until another tear – hitting .419 in 41 games from June 26 through August 7 – launched him unmistakably to the top of the league’s batting class.

He finished the season with a .328 batting average – nine points higher than runner-up Bill Virdon, who split the season between the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates.35 Aaron’s 200 hits led the majors, and his 34 doubles were best in the NL.36 The Braves held first place as late as the season’s final Friday, before the Dodgers overtook them to win the NL pennant by a game.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO195605220.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1956/B05220BRO1956.htm

NOTES

1 “Braves Batting,” Milwaukee Journal, April 16, 1956: 2, 9.

2 Aaron was 1-for-3 with a home run against Brooklyn in Miami on March 12; 2-for-4 in Miami on March 13; 3-for-3 in Bradenton, Florida, on March 15; 0-for-1 in Jacksonville on April 3; 2-for-4 with a home run and a double in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, on April 4; 2-for-4 with a home run on April 5 in New Orleans; 2-for-2 with a double on April 7 in Knoxville; 1-for-4 on April 8 in Nashville; and 3-for-4 on April 9 in Louisville. Red Thisted, “Braves Get Only 2 Hits, Bow to Dodgers, 5-2,” Milwaukee Sentinel, March 13, 1956: 2, 3; Red Thisted, “Braves Romp Over Dodgers,” Milwaukee Sentinel, March 14, 1956: 2, 3; Red Thisted, “Braves Dump Dodgers Again,” Milwaukee Sentinel, March 16, 1956: 2, 3; Red Thisted, “Dodgers’ Big Bats Beat Braves, 6 to 3,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 4, 1956: 2, 4; Bob Wolf, “Braves Turn Back Dodgers in 10 Inning Tussle, 7 to 5: Aaron, Logan Prove Heroes,” Milwaukee Journal, April 5, 1956: 2, 15; Red Thisted, “Reliefer [sic] Murff Halts Bums,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 6, 1956: 2, 4; Red Thisted, “Spahn Sharp, But Bums Blast Johnson to Win,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 8, 1956: 1-C; Bob Wolf, “Bats of Aaron And Crandall Pace Braves to 8-4 Victory: Henry Passes .400 Average,” Milwaukee Journal, April 10, 1956: 2, 13.

3 Red Thisted, “Bums Choice Again; Braves Top Threat,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 15, 1956: 2-C.

4 Lou Chapman, “Excited About Homer? Not Our Henry!,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 18, 1956: 2, 6.

5 Associated Press, “Paul Waner Isn’t Worried About Aaron’s Hit Slump,” Oshkosh (Wisconsin) Northwestern, May 16, 1956: 19.

6 Red Thisted, “Idle Braves Move Back Into 1st Place; It’s Still Spahn Facing Cards Today,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 30, 1956: 2, 3; Bob Wolf, “Braves May Play Tonight, Because They’re Not Here,” Milwaukee Journal, May 11, 1956: 2, 15.

7 Red Thisted, “Idle Braves Move Back Into 1st Place; It’s Still Spahn Facing Cards Today,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 30, 1956: 2, 3; The temperature dropped to 38 degrees during the Braves’ Opening Day game at Milwaukee’s County Stadium, with “mixed rain and snow.” Doyle K. Getter, “The Fans Get Chilled And So Do the Cubs: 39,766 Endure Wintry Wind, Rain and Even Snow to See Braves Win Opener,” Milwaukee Journal, April 18, 1956: 1. The Braves’ home games against the Cardinals on April 30 and the Giants on May 4 were described as being played in 40-degree weather. Bob Broeg, “Redbirds Take Lead; Three Pitchers Join in Blanking Braves,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 1, 1956: 4B; Associated Press, “Braves Forge 3-2 Win in 10th Frame,” Racine (Wisconsin) Journal-Times, May 5, 1956: 12.

8 Lou Chapman, “Aaron Needs Heat Tonic,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 3, 1956: 2, 4.

9 Lou Chapman, “Eastern Tour Cures Aaron,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 19, 1956: 2, 3.

10 Thisted, “Reliefer [sic] Murff Halts Bums”; Lou Chapman, “Mossi Startled as Aaron Connects,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 16, 1956: 1-C.

11 Chapman, “Mossi Startled as Aaron Connects.”

12 Dick Young, “Braves Top Flock, 7-3; Rout Erskine,” New York Daily News, May 23, 1956: 72. This article uses pitch data collected by Dodgers statistician Allan Roth, as found in Baseball-Reference.com’s play-by-play of this game. “Data Coverage,” Baseball-Reference.com, accessed November 14, 2025, https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/coverage.shtml.

13 Associated Press, “Adcock Will Ride Bench in Brooklyn,” La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, May 22, 1956: 19. Adcock went on to attain career highs in home runs (38) and OPS (.934) in 1956. He finished 11th in the NL MVP voting.

14 Roscoe McGowen, “Logan, Mathews, Aaron Connect as Braves Subdue Brooks, 7 to 3,” New York Times, May 23, 1956: 23.

15 Topping the Dodgers’ 212 doubles were the Boston Red Sox (261), Cardinals (234), and White Sox (218). Coincidentally, the Braves also hit 212 doubles.

16 Cincinnati hit 221 home runs, tying the record set by the 1947 Giants. The Yankees hit 190 and the Dodgers hit 179. The Braves were fourth with 177.

17 Young, “Braves Top Flock, 7-3; Rout Erskine.”

18 Red Thisted, “Burdette to Close Braves’ Trip Today Against Craig,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 23, 1956: 2, 5.

19 Young, “Braves Top Flock, 7-3; Rout Erskine.”

20 Young, “Braves Top Flock, 7-3; Rout Erskine.”

21 Young, “Braves Top Flock, 7-3; Rout Erskine.”

22 Young, “Braves Top Flock, 7-3; Rout Erskine”; Roscoe McGowen, “Logan, Mathews, Aaron Connect as Braves Subdue Brooks, 7 to 3,” New York Times, May 23, 1956: 23.

23 McGowen, “Logan, Mathews, Aaron Connect as Braves Subdue Brooks, 7 to 3.”

24 Aaron was 5-for-5 with a home run in the Braves’ 12-inning loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on April 25, 1954. He had three career five-hit games and 46 four-hit games.

25 Young, “Braves Top Flock, 7-3; Rout Erskine”; Red Thisted, “Braves Bomb Dodgers,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 23, 1956: 2, 4.

26 McGowen, “Logan, Mathews, Aaron Connect as Braves Subdue Brooks, 7 to 3.”

27 McGowen, “Logan, Mathews, Aaron Connect as Braves Subdue Brooks, 7 to 3.”

28 Young, “Braves Top Flock, 7-3; Rout Erskine.”

29 McGowen, “Logan, Mathews, Aaron Connect as Braves Subdue Brooks, 7 to 3.” Newcombe pinch-hit 106 times in his 10-season National and American League career, batting .227 with 10 RBIs.

30 Drysdale had pitched in four games previously, including three starts. He had beaten the Philadelphia Phillies with a complete game in his first big-league start on April 23. He appeared as a pinch-runner five times in his 14-season major-league career.

31 Thisted, “Braves Bomb Dodgers.”

32 Aaron hit .362 in 116 lifetime at-bats against Koufax, with 7 home runs and a 1.077 OPS.

33 Thisted, “Braves Bomb Dodgers.”

34 Thisted, “Burdette to Close Braves’ Trip Today Against Craig.”

35 Virdon was traded from St. Louis to Pittsburgh for Bobby Del Greco and Dick Littlefield in May 1956.

36 Aaron won his second batting title in 1959, when he hit .355.