This statue of Henry Aaron was unveiled in June 2025 in Mobile. (Photograph by George Bovenizer.)

Hank Aaron’s hometown of Mobile, Alabama, is full of history, both baseball-related and otherwise. The latter includes bragging rights as the birthplace of Mardi Gras, although New Orleans may beg to differ, but that’s an argument for another day. As you walk under Mobile’s quaint downtown balconies, from which countless beads have been thrown, you will stumble upon odes to Hammerin’ Hank both big and small. We’ll get to the big in just a bit. To see the small, just wander down the cobblestones of St. Michael Street, where there is a charming general store called “Do Goods Mercantile.” The mom-and-pop shop sells, among many things, whiskey and beer glasses with engravings of quotes belonging to this Southern city’s baseball legends. It’s a long list of Hall of Fame talent.

According to Mayor Sandy Stimpson in 2022, “Per capita, there is no other community in the United States with more Hall of Fame baseball players than Mobile, Alabama.”1 It’s the birthplace of Aaron, Satchel Paige, Ozzie Smith, Billy Williams, and Willie McCovey. While their incredible statistics are carved into major-league baseball’s record books, etched in those aforementioned beer and whiskey glasses Aaron’s quote reads, “… when it’s over, I’m going home to Mobile and fish for a long time.”2

Aaron’s wistful-for-home words were uttered to a newspaper reporter during the thick of his chase of Babe Ruth’s home-run record. The 1974 chase captivated the nation, and his quote accentuates the pressure and exhaustion experienced in the pursuit to pass 714. It also reveals his desire to leave the bright Atlanta lights and return to his Alabama roots, even just for a bit. Of course, Hank would accomplish it all, breaking the Babe’s all-time record, playing two more seasons to finish his career with 755 home runs, and eventually finding the time to go fishing back in Mobile.

Although he spent the last years of his life in the Atlanta area to be close to his children and grandchildren, Aaron was always welcomed back to his hometown with open arms, and Mobile has honored him with several prominent tributes – most notably a nine-foot bronze sculpture posthumously dedicated to the slugger. Still, for all the love Aaron received from the city – and though he was someone who typically chose to see the good in Mobile – it wasn’t always an easy place to grow up in. Reflecting on his childhood, Aaron once said, “I realized while growing up in Mobile that being a black person I already had two strikes against me and I certainly wasn’t going to let them get the third strike. I felt like being a baseball player I had one way to go – and that was up.”3

Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron was born on February 5, 1934, in a section of Mobile known as Down the Bay, a tight-knit but poor Black neighborhood. His parents, Herbert, a shipyard worker, and Estella, a homemaker, raised Hank alongside his seven siblings, including Hank’s brother Tommie, who would also become a major-league player. A few years after Henry was born, the family moved to the Toulminville neighborhood on the north side of Mobile, where Herbert hand-built their modest family home. Work at the docks was sporadic, so the family didn’t have a lot of money, but as a child Henry and his siblings didn’t go hungry. In his autobiography Henry recalled:

My father made $115 a week when he worked, but the only thing was he would work a week and be laid off two. … He only worked when the docks had work. We just did without meat when my father got laid off. We had a garden out back of the house where we’d grow beans and tomatoes and a little okra. I never remember being real hungry.4

There was also fish to eat and Hank would pass the days of his childhood fishing and playing ball. Mobile is famous for its baseball, but it’s a city shaped by water – its history flows from it. For generations, Mobilians have cast their lines and nets into the rivers, lakes, and bayous that sprinkle the region. And make no mistake – this place is soaked. Mobile’s location on the Gulf Coast, not far from the Florida state line, regularly ranks it among the rainiest cities in the country, and with its steamy, subtropical climate, it often feels as though Florida’s weather wandered west. Hot, humid afternoons frequently give way to dramatic thunderstorms, drenching the streets and feeding the lush landscape.

But Mobile’s waterways hold more than natural beauty – they also carry the weight of a painful past. The city’s sprawling port and tributaries once made it a hub for the slave trade. Before the Civil War, slave ships docked in the city routinely. Even after the international slave trade was outlawed, a ship named the Clotilda carrying slaves from West Africa clandestinely came ashore. Many of its passengers formed a small community that grew into what became known as Africatown.

During the 1930s and ’40s, when Hank was a boy, Mobile, like much of the American South, was segregated under Jim Crow laws. Schools were segregated, public spaces were divided, and Black citizens were expected to act with deference toward Whites. But Mobile was, in some ways, marginally better than other Deep South cities in terms of racial relations. As a port city, it had a degree of cultural diversity and racial fluidity not always present in other Southern communities. This duality – systemic oppression alongside a measure of tolerance – shaped Aaron’s formative experiences. He recalled:

There were things that a black person in Mobile just had to put up with – things more subtle than riding in the back of the bus and drinking at the colored fountain. If you were in line at the grocery store, a white person could just step right in front of you and you couldn’t say a thing.5

He learned to navigate the complexities of a racially divided society while drawing strength from the resilience of his family and the broader community. These early lessons would later serve Aaron well during the intense public scrutiny and racism he encountered while pursuing Babe Ruth’s home-run record.

From an early age growing up in Mobile, baseball captivated young Hank, but he knew little about Ruth. “Why should I have read about a man playing a game I couldn’t get into at the time?”6 Before Hank was born, his father saw Ruth play in a local exhibition and Herbert told his son stories of the Babe’s prodigious power. However, like many Black children of his era, Jackie Robinson was Hank’s hero:

I remember sitting on the back porch once when an airplane flew over, and I told Daddy I’d like to be a pilot when I grow up. He said, “Ain’t no colored pilots.” I said, okay, then, I’ll be a ballplayer. He said, “Ain’t no colored ballplayers.” But he never said that anymore after we sat in the colored section of Hartwell Field and watched Jackie Robinson.7

That exhibition game was in 1948, a year after Robinson broke the major-league color barrier. Hank remembered skipping school to hear Robinson talk to a crowd in front of a drugstore. “If it were on videotape, you’d probably see me standing there with my mouth wide open. I don’t remember what he said. It didn’t matter what he said. … I was allowed to dream after that.”8

Young Hank’s baseball dreams were big, but money and equipment were scarce. So Hank made do with whatever he could find – bottle caps became baseballs, and broomsticks turned into bats used on makeshift sandlots. Aaron said, “I believe that my style of hitting was developed as a result of batting against bottle caps.”9 He explained that he hit off his front foot because that’s how to best hit a bottle cap; out in front before it can curve some more. His mother had a problem with it, but it had nothing to do with Hank hitting off his front foot. Estella once caught him utilizing her new mop as a stickball bat. It was part of a long-running battle with her baseball-loving boy; she was also constantly after him to do his schoolwork because all he wanted to do was fish and play ball.

Henry Aaron grew up in this house in the port city of Mobile, Alabama. (Photograph by George Bovenizer.)

Boys and girls can climb an oversized bat and balls at Henry “Hank” Aaron Park. (Photograph by George Bovenizer.)

In his first 17 games with the Clowns, Henry Aaron batted a robust .427 with five home runs and 26 RBIs. (Negro Leagues Baseball Museum)

“Teammates barely knew what to make of him – until he stepped into the batter’s box.” – Howard Bryant, writing of Henry Aaron’s first days with the Indianapolis Clowns.1

Henry Aaron began his professional career in the minor leagues with Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in 1952. A plaque indicates that he played his first professional game there. But did he?

Weeks before he joined the Boston Braves organization, the 18-year-old Aaron suited up with the Indianapolis Clowns of the six-team Negro American League. The NAL was quite different from the league it had been a decade earlier. By the start of 1952, 10 Black players had cracked the racial barrier in the AL/NL major leagues. Dozens more were in the affiliated minor leagues.

Aaron was discovered in 1951 by Ed Scott while playing with the semipro Mobile Black Bears. The following spring, Aaron boarded a train from Mobile and joined the Clowns for spring training,2 which began April 10 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. When he joined the club, media coverage was scant and the trail of his first games is elusive. On April 16 at Charlotte, he was in the lineup against the Philadelphia Stars and singled, doubled, and tripled as the teams played to a 7-7 tie.3

The Clowns were managed by Buster Haywood, who also did some catching. The clowning of “King Tut,” a part-time first baseman named Dick King, was a main attraction.4

The team traveled to Austin, Texas, to take on the Kansas City Monarchs, and then it was on to Muskogee, Oklahoma, where Aaron gained a bit of ink (although they got his first name wrong, calling him Frank Aaron) for fielding 13 chances at shortstop without an error in a 7-0 loss.5 He played exclusively at shortstop with the Clowns and it was not until he joined the Braves organization that he was moved to the outfield.

On May 3, the bus stopped at Nevada, Missouri, and the Clowns and Monarchs engaged in a slugfest with the Clowns winning 7-5, largely on the strength of Aaron’s first two home runs as a professional.6 Aaron participated in seven double plays in the contest.7

The next afternoon in Kansas City, Aaron had two hits in each game and stole two bases in the opener, but the Clowns came up short in each game. In the second game, the Clowns could muster only three hits against Henry Mason. Aaron doubled and scored the only Clowns run in the second inning of an 8-1 loss.8

The regular season began for the six-team NAL on May 11. The Clowns swept a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Stars in Nashville. Accounts of these games are incomplete and there was no mention of Aaron. The next days were spent on a trip that took the Clowns and Stars through Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, splitting six games before arriving at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium.

On May 18 in Baltimore, Aaron hit two homers for the Clowns. They came in the second game of a twin bill and accounted for four of the Indianapolis runs in a 5-2 win. In the opener, Aaron had gone 1-for-4 in a 4-3 win.9

The Stars and Clowns were scheduled to play at Washington’s Griffith Stadium on May 19, but the game was rained out.

The Clowns then made their way north with stops at Wilmington, Delaware, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, en route to Buffalo, New York. In Wilmington on May 21, the Clowns won, 5-0, with Aaron going 2-or-5.10 He doubled in a 2-1 Clowns win at Lancaster the next night.11

At Buffalo on Sunday, May 25, Aaron came up big as the Clowns swept two games from the Memphis Red Sox. He went 4-for-5 in the opener and 3-for-4 with a home run in the nightcap.12

Statistics published in Black newspapers reflected Aaron’s dominance in the early season. Through May 25 he had 28 hits in 58 at-bats (.483) and also led the NAL in home runs (5) and RBIs (24). He had a league-leading six doubles and 51 total bases.13 He also had six stolen bases.14

On June 1 in Kansas City, the Clowns split a doubleheader against the Monarchs, with Aaron getting a hit in each game. In the second game, he drove in a run and stole a base as the Clowns won 17-7.15

As May turned into June, reports surfaced that Aaron, still hitting over .400, was bound for the Boston Braves organization. Even so, he continued with the Clowns until the signing was officially announced on June 10.

In Des Moines on June 6, Aaron had two singles and a walk in the Clowns’ 9-1 win over Kansas City.16

On June 8, the Clowns were at Comiskey Park and Aaron’s fourth-inning single in the second game helped his team score its only run in a 5-1 loss. The Clowns had won the opener, 6-0, but there are no details of the game.17

On June 9, the Clowns played in Benton Harbor, Michigan, against the St. Joseph Auscos. Although the Clowns lost 10-5, Aaron singled, doubled, and stole a base.18

Aaron played his last game with the Clowns on June 10. In a 14-6 loss to the Chicago American Giants, he went 0-for-3. Ironically enough, it was the only time during his days with the Clowns that the team played in Indianapolis.19

On June 12 Aaron arrived in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His first game in the Northern League was on June 16.

His final stats with the Clowns, as shown in the Baltimore Afro-American on June 14 and reported in newspaper articles accompanying reports of his signing with the Braves, had him with a .427 batting average with 32 hits in 75 at-bats in 17 games.20 He had 26 RBIs with 7 doubles, a triple, and 5 home runs. He also led the league with 18 runs scored and 56 stolen bases.21

Because these numbers did not include his final games with the Clowns at the beginning of June, a look at June 21 and 28 Black newspapers is necessary to see Aaron’s total with the Clowns. He tailed off a bit toward the end. His final totals included 40 hits in 107 at-bats for a .374 average. He led the league with 8 doubles, 5 home runs, and 32 RBIs. He also had 5 stolen bases.22

Henry Aaron played mostly shortstop for the Indianapolis Clowns. (Chicago Defender, June 7, 1952)

But even these were not Aaron’s final numbers with the Clowns.

After a stellar season with Eau Claire, he returned to the Clowns for a postseason series against the Birmingham Black Barons. The Clowns had won the first-half title, and Birmingham (23-15) had led the league in the second half of the season, with Indianapolis (18-16) dropping to second place. The series was to have begun in Birmingham on September 14, but the game was rained out. Details from this series are incomplete at best.

In Memphis on September 15, the Clowns won, 4-3. Aaron went 2-for-3 with a double and a stolen base.23 Birmingham won the next two games, and the Clowns pounded out a 16-10 win in Knoxville on September 19 to even the series. Aaron hit a home run, a double, and three singles.24

Birmingham won three of the next four games, but little is known about those games. Down five games to three, the Clowns won four straight contests to take the 12-game series. Per the article that appeared in the Philadelphia Tribune, Aaron batted .402 with 5 homers during the 12 games.25 The only home run that was documented came in the fourth game.

The teams continued to play after the decisive game was played on September 28. On October 8 in Knoxville, they concluded their 18-game barnstorming tour, and Birmingham won, 11-7, with Aaron getting a double and a triple in his last game with the Clowns.26

ALAN COHEN has been a SABR member since 2011. He chairs the BioProject fact-checking committee, serves as vice president-treasurer of the Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood Chapter, and is a datacaster (MiLB stringer) with the Eastern League Hartford Yard Goats, the Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. He also works with the Retrosheet Negro Leagues project and serves on SABR’s Negro League Committee. His biographies, game stories, and essays have appeared in more than 80 baseball-related publications. He has four children, ten grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, and resides in Connecticut with wife Frances, their cats Zoe and Ava, and their dog Buddy.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources shown in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com and the following:

“Clowns Get Minor Loop Stars for World Series,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, September 16, 1952: 15.

“Hank Aaron Cinches ’52 Rookie Honor,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 16, 1952: 10.

NOTES

1 Howard Bryant. The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010), 42.

2 Bryant, 39; Hank Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (New York: Harper-Collins, 1991), 22-25.

3 Bill Johnson, “Clowns and Stars Battle to 7-7 Knot,” Charlotte Observer, April 17, 1952: 4-B.

4 When Aaron was with the team, the clowning was limited to King Tut and Spec Bebop.

5 “Shut Out by Monarchs,” Kansas City Times, May 1, 1952: 28.

6 Paul Jenner, “Clowns Win, 7-5, in Battle of Home Runs, Double Plays,” Nevada (Missouri) Herald, May 8, 1952: 6.

7 “Clowns Set NAL Record,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 17, 1952: 24.

8 “A 3-Hitter by Monarch,” Kansas City Times, May 5, 1952: 19.

9 “Clowns Win Double-Header from Stars by 4-3 and 5-2,” Baltimore Sun, May 19, 1952: 16.

10 “Indianapolis Clowns Top Philadelphia Stars, 5-0,” Wilmington (Delaware) Morning News, May 22, 1952: 24.

11 “Ex Roses Star Scores Winning Run for Clowns,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) New Era, May 23, 1952: 19.

12 “Baseball News,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, June 2, 1952: 2.

13 “N.A.L. Data: Aaron Monopolizes Slugging Honors,” St. Louis Argus, June 6, 1952: 20.

14 “Negro American League Averages (including Games of May 25),” Kansas City Call, June 2, 1952: 11.

15 “A Split for Monarchs,” Kansas City Times, June 2, 1952: 21.

16 Jim Foster, “Clowns Romp on Two-Hitter,” Des Moines Register, June 7, 1952: 10.

17 “Clowns Blank Giants, 6-0, Then Lose, 5-1,” Chicago Defender, June 14, 1952:

18 “Major League Trial Awaits Clowns Star,” Benton Harbor (Michigan) Herald-Palladium, June 10, 1952: 8.

19 “American Giants Whip Clowns,” Indianapolis Star, June 11, 1952: 27.

20 “Official NAL Statistics,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 14, 1952: 17.

21 “Aaron, Top Hitter, Bought by Braves,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 14, 1952: D-1.

22 “Aaron Sets Pace in NAL Hit Parade,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 21, 1952: 25.

23 “Clowns Defeat Barons,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 16, 1952: 21.

24 “Rookie Leads Clown Victory,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, September 20, 1952: 6

25 “Third NAL Title for Funmakers,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 14, 1952: 10.

26 “Homers Defeat Clowns, 11 to 7,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, October 9, 1952: 34.

A young Henry Aaron with the 1952 Eau Claire Bears. Top row from left to right: Chester Morgan, Richard Engquist, Elmer Toth, Gordon Roach, Wes Covington, Robert MccConnell, Kenneth Reitmeier. Middle row: Henry Aaron, Donald Auten, Chuck Doehler, Bill Adair, Lantz Blaney, George Kornack, Julie Bowers. Bottom row: Bill Conroy, Johnny Goryl, Robert Brown, Don Jordon, Joe Subbiondo. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

Speaking to an audience in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on August 17, 1994, Henry Aaron said, “You gave me my start. You made me realize I had a dream and all I had to do was go out and play baseball as hard as I could.”1

Aaron had come to the small city east of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul to witness the unveiling of a statue in his honor. That statue stands in a plaza outside of Carson Park, Eau Claire’s WPA-era ballpark that has hosted baseball since 1937.

In 1952 Aaron began his journey through the Braves farm system on his way to the Hall of Fame via Milwaukee and Atlanta. He played in Eau Claire for only 2½ months, but during his brief tenure he showed flashes of the greatness that would take him to the Hall of Fame.

The Eau Claire Bears, members of the Class-C Northern League, had been a farm club of the Boston Braves since 1947. After a successful campaign in 1951 in which the Eau Claire topped the regular-season standings, Bears fans were cautiously optimistic at the start of the 1952 season. Second-year manager Bill Adair thought he might have a pennant contender on his hands but admitted he had little idea how his club would stack up against the other seven members of the league. He expected “some turnover of players before his club becomes a strong contender (and) looks for help at catching, the left side of the infield, and in the outfield.”2

Starting the season at home on May 4, the Bears got off to a rocky start as the Superior Blues swept them in the opening three-game series. Throughout May and into June, the Bears hovered around the .500 mark, despite the batting heroics of their star slugger, Wes Covington, who sported a batting average of .316 to go with 6 home runs and 29 RBIs by June 10.

Aaron had originally signed with Indianapolis on November 20, 1951. Early in the 1952 season, Clowns owner Syd Pollack touted Aaron in a letter to Boston’s farm director, John Mullen, and after a favorable report from Braves scout Dewey Griggs, Boston offered Indianapolis $10,000 to purchase Aaron’s contract.4 The New York Giants also expressed an interest, but according to Aaron, the Braves offered to pay Aaron $350 per month to play in Eau Claire, while the Giants offered $250 per month to play for their Sunbury, Pennsylvania, affiliate in the Interstate League. Aaron accepted the Braves offer both for the higher monthly salary and because he thought he had a better shot to make the Braves’ big-league roster.5

Aaron arrived in Eau Claire after playing a doubleheader for the Negro League Clowns in Chicago, taking a train to Milwaukee, and finally an airplane flight to his new baseball home. He unpacked his bags at the Eau Claire YMCA. “It was the first flight of my life, and the worst flight,” noted Aaron in later years.6

The Bears were scheduled to return home to Carson Park on June 13, although rain postponed the start of the homestand until the following day. On the 14th the Telegram noted, “Tonight’s game with St Cloud marks the close of the first one-third of the 1952 playing dates and finds the Bears still trying to get above the .500 mark. They hold fourth place by a margin over Duluth.” (At the time, the Bears’ record stood at 17-19, 12 games behind league-leading Superior and only one game ahead of the fifth-place Dukes.)7

During the afternoon of June 14, Aaron signed the contract that would pay him $350 per month ($200 from Eau Claire and $150 from Evansville of the Three-I League. The portion from Evansville presumably was to keep the Bears from exceeding the Northern League’s roster salary cap of $3400 per month).8 The young shortstop was set to make his debut on a hot and humid evening. Aaron wrote that he was “more nervous that it was my first time at bat against a white pitcher” than he was about playing his first minor-league game.9

Batting seventh, Aaron came to bat for the first time in the bottom of the second inning with the Bears trailing 2-0. After Collins Morgan doubled to deep center field, Aaron stroked a hit off left-hander Art Rosser to score Morgan but was thrown out at second base trying to leg out a double, so his first minor-league at-bat went into the books as a single with an RBI. The same combination of a Collins double and Aaron single tied the ballgame in the bottom of the fifth. Two subsequent walks put Aaron on third as the tying run, but the Bears were unable to bring him home.

Although Aaron handled seven chances in the field, he did muff a potential double-play ball in the top of the sixth. With a man on first and one out, Aaron bobbled a ball hit by Rollie Thomas, which put runners on the corners. The Rox went on to score two runs in the inning and sent the Bears to defeat, 4-3.10

After that respectable debut, Adair moved Aaron to the second spot in the Bears batting order, where the youngster fashioned a seven-game hitting streak.

Aaron later admitted he was somewhat wary of his Eau Claire manager. Like Aaron, Adair hailed from Mobile, Alabama, and Aaron was initially unsure how his White manager would treat him. Looking back in his autobiography, I Had A Hammer, Aaron credited Adair with being a “fair and good manager” who “gave me every chance to prove myself.”11

Likewise, Aaron noted he had some trepidation about playing in an overwhelmingly White city like Eau Claire. “Eau Claire was not a hateful place for a black person – nothing like in the South – but we didn’t exactly blend in,” he noted.12 Fortunately for the young player, Eau Claire had developed a history of welcoming African American players. Bill Bruton and Roy White had integrated the Bears in 1950, and Bruton won over the local fans with stellar play that earned him the Northern League Rookie of the Year Award that season. The following year, another Black player, Horace Garner, won the same award.13

Eau Claire’s 1952 roster included two other African Americans besides Aaron: John “Wes” Covington, a 20-year-old outfield prospect, and William Julius “Julie” Bowers, a 26-year-old veteran catcher who “was the type of black player you always found on minor-league teams back then – an older guy who was there to provide company for the younger players and keep them out of trouble.”14 The three teammates all stayed at the local YMCA.

Aaron by his own admission “wasn’t much of a talker anyway, but in Eau Claire, you couldn’t pry my my mouth open.”15 Covington noted that “Hank was a very private individual. I don’t think at that time we were really trying to be close. We were trying so damned hard to make the team.”16 The quiet Aaron apparently was content to let his play do the talking for him,

On the field, Aaron ended his first week of play in style, when he stroked a bases-clearing triple that capped a five-run sixth inning and provided the winning margin as Eau Claire notched an 8-5 victory for their first win in seven games against Superior.

Aaron was hitless in the second game of the series, but bounced back with two hits and an RBI in the series finale on June 20. He also made two errors in the contest, one of which injured Superior catcher, Chuck Wiles. Wiles had walked in the top of the eighth to put runners on first and third. The next batter grounded to Bears second baseman Bob McConnell, who threw to shortstop Aaron to force Wiles, but Aaron’s relay throw to first struck Wiles in the head, allowing the tying run to score as the ball rolled into right field. Alfredo Ibanez, a pitcher who was forced to substitute at catcher for the injured Wiles, allowed the Bears to score the winning run on a passed ball in the bottom of the ninth.17

Wiles was hospitalized with a severe concussion and was even in a coma for three days. He was released after a two-week hospital stay, but the impact of the ball had damaged his inner ear to such an extent that his sense of balance was destroyed. He never played professional baseball again. Reflecting on the incident, Aaron wrote, “I felt horrible, and on top of everything else, they booed me in Superior every time I came to bat for the rest of the season.”18

Despite sweeping the league leaders, Eau Claire still occupied fourth place. The Bears moved one game above .500 at 23-22 and were riding a six-game winning streak as they embarked on a road trip to the Northern League’s North Dakota cities, Fargo and Grand Forks.

In Fargo on June 22 Aaron swatted his first Northern League home run. With the teams tied, 4-4, in the top of the 10th, Bears center fielder Collins Morgan blasted a two-run homer to give Eau Claire the lead. Aaron then faced Twins pitcher Reuben Stohs. Stohs recalled that the “count went to 3-and-2 and I threw a high fastball. I could see his eyes get wide. He went up on his toes to get that ball, and just whipped it out of the park.”19 The Bears shut down Fargo-Moorhead in the bottom of the inning to notch an 8-4 victory.

The next day, in the second game of a doubleheader with Fargo-Moorhead, Aaron hit his second home run, although it showcased his speed rather than raw power. According to the Eau Claire Telegram, Aaron “opened the fourth with an inside-the-park home run to deepest center field. It was the first inside circuit clout for the Bears this season.”20 Eau Claire swept that four-game series with the Twins to extend its winning streak to nine and moved up to third place.

Eau Claire ran its winning streak to 10 games before the Grand Forks Chiefs cooled off the Bears in the first game of a doubleheader on June 25. Aaron scored the Bears’ run in the 2-1 defeat by again showcasing his speed. He singled in the seventh inning, took second on a wild pitch, went to third on an infield out, and scored on another wild pitch to prevent Stan Burkholder from tossing a shutout. The Bears won the nightcap and headed home to Carson Park six games above .500.21

After dropping two out of three to Fargo-Moorhead, Eau Claire recovered to sweep a three-game set with Grand Forks and Aaron closed out June on a high note by hitting a home run, driving in three runs, and kicking off a six-run rally in the eighth inning with a leadoff single and a stolen base.22

Aaron kept right on going as the calendar turned to July. In the final game of a homestand on July1, according to the Telegram, he “sparked the Eau Claire attack for the second straight night. He drove in one run with a tremendous double to center field, scored twice and stole two bases.”23 The Bears completed another sweep of Grand Forks, 4-2.

In the same issue the Telegram reported on a visit by Billy Southworth, former Boston Braves manager, who was then serving as a roving scout for the organization. While the paper quoted Southworth as saying the Eau Claire infield was “pretty good defensively,” he made no particular mention of Aaron.24 (In his scouting report, Southworth did remark that “for a baby-face kid of 18 years his playing ability is outstanding.”)25

The Bears then traveled to St. Cloud, Minnesota, where Aaron would have the biggest game of his budding career.

After the Bears split the first two games with the Rox, the teams squared off in a morning/evening doubleheader on the Fourth of July, and the Bears shortstop provided plenty of fireworks. The Bears scored 10 runs in each game, with Aaron getting a combined six hits in 10 at-bats. His grand slam in the eighth inning of the morning contest powered the Bears to a 10-7 win. For an encore, he was 4-for-5 with two doubles in the nightcap, which Eau Claire won 10-3.26

The Bears returned home for a two-game set (which was reduced to a single game after a July 5 rainout). An overflow crowd of 3,770 filed into Carson Park to watch the Bears take on the Dukes (and to enjoy postgame fireworks). Dukes pitcher Vern Belt handcuffed the Bears for the most part, until Aaron doubled in the seventh inning and later scored to knot the score, 1-1. Duluth rallied for two runs in the eighth inning, but Aaron had a golden opportunity for some heroics in the bottom of the frame as the Bears loaded the bases with two outs. Instead, he lined directly to left fielder Dick Getter for the third out and Duluth went on to top the Bears, 3-2.27

The Bears continued inching up the standings, and their record stood at 40-28 on July 10. They trailed first-place Superior by 5½ games and second-place Sioux Falls by 2½. That day, Aaron joined four of his teammates in being named to an all-star squad that would take on the league-leading Blues. Aaron joined his skipper Adair, along with pitcher Bobby Brown, catcher Julie Bowers, and left fielder Covington on the all-star roster.28

Before the all-star break, the Bears faced a pair of three-game series with second-place Sioux Falls and fourth-place Aberdeen.

After Eau Claire and the Sioux Falls Canaries split the first two games at Carson Park, the rubber game on July 13 came down to an exciting finish. Aaron led off the eighth inning with a double to left field and scored the first run in a two-run rally to give the Bears a 4-2 lead. Eau Claire starter Bobby Brown gave up a two-run homer in the top of the ninth to Dick Wright and the game moved to the bottom of the ninth tied, 4-4. Back-to-back scratch singles by Dick Engquist and John Goryl chased Sioux Falls reliever Ray Grund. The Canaries brought Gordon VanDyke to the mound and Aaron launched a 350-foot homer over the fence in left-center to give the Bears a 7-4 walk-off win and move them only 2½ games out of second place.29

Aberdeen came to Eau Claire the following night and Aaron’s two-run homer to right field staked the Bears to a 2-0 lead after one inning en route to a 7-2 victory over the Pheasants. The Bears dropped a doubleheader to Aberdeen on the 15th but still held third place at the break.

The all-star game took place in Superior on July 16. Aaron started at shortstop for the league all-stars and batted second. He singled in the first inning in what turned out to be his only at-bat in the game. While sliding into second in an attempt to break up a double play, he twisted his ankle. After a visit to a Superior hospital, Aaron was diagnosed with a slight ankle sprain and was expected to miss two days to a week. Superior went on to win the game, 8-6 taking advantage of seven errors by the all-stars.30

As it turned out, Aaron missed only one game for the Bears and returned to the lineup on July 18 at Sioux Falls. His bat showed few ill effects from his injury, although he did commit several errors in the subsequent games. Eau Claire continued to hold third place and managed to creep slightly closer to Superior and the second-place Canaries.

At Grand Forks on July 28, Aaron clouted a three-run homer in the top of the third to give the Bears a 3-1 lead. The wallop must have kick-started the Bears offense, as they went on to rout the Chiefs in a 26-3 laugher and inched closer to second place.31

On August 5 the Bears swept seventh-place Fargo-Moorhead in a doubleheader that combined with a Sioux Falls loss, moved Eau Claire past the Canaries and into second place. (Eau Claire was still 8½ games behind Superior.) The next day the Bears tightened their grip on second with another win and a Canaries doubleheader loss, but disaster struck the Bears. Late in the game, Covington was hit in the head by a pitch and knocked unconscious. He was hospitalized in Eau Claire and expected to miss at least 10 days just as the Bears were heading into the home stretch.32

Eau Claire had a brief respite from league play on August 6 and met the House of David, a talented barnstorming team, for an exhibition game at Carson Park. The Bears dropped the contest, 5-2. Aaron was restricted to pinch-hitting duty by a sore hand, but he slapped a single in the ninth inning and later stole third, but was stranded there when the final out came.33

Still, Aaron was in the lineup the next day in Sioux Falls and contributed a double as the Bears whipped the Canaries 10-5 to keep their hold on second place. Sioux Falls won the next two games of the series, however, and the Bears moved on to Aberdeen, where the fourth-place Pheasants swept a three-game set and bumped the Bears back into third. The second game of the Aberdeen series, on August 11, would also mark Aaron’s most ignominious moment of the season, at least since his errant throw struck Superior’s Chuck Wiles in June.

This time, one of Aaron’s own teammates, first baseman Dick Engquist, was the victim; he was struck in the face by Aaron during batting practice. As Aaron described the incident, “I was taking batting practice left-handed, toying with the idea of becoming a switch-hitter, when the bat slipped out of my hand and broke the nose of one of my teammates. After that, I never again tried to bat left-handed. I regret that now, because after batting cross-handed for so long, I would have been a natural switch-hitter.”34

More injuries piled up for the Bears in August. As one writer noted, “Third baseman Johnny Goryl lost a pop fly in the sun; it hit him on the top of the head and knocked him out.” The Bears became so shorthanded that not only was Adair forced into action, the skipper also was forced to use three pitchers as infielders.35

After the disastrous trip to South Dakota, the Bears returned home to face Duluth on August 13. Aaron helped set the table in the seventh inning with a single ahead of Julie Bowers’ home run as the makeshift Bears snapped a five-game losing skid and won their 60th game of the season.36

Aaron went 3-for-4 at Superior on August 18, but the Bears dropped the rubber match of a three-game set. That day, Covington worked out for the first time since his injury, so Eau Claire still had hopes of salvaging second place.37

Covington returned to action to open a key series at home with Superior on August 22. Aaron contributed an RBI single as the Bears shut out the Blues 4-0 and moved Eau Claire back within a game of second place.38

In the second game of a doubleheader against Aberdeen in Carson Park on August 28, Gordon Roach tossed a seven-inning no-hitter with Aaron credited for turning a sharp double play in the sixth inning to help out his pitcher.39 The win gave the Bears a split and set up a final confrontation with Sioux Falls. Both the Bears and Canaries were nine games behind Superior, although Sioux Falls held second by percentage points.

Aaron was hitless in the three-game set, and Sioux Falls swept Eau Claire to take the season series, 11-7 and put a lock on second place, three games ahead of Eau Claire.

Eau Claire ended the regular season on Labor Day with a sweep of the St Cloud Rox. The Bears walked off both games, with Aaron contributing to both rallies. In the first game, his sacrifice moved Covington into scoring position, and Covington eventually tallied the winning run. In the nightcap, Aaron tripled in the bottom of the ninth with one out. With runners on the corners after an intentional walk, Aaron scampered home with the winning run as the Rox were unable to turn a double play on a grounder.40 Aaron’s final batting average stood at .336, second in the league to the .342 of Duluth’s Joe Caffie. Aaron finished with 9 home runs and 61 RBIs.41

Finishing the season 72-53, the Bears earned a date with pennant-winning Superior in the first round of the league playoffs. The series opened in Superior on September 3, and 1,600 fans saw both starters (Bobby Brown for Eau Claire and Alfredo Ibanez for the Blues) pitch the distance as Superior topped the Bears 5-4 in 12 innings. Aaron contributed two RBIs when he launched a two-run homer in the sixth.42

The action moved to Carson Park for the remainder of the best-of-three series. In the second game, Aaron had two hits, including a double, although he did not have a role in the Bears’ five-run winning rally in the eighth inning. Julie Bowers’ three-run home run provided the final fireworks to tie the series and set up a decisive game three.43

Aaron was hitless in the finale, although Bowers scored when Aaron reached on an error in the bottom of the first.44 Superior won the third one-run game of the series, 4-3, to advance to the Northern League finals, where they swept Sioux Falls.

For his stellar first season in Organized Baseball, Aaron was named the Northern League Rookie of the Year and the league all-star shortstop.45 The same day he was announced as an all-star, the Telegram reported that Aaron had been recalled by Evansville. As it turned out, Aaron would not spend the 1953 baseball season in Indiana. For the next step on his road to the majors, he would return to his native South for an eventful season in Jacksonville, Florida, on his way to the major leagues.

POSTSCRIPT

Wes Covington joined Aaron in Milwaukee in 1956. Eau Claire infielder Johnny Goryl also made it to the major leagues in 1957, making his debut playing for the Cubs against Aaron and the Milwaukee Braves. Goryl later played for and managed the Minnesota Twins. Bears skipper Bill Adair had a long career managing the minor leagues for several organizations and had a cup of coffee with the Chicago White Sox, for whom he served as an interim manager for 10 games in September 1970 (the White Sox went 4-6.)

TIM RASK has been a member of SABR since 1992. He is a former umpire-in-chief of the FIeld of Dreams (Iowa) Chapter, and has contributed to several SABR publications. He currently resides in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. During the summer months, he attends many games at Eau Claire’s Carson Park, the same ballpark where Henry Aaron played his first season in the minor leagues.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Lloyd Johnson and Miles Wolff, eds., The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, fourth edition (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2024).

NOTES

1 Thomas B. Pfankuch, “Aaron Swings Through Town,” Eau Claire (Wisconsin) Leader-Telegram, August 18, 1994: 2A.

2 “Bears Tie Appleton, Arrive Here,” Eau Claire Leader, May 1, 1952: 18.

3 “Bears Return Tomorrow for 11-Game Stand,” Eau Claire Telegram, June 11, 1952: 16.

4 Dan Schlossberg, Home Run King: The Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron (New York: Sports Publishing, 2024), 48-49,

5 Henry Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had A Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 52-53.

6 Aaron, 54.

7 “Adair Must Cut Player to Make Room for Aaron,” Eau Claire Telegram, June 14, 1952: 8.

8 Jerry Poling, A Summer Up North (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 18.

9 Aaron, 58.

10 “Brown Takes Loss, Blaney Hits Homer,” Eau Claire Telegram, June 16, 1952, 11.

11 Aaron, 61.

12 Aaron, 55.

13 Poling, 34.

14 Aaron, 55.

15 Aaron, 57.

16 Poling, 38.

17 “Bears Win in Ninth, 5-4 to Sweep Series,” Eau Claire Telegram, June 21, 1952: 10.

18 “Aaron, 59-60.

19 Aaron, 59.

20 “Bears Win Two Behind Robinson, Brown,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, June 24, 1952: 10.

21 “Bears Split as Chiefs Snap Streak at Ten,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, June 26, 1952: 10.

22 “Bears Score Six in 8th, Beat Chiefs, 11-6,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, July 1, 1952: 14.

23 “Brown Hurls 4-2 Win, Bears Sweep Series,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram July 2, 1952: 10.

24 “Southworth Predicts Bears Will Soon Be in Flag Fight,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, July 2, 1952: 10.

25 Schlossberg: 49.

26 “Bears Slam St. Cloud Twice, 10-7, 10-3,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, July 5, 1952: 8.

27 “Bears’ Rally Falls Short, Dukes Win, 3-2,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, July 7, 1952: 8.

28 “Five Bears on Star Team,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, July 11, 1952: 9.

29 “Brown Hurls Win for Edge in Series,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, July 14, 1952: 10.

30 “Superior Cops Error-Studded Contest, 8-6,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram July 17, 1952: 18.

31 “Bears Batter Chiefs, 26-3; Take Series,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, July 29, 1952: 12.

32 “Bears Win, 8-7, Sweep Series From Twins,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, August 6, 1952: 14.

33 “Bears Lose to House of David, 5-2,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, August 7, 1952: 18.

34 Aaron: 60. Aaron recounts the incident as taking place earlier in the season and implies that it took place at roughly the same time as the throwing incident with Wiles.

35 “Patch-Work Bears Lose to Pheasants, 4-3,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, August 12, 1952: 8.

36 “Bears Break Losing String; Tip Dukes, 7-4,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, August 14, 1952: 18.

37 “Superior Tops Bears, 5-2, to Take Series,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, August 19, 1952: 10.

38 “Conroy Hurls Bears to 4-0 Win Over Blues,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, August 23, 1952: 8.

39 “Roach Hurls No-Hitter, Bears Split,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, August 29, 1952: 8.

40 “Bears Edge Rox, 4-3, 10-9; Finish Third” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, September 2, 1952: 8.

41 “Caffie Tops Aaron for Batting Crown,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, September 6, 1952: 11.

42 “Superior Cops in 12th, For Playoff Win,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, September 4, 1952: 14.

43 “Bears Rally to Win, 8-7, Square Series,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, September 5, 1952: 8.

44 “Blues Knock Bears Out of Playoffs, 4-3,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, September 6, 1952: 10.

45 “Three Bears Place on All-Star Squad,” Eau Claire Daily Telegram, September 26, 1952: 8.

Adding to the challenge was the fact that Aaron’s initial exposure to life in the minors in 1952 as a member of the Eau Claire Bears included no real racial dimension, a fact that made his experience in 1953 all the more jarring. Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the home of the Braves C-level affiliate, was almost 100 percent White, and that fact made Aaron more an object of curiosity than a target for derision or abuse.1 One of three Blacks on the team, the 18-year-old shortstop flourished on the field, hitting .336 with 9 home runs, 61 runs batted in, and 25 stolen bases in just 87 games. The performance earned him a promotion to the Jacksonville (Florida) Braves, the organization’s A-level club in the South Atlantic League, commonly known as the Sally League.

It was a very different place than Eau Claire. Indeed, while the level of baseball represented a promotion, the social conditions for a young Black man, a year before the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, in no way represented a step up from Eau Claire. In fact, not only had the Sally League not yet been integrated, but it was “widely considered to be the most hostile league for blacks in the minor-league system. Perhaps more than any minor league, the Sally represented the major challenge to integration.”2 So poisoned was its reputation that one author went so far as to say that in Jacksonville, Aaron “would have a more difficult time even than [Jackie] Robinson[,]” who at least had the “benefit of going to his home ballpark in Brooklyn half the time.”3

From the outset there were challenges, big ones. But while Aaron was switched to second base both to accommodate his teammate and fellow shortstop Felix Mantilla, and because he was seen as having a “natural throw from second, the challenges that Aaron faced had, for the most part, little to do with baseball.4 In fact, Aaron thrived on the diamond, experiencing little trouble between the lines. In the words of one biographer, Aaron “destroyed the opposition.”5 Indeed, before the season even officially started, the young second baseman offered a preview of what was to come in an April Fool’s Day preseason contest against the Boston Red Sox. As the Red Sox pummeled the Braves, 14-1, Aaron was a singular bright spot for Jacksonville, stroking two singles off southpaw Mel Parnell while preventing a shutout with a 400-foot home run off reliever Ike Delock in the eighth inning.6 Meanwhile, Aaron’s regular-season exploits were no less noteworthy with one particular highlight being back-to-back doubleheaders against Sally League rival Columbia in which he went 12-for-13.7

While leading Jacksonville to the Sally League pennant, Aaron won Most Valuable Player honors while compiling a stat line that featured a batting average of .362 with 22 home runs, 36 doubles, 14 triples, 115 runs scored, 125 runs batted in, and 338 total bases.8 And by season’s end he had acquired 13 wristwatches (most of which Aaron gave away to his teammates) as well as a dozen suits, all of which were awarded by local stores for a variety of baseball accomplishments. These rewards meant that Aaron was not only one of the best players in the minors, but he was also one of the best-dressed.9 In addition, the new team owner, Jacksonville businessman Sam Wolfson, the son of a Jewish immigrant and a longtime champion of the poor, was a man who had “been impressed by many of the players in the Negro American League” and was determined to integrate the team.10 In the same spirit as the local businessmen, Wolfson was known to leave envelopes of cash in a player’s lockers as a reward for outstanding play, no small reward given the salaries minor leaguers earned at the time. Aaron used his bonus money to buy his parents a television set.11 But as great as those numbers and the accompanying rewards and honors were, they reflected only one part of Aaron’s Jacksonville experience.

Quite simply, integrating the Sally League was a monumental task. As one author wrote, “The small towns that comprised the league were notorious – societies with little sophistication that enforced Jim Crow laws ruthlessly.”12 Indeed, the daily contradiction that was Aaron’s life as a Jacksonville Brave was summarized by iconic columnist Red Smith, who observed that Aaron “led the league in everything except hotel accommodations.”13

The realities of segregation were very much apparent in the living arrangements that Aaron, Mantilla, and teammate Horace Garner endured. In Jacksonville they were unable to live in the same place as their White teammates. Instead, they were provided a place to stay in the home of Jacksonville businessman Manuel Rivera, who, like Mantilla, was of both Puerto Rican and Black descent.14 Meanwhile, Aaron recalled, when the Braves were on the road, when the team arrived in a rival town for a road series, the bus driver would stop, get the team settled, and then take the Black trio “to their accommodations, usually a Black family on the ‘other side of the tracks.’”15

In fact, the pressure and challenges inherent in breaking the color line in the Sally League were obvious and constant. Aaron, Mantilla, and Garner had no choice but to always be on their best behavior, and if they forgot, the powers that be were always ready to remind them. Before their first game, the trio was told by Jacksonville’s mayor “that whatever they heard or fans tried to do to them, they must ‘suffer it quietly.’ Aaron would later call it the mayor’s Branch Rickey speech.”16 Such warnings were not limited to public officials. Indeed, “at the start of the 1953 season, Sally League umpires warned Aaron, Mantilla, and Garner not to engage with hostile white fans or opponents. They were also warned not to argue calls with umpires, in order not to incite white fans.”17 Given the racial dynamic of the times, it was not really a surprise, but it made for a less-than-even playing field as it quickly became apparent that “[o]ne result of the umpire edict was open season on black players. Pitchers threw at Henry, constantly sending him into the dirt.”18

Of course, all Sally League parks were segregated, which meant that Aaron and his Black teammates played before starkly divided crowds, one part of which proudly cheered on their fellow African Americans, thrilled at both their accomplishments and the fact that they were able to play. This was true both in Jacksonville and on the road, where racial pride often trumped team loyalties.19 Indeed, they cheered the most elemental plays, stomping their feet when a pop fly was caught. In one instance so many Black fans came out to see Aaron and his teammates that the stands collapsed.20 At the same time, they had to be wary of the often-differing response from the White section of the crowd. Indeed, the White fans were by no means content to simply watch a team that had been playing in Jacksonville for decades. Things were different now and rather than simply enjoy the game, some seemed focused on the fact that Aaron, Mantilla, and Garner had dared to intrude upon their previously all-White playground.

The abuse was unrelenting. Fans in the White sections regularly booed and heckled the Black players. It was not uncommon for fans to “wear mops on their heads and release black cats onto the field.”21 Furthermore, “Racial invective regularly rained down from the stands, and white and black fans yelled at one another from their segregated seats. In Augusta, Georgia, hostile spectators hurled rocks at Horace Garner. When the umpire used the loudspeaker to admonish people not to throw things onto the field, the crowd became even more inflamed. Aaron recalls Whites yelling, ‘N*****, we’re gonna kill you next time. Ain’t no N***** gonna squawk on no white folks down here.’”22 Mantilla recalled how Whites would yell from the stands, calling them “alligator bait.”23

Even in Jacksonville, before the home crowd, Aaron and his teammates had to hear fans telling them to “go back to the cotton fields.”24 While things improved as the season went on and the trio’s performances began to earn them respect, the challenges and abuse, regardless of the locale, were nonstop and ever-present and none were immune. If it weren’t catcalls and verbal abuse, it was rocks thrown from the White section of the bleachers.25 It was impossible to ignore. The 1953 season with the Jacksonville Braves presented a series of daily challenges, both at home and on the road. Indeed, when asked, “Which city was the worst?” Aaron responded, “You couldn’t say because they were all bad.”26

Adding to the challenge was the fact that not all the pressure came from outsiders. From the start, Aaron “proceeded gingerly, not assuming that even his own teammates were sympathetic to his situation. The reverse was often true: On more than one occasion White players who reached out to their black teammates could find themselves outcasts as well.”27 Indeed, on one trip to Columbia, South Carolina, a White teammate recalled offering to get food from a segregated restaurant. The players paid him, but the response from his White teammates, especially the Southerners, was less than welcoming.28 “They hated me just as much as they did Hank and Felix and them because I would do that.” That same teammate observed that Aaron “was real quiet in the clubhouse. Those guys, they knew they weren’t accepted by everybody, so they didn’t say and do a lot of things that we would do. It was just a lot of bullshit. It was the worst part. I was down there nine years and that was the worst thing in the nine years.”29

Fortunately, Aaron, Mantilla, and Garner had teammates who did accept them and supported them as ballplayers and as men. One of those was Ohio native Jim Frey, who spent 14 seasons in the minor leagues without ever reaching the majors before going on to a distinguished career as a major-league coach and manager.30 Frey “held Henry in high esteem. He loved his talent, but he also felt acute personal pain because of the abuse Henry endured in Jacksonville during the 1953 season.”31 Meanwhile, Mantilla also “remembered the good white teammates who made his and Henry’s time a bit easier.”32 Foremost among them was outfielder and North Carolina native Pete Whisenant, who “often made sure the black players were not isolated. Whisenant, Mantilla remembered, would often go out to dinner with Henry and Mantilla after games, looking for an integrated place where the teammates could hang out together.”33 But “[o]ften, as Mantilla recalled, such a small gesture could put them all at risk.”34

It was a learning process for all. Indeed, while teammates like Frey and Whisenant were learning about the challenges faced by their Black teammates in the South, Aaron and company “were watching the white players, taking in how they responded to their teammates’ humiliations, who they were as men.”35 Mantilla “recalled his time in the minor leagues as horribly oppressive, where race was consistently the determining factor in virtually every encounter, on or off the ball field. He remembered his difficulties in learning English and understanding the culture.”36

In the face of all of the abuse and the indignities heaped upon Aaron, Mantilla, and Garner, and despite being constantly reviled and subjected to untold amounts of verbal harassment, like Jackie Robinson in 1947, the three stayed focused on the game, regularly taking “their revenge at the plate.”37 Indeed, in one instance Aaron got five hits while he, Mantilla, and Garner reached base on 13 of their 14 times at bat.38 Frey recalled, “I never saw a black player who did anything but put his head down, played well, weather the storm. They had to.”39 Frey added, “It was just terrible what (Aaron) was subjected to. And he just took it all and hit. Baseball is a hard-enough game when everyone is rooting for you. You cannot believe what it must have been like to be Henry Aaron in 1953. It was a heartbreaking thing to watch.”40

One major source of support and comfort for Aaron and his Black teammates was Braves manager Ben Geraghty, who did much to help ease the tension. Aaron always called Geraghty “the best and most influential manager” he ever played for.41 A longtime baseball man and a New Jersey native, Geraghty “recognized Henry’s potential almost immediately[,]” realizing that he “possessed the ability to be not just a major-league player but a great, possibly transcendent one.”42 But in recognizing that talent he also knew that part of his job was to help Aaron maximize it. Consequently, for all his support, he was no less intent on helping make him a better player and “chided Henry constantly” to the young star’s benefit.43

Geraghty also realized that the toughest part of the experience was off the field, and he was a constant source of support in that area. Years later. Aaron remembered how, “[w]herever we stayed, Ben Geraghty would always make it a point to come over and see us. He had nothing special to say – he’d just drink a few beers and talk baseball – but it meant a lot to us that the manager would go out of his way to make us feel like part of the team.”44 Aaron recalled one time that the whole team was invited to Fort Benning, Georgia, but when it came time to eat “Horace, Felix and I were shuttled off to the kitchen. As soon as we sat down, here came Ben to join us. I’ve known white players and managers who will try to put on a good face around black players despite their real feelings, but there wasn’t a phony bone in Ben’s body. He was just a baseball man, and to him we were just baseball players. Besides that, he liked us.”45

But while integrating the Sally League had its own set of challenges, Aaron, unlike Jackie Robinson, “was not alone when he helped integrate the half-century-old” league. Rather, while he was considerably younger than Jackie Robinson was when Robinson joined the Dodgers, Aaron “had two black teammates as well as two African American opponents with league rival Savannah, Georgia.”46 But in reality “these numbers did not make Aaron’s Sally League season easy.”47 Indeed, it was still very much an experiment, a truth reflected in the fact that Montgomery had decided to wait before integrating its team, wanting to see how it went with Jacksonville and Savannah before taking the plunge.48

It was a challenge that made “perseverance … a prerequisite for black players.”49

As one observer noted, for Aaron, “the 1953 campaign was an exercise in perseverance, a crusade to prove the naysayers wrong.”50 Aaron himself recalled, “I’m sure that the Braves knew we were going to have some problems. … If we had failed, if we had come south and started arguing, fighting, and not having a good year, there would have been something for the press to talk about. … It would certainly have been something for everyone to say, ‘I told you so.’”51

Slowly, if haltingly, progress was made. Indeed, “[w]hile Jacksonville was busy integrating its team,” the team itself was “garnering increased revenues from the influx of African American and white fans eager to see Aaron, the league’s new superstar.”52 In fact, total attendance for the Braves in 1953 was more than twice what their predecessor the Jacksonville Tars had drawn the previous year.53 Indeed, as the season advanced and Aaron and Mantilla both made the midseason all-star game as the team powered toward its first league championship since 1912 when the team was known as the Jacksonville Tarpons, there was considerable evidence that “the crowds had warmed to their presence. They wore the right uniform.”54 Typical of the awkward progress, Mantilla remembered, was when after a victory in a “hard-fought contest,” a White fan “approached the two players [Aaron and Mantilla] easily. ‘I just wanted to say,’ the man said, ‘that you N*****s played a hell of a game.’”55

While the recognition was often grudging, in fact, Aaron, Mantilla, and Garner regularly “played a hell of a game,” a fact that was evident from the start. Indeed, based on their performances the previous year, as well as their team-leading efforts in the early days of the 1953 season, observers quickly recognized that racial issues aside, the three new players made Jacksonville a better team. As one columnist wrote in April, “We’re convinced. After watching the Jacksonville Braves of the Class A South Atlantic League soundly trim the Savannah Indians 19-3, in their home opener the other day we’ll have to go along with the facts. The Milwaukee Braves have one of the strongest, if not THE strongest Class A baseball team in the country today.”56 The Wisconsin writer asserted, “We’ll go so far as to say that the Jacksonville club will win the Sally League by at least 10 games this year,” noting that it had been years since Jacksonville had fielded a pennant-winner.57

And of course, at season’s end, in a decision Sally League President Dick Butler hailed as evidence that “the color barrier has been broken, there’s no doubt about that,” Aaron was the overwhelming choice for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award.58 It was an award his “team mates, white and Negro, said they never doubted” he would win.59 Yet the ever-modest Aaron was reported to be “a little surprised,” commenting, “I didn’t much expect it. I thought I might get some rookie award.”60 But Geraghty observed that Aaron was “far ahead of his nearest competitor” for the honor, adding that he was “an excellent team man largely responsible for the Braves being in first place since April.”61

In fact, his value to the team had been made clear when he was spiked in a game just days before the Sally League’s 50th Anniversary East-West Game, an injury that caused him to miss the game, which was particularly disappointing for the large Black crowd that had hoped to see the breakthrough star in action.62 The injury and Aaron’s possible absence from the Braves lineup sparked no small amount of concern. One writer observing that “[p]erhaps more than any individual, he is responsible for the Braves front running position in the pennant race,” said that the injury was viewed “as a major calamity by Braves followers.”63 Meanwhile, another writer observed that “[w]ithout Aaron’s bat the Braves are like a ship without a rudder.”64 Fortunately, Aaron recovered, and the Braves continued their march to the pennant.

As the season went on, more questions emerged about which position he should play going forward. While the shift to second base had been a challenge, it had not been a problem. Even so, the young infielder began taking fly balls in the outfield as the season continued.65

In the end, while the Braves won the regular-season crown, claiming their first pennant in decades, they fell short in the postseason playoffs, losing a seven-game series to the Columbia (South Carolina) Reds. While Aaron would look back on the season with justifiable pride, noting that he, Mantilla, and Garner “had played a great season of baseball in the Deep South under circumstances that nobody had experienced before and – because of us – nobody would again,” he could not escape Jacksonville without a final indignity.66 After clinching the pennant in Savannah, the team arranged for a party at a Savannah restaurant. However, Aaron, Mantilla, and Garner had to stay in the kitchen while the rest of the team partied in the restaurant. After a little while the team’s general manager gave Aaron and his teammates $50, telling them to have their own party. The trio ended up keeping $15 apiece and spending the remaining $5 on some beer.67 The players might have taken solace in the fact that things did get better when they returned to Jacksonville. The team held a party at a local country club, where Mr. Wolfson, as Aaron called him, was able to get the three Blacks admitted for the occasion. Even so, when a Black reporter arrived to cover the barrier-breaking event, he was not allowed inside.68

In the end, for all the travails, beyond their heroic and precedent-shattering efforts, the season in Jacksonville did yield one very large benefit unrelated to baseball for Henry Aaron. Days before the season began, while hanging around the ballpark, Aaron saw an attractive girl about his age heading into the post office. Clubhouse man T.C. Marlin, who was reputed to know everyone in that part of town, introduced the two.69 Initially hesitant, she said Aaron would need to meet her parents. Before long, the future Hall of Famer and and Barbara Lucas, a young student at a local business school, described as “tall and thin with sparkling green eyes,” were dating.70 It turned out that she had a brother who also played baseball and who would later sign with the Braves organization. After going together all summer, Aaron asked Barbara to marry him and accompany him to winter ball in Puerto Rico.71 It was the final step in an 18-month whirlwind that had seen the teenager go “from standing on the platform at the L&N Railroad station to playing in the Negro Leagues to being a married man.”72

Jacksonville had proved to be a tremendously important stop on Henry Aaron’s baseball journey, and for all the contradictory elements of the experience, not only did the city ultimately recognize it, but they wanted to be associated with Henry Aaron, the athlete and the man. That desire was made clear and official in 2021 when the City Council unanimously named the local field “Henry L. Aaron Field at J.P. Small Memorial Stadium.”73

BILL PRUDEN has recently retired after over 40 years as a teacher of American history and government. A SABR member for over two decades, he has contributed to SABR’s BioProject and Games Project as well as a number of book projects. He has also written on a range of American history subjects, an interest undoubtedly fueled by the fact that as a 7-year-old he was at Yankee Stadium to witness Roger Maris’s historic 61st home run.

NOTES

1 Howard Bryant, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 44.

2 Bryant, 50.

3 Bryant, 50.

4 Jake Penland, “In the Press Box,” Columbia (South Carolina) State, July 24, 1953.

5 Bryant, 57.

6 F.C. Matzek, “Red Sox Display Their Wares on Jacksonville, Win, 14-1,” Providence Journal, April 2, 1953.

7 Bryant, 57.

8 Bryant, 57.

9 Hank Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had A Hammer (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007), 97; Scott A. Grant, “Hank Aaron’s Ties to Jacksonville Run Deeper Than You Think,” Ponte Vedra (Florida) Recorder, January 28, 2021; https://pontevedrarecorder.com/stories/hank-aarons-ties-to-jacksonville-run-deeper-than-you-think,11926.

10 “Hank Aaron’s Ties to Jacksonville Run Deeper Than You Think”; Dave Burkey, “Hank Aaron Played for the Jacksonville Braves in 1953,” JAX Examiner (Jacksonville), January 22, 2021; https://jaxexaminer.com/hank-aaron-played-for-the-jacksonville-braves-in-1953/.

11 Aaron, 97.

12 Bryant, 51.

13 Bryant, 191.

14 Scott Butler, “Hank Aaron Hammered Home Runs in Jacksonville in 1953; What Do We Know of Him Then?” Florida Times Union (Jacksonville), February 1, 2023; Anthony Castrovince, “Aaron Broke Barriers During Rise to Majors,” MLB.com; https://www.mlb.com/news/hank-aaron-broke-racial-barriers-in-minors.

15 Mark Arnold, “Saying Goodbye to Hammerin’ Hank Aaron-Part III,” From a Native Son, March 14, 2021; https://fromanativeson.com/2021/03/14/.

16 “70 Years Ago Aaron Integrated South Atlantic League,” RememberHenryHarris.com; https://rememberhenryharris.com/70-years-ago-aaron-integrated-south-atlantic-league/.

17 Bryant, 54.

18 Bryant, 54.

19 Chuck Williams, “Before he Was a Legend, Hank Aaron Came through Columbus on His Way To Stardom,” News3, Columbus, Georgia, January 22, 2021; https://www.wrbl.com/sports/before-he-was-a-legend-hank-aaron-came-through-columbus-on-his-way-to-stardom/.

20 Grant, “Hank Aaron’s Ties to Jacksonville Run Deeper Than You Think.” There is no information provided as to where this took place.

21 “Hank Aaron’s Ties to Jacksonville Run Deeper Than You Think.”

22 Bruce Adelson, Brushing Back Jim Crow (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999), 2-3.

23 Bryant, 53-54.

24 Bryant, 52.

25 Mark Arnold, “Saying Goodbye to Hammerin’ Hank Aaron – Part III,” From a Native Son, March 14, 2021; https://fromanativeson.com/2021/03/14/.

26 Bryant, 52.

27 Bryant, 55.

28 Bryant, 55.

29 Bryant, 56.

30 “Jim Frey, Manager Who Flirted With Championships, Dies at 88.” New York Times, April 14, 2020.

31 Bryant, 51.

32 Bryant, 54.

33 Bryant, 54.

34 Bryant, 54.

35 Bryant, 52.

36 Bryant, 53.

37 Adelson, 3.

38 Adelson, 3.

39 Bryant, 55.

40 Bryant, 51-52.

41 Bryant 60.

42 Bryant, 56.

43 Bryant, 56.

44 Aaron, 88.

45 Aaron, 88-89.

46 Adelson, 2.

47 Adelson, 2.

48 Bryant, 54.

49 Bryant, 55.

50 Adelson, 3.

51 Adelson, 3.

52 Adelson, 67-68.

53 Jacksonville Tars Franchise History (1926-1952), Stats Crew, https://www.statscrew.com/minorbaseball/t-jt12212; Jacksonville Braves Franchise History (1953-1960), Stats Crew, https://www.statscrew.com/minorbaseball/t-jb12199.

54 Bryant, 54.

55 Bryant, 54.

56 Red Wyczawski, “Ex-Bears on Formidable Jacksonville Club,” Northwest Sportscope, Daily Telegram (Eau Claire, Wisconsin), April 22, 1953.

57 Wyczawski, “Ex-Bears…”

58 Ed Goins, “Negro Star Voted Award,” Durham Morning Herald (Durham, North Carolina), August 19, 1953.

59 “Henry Aaron, Negro Athlete is Voted Sally’s Most Valuable,” Panama City News-Herald (Panama City, Florida), August 19, 1953.

60 “19-Year-Old Henry Aaron Top Prize in Milwaukee Talent Hunt,” Evansville Press (Evansville, Indiana), September 3, 1953.

61 “Henry Aaron, Negro Athlete…”

62 Luther Thigpen, “Threatening Weather Held Crowd Down,” Macon News (Macon, Georgia), July 15, 1953.

63 Mercer Bailey, Henry Aaron Termed Key to Jacksonville’s Success,” Alabama Journal (Montgomery, Alabama), July 15, 1953.

64 Sam Glassman, “It Seems to Me,” Macon Telegraph (Macon, Georgia), August 11, 1953.

65 Whitney Martin, “Sports Trail,” Beckley Post-Herald (Beckley, West Virginia), October 27, 1953; “Jacksonville Star Selected on Twelve of Sixteen Ballots, Pittsburgh Courier, August 29, 1953.

66 Arnold, “Saying Goodbye…”

67 Aaron, 101.

68 Aaron, 101.

69 Aaron, 77-78

70 Bryant, 56.

71 Bryant, 57.

72 Bryant, 57.

73 Butler, “Hank Aaron hammered…”

Henry Aaron posing for a pre-game portrait in Puerto Rico. (Courtesy of Jorge Colon Delgado.)

Henry Aaron arrived in Puerto Rico as a teenager, a poor defensive infielder, and a minor leaguer. A few months later, he left a bona fide star, a father, and a major-league-ready outfielder.

The Milwaukee Braves wanted him to get additional experience in the island’s winter league. Though Aaron terrorized South Atlantic League (Sally) pitchers with a .362/.399/.589 slash line in 1953, he made 36 errors as a second baseman. His .947 fielding percentage was a slight improvement over his 1952 numbers as the Eau Claire Bears’ shortstop (35 errors in 87 games).

Despite his unquestionable offensive skills, Aaron acknowledged that he “needed a little money and all the ballplaying I could get. The Puerto Rican League was loaded with major-league pitchers, and it would be a good chance for me and the Braves to find out how ready I really was as a hitter.”1

Aaron, however, did not travel to the Caribbean by himself. Minor-league teammate Félix Mantilla eagerly volunteered to help him adjust to Puerto Rico, though the island’s racial harmony was a welcome change over the Sally cities. Both Aaron and Mantilla had married women they met during the 1953 season, and the quartet became fast friends.2

Former teammate Roberto Vargas recalled a skinny Aaron as a good but not great hitter, who “was taking too many strikes with men on base. Manager Mickey Owen told him the next time he took a strike with men in scoring position, he was going to fine him. So he even started swinging at the balls in the ground.”4

Though Caguas5 won its first three games, cleanup hitter Aaron started slowly (3-for-14).6 His sixth-inning double drove in Mantilla as the tying run on October 14 against the Leones of Ponce. Jim Rivera, who had previously walked, and Aaron would later be driven in by Dale Long as the Criollos won, 5-3.7 Aaron seemed tentative at the plate and was dropped to the seventh spot in the order on October 21 against Santurce.8 Less noticed but more importantly, he switched from second base to right field during the game, a move that would turn his season around.

Owen was mindful of Aaron’s development as a complete player, not just a hitter: “I knew where I could get a better second baseman than Aaron, [but] he could hit. So, one day I hit him a few fly balls and he went to it and got them easy, and he threw good. I said, you’re not an infielder, you’re an outfielder.”9 The transition solidified the club, as outfielders Luis Rodríguez Olmo (34 years old) and Juan “Tetelo” Vargas (47 years old) had lost a step.10 Smooth fielding Charlie Neal took over second base and formed a silky-smooth double-play combination with Mantilla.

The Caguas manager also “taught [Aaron] weight distribution and how to hold his hands steady. Owen saw that Henry possessed an uncommon ability as a hitter, and he took it upon himself to help refine that ability.”11 Owen saw similarities between Aaron and one of the sport’s greatest batsmen: “[D]on’t let anybody change you, because you’re going to be a good hitter and probably a great hitter if you take care of yourself. I could just see (Rogers) Hornsby in him the way he would take that whip swing and drive the ball all over the park. Both of them would get that big end of the bat around so fast. And they were both hitchers. They’d get their hands started before the swing, like a sprinter getting a running start. Aaron was even the same size as Hornsby. I believe if he hadn’t started thinking about home runs later on, he would have had some years when he batted .400, just like Hornsby.”12

On October 22 Aaron injured his ankle running to first base and missed a few games,13 perhaps a blessing in disguise as he was homerless in 24 at-bats with a .208 average.14 According to Roberto Vargas, Owens “told Aaron ‘if you have men on scoring position and you take a strike, I will fine you’ so he would be more aggressive at the plate.”15

Aaron began to turn a corner on October 30 against San Juan. He singled twice, tripled, and drove in two runs in a 10-9 loss to the San Juan Senators.16 He surpassed .300 in early November and reached .310, fourth-best in the league, by November 3.17 Though Caguas lost 5-3 to Ponce on November 30, Aaron “won the highest cheer of the night as he nabbed Wilson’s long drive by climbing the right field fence.”18

His average reached .363 by late November, but he had clouted only two home runs.19 By December 8, Aaron was in the top 10 in various offensive categories with a .352 batting average, 19 RBIs, 19 runs, 9 doubles, and 3 home runs.20

Aaron was tied with Luis “Canena” Márquez with a .343 batting average as play halted for the All-Star Game.21 The contest, played in Caguas on December 23, provided Aaron with another venue to display his considerable talents. He walloped two home runs (which cleared the bleachers behind center field), a double, and a single to lead the “Imports” (non-Puerto Ricans) over the “Natives” (Puerto Ricans or those of Puerto Rican heritage), 11-1.22 He was named the game’s Most Valuable Player and won a 60-yard dash before the contest.23 Natalio Irizarry, who threw 29 consecutive scoreless innings during the regular season and led the league with a 1.49 ERA, was pleased that Aaron’s “450-foot plus HR off me in the All-Star Game” did not count against his season totals.24

Aaron leapfrogged past Márquez by December 28, aided by a 4-for-5 game against San Juan on December 26.25 He provided two singles, a double, and a 400-foot home run (his sixth) in Caguas’s 11-3 victory. Aaron drove in four of the team’s runs.26

As 1953 ended, Aaron led the league in batting with a solid 13-point lead over Márquez (.357 to .344). The Sporting News’s end-of-the year article on the Puerto Rican Winter League called out Aaron as a “Negro whiz who won the Sally League batting title this year with .362.”27

Caguas and Mayagüez split a January 4 doubleheader, and though Aaron (3-for-6) beat Márquez (1-for-4),28 the lead had narrowed to six percentage points by the end of that week (.343 to .337).29 The Criollos suffered a harrowing scare on January 8 when Aaron and Rivera collided while chasing a line drive. Both outfielders left the game.30

Henry Aaron rounds third after one of his league-leading nine home runs, tied with Caguas teammate Jim Rivera. (Courtesy of Jorge Colon Delgado)

By January 14 Márquez led the batting race, .347 to .336, as both teams were tied for second place, but Aaron’s bat was thunderous in a January 13 victory over the Santurce Cangrejeros (Crabbers).31 He walloped a three-run blast in the eighth inning to give Caguas an 8-5 win.32 On January 15 Caguas lost a doubleheader in Mayagüez and Aaron managed only one hit.33 He hit his ninth and last home run of the season on January 21, part of a three-hit performance against Santurce to regain the batting race lead.34 El Mundo joked that “Canena (Márquez) and Aaron are playing heads or tails,” in reference to the hitting crown.35

Márquez overcame Aaron for good after January 29, .342 to .339,36 as Aaron began a 3-for-18 slide to drop his average to .322. Caguas, however, clinched first place on February 3 with a 3-0 victory over Ponce.37 As regular-season champions, the Criollos earned a spot in the playoff finals. Their opponents were decided in a best-of-seven series between Mayagüez and San Juan. The Indios (Indians) beat the Senadores (Senators) to pit Márquez and Aaron against each other in the finals.38 During the season, Márquez (27-for-69, .391) and Aaron (19-for-60, .317) brought out the best of each other in games between their teams.39

Rain delayed the first game of the finals to February 11. Caguas edged Mayagüez, 5-3, with Márquez (1-for-4, 2 runs) outperforming Aaron (0-for-3).40 The next day Mayagüez took the second game, 5-1, with both Márquez and Aaron going 1-for-4.41 Aaron contributed a double and a home run in the third game, a 7-1 Caguas victory on February 13.42 The Criollos won a thrilling 1-0 game on February 15, though neither Márquez (0-for-4) nor Aaron (1-for-3) played a key role.43 Aaron went 2-for-5 with one RBI in the February 16 clincher, an 11-0 whitewash.

Márquez was chosen as the Most Valuable Player of the regular season, but Aaron won the slugging title, drove in 42 runs, stole seven bases, scored 37 runs, hit 16 doubles, and tied Rivera with nine home runs. Rivera, who played 10 years in the big leagues, recalled, “When he was with us at the bat, he never pulled the ball. He hit the ball where it was pitched. He hit a lot of balls to center field, right-center and right field. I couldn’t believe when I saw he became a good pull hitter later on. That’s how he hit all of those home runs; he had great wrists.”44

Opposing hurlers were clear in their assessment. San Juan left-hander Jack Harshman noted that “he had absolutely great hand-wrist action. I had him 0-and-2 once and threw him a high and inside fastball to force him away from the plate. But he leaned back and hit it over the center field wall. Aaron had the best hands I’ve ever seen.”45 Luis Arroyo, future Yankee and Pirate, found “Aaron was a no-nonsense player with Caguas and mature for his age … went from A ball to Puerto Rico and the major leagues quickly.”46 Bob Turley remarked, “[Y]ou could tell Aaron had a major-league stroke … by the way he sprayed the ball to right and right-center.”47 Cangrejeros ace Rubén Gómez found the youngster “quiet, respectful, baseball-smart, disciplined,” a sentiment echoed by his teammate Bill Greason: “hard-working kid consistent, very mature for his age.”48 Tommy Lasorda was more succinct: “It was hard to pitch to Aaron with his reflexes and talent.”49

Perhaps the only drawback of Aaron’s season was not playing in the Caribbean Series: “[W]hen he wrapped up the season with the Criollos, he did not accompany the team to the Caribbean Series because the Braves called him for spring training.”50 There was another benefit, as he “wanted to show my parents – and Barbara’s – their new granddaughter. Our first child, Gaile, was born in Puerto Rico and spent her first couple of months in the little house we rented there.”51

By Aaron’s own admission, he had been told that “no matter how he hit (in Puerto Rico), he would spend the entire 1954 season in Toledo.”52 Luck intervened: Bobby Thomson, Milwaukee’s expected left fielder, broke his ankle on March 13, so the position was up for grabs. Aaron seized the opportunity and finished fourth in Rookie of the Year voting, averaging .280/.322/.447 in 122 games, despite missing roughly a month with his own broken ankle on September 5.

Caguas and Milwaukee had discussed Aaron’s return for the 1954-1955 season, but his injury prevented a second Caribbean foray. Fully healed after a restful postseason, he reached superstardom in 1955 and was selected to the first of his record-setting 25 consecutive All-Star Game appearances.53

Aaron was grateful for the opportunity to hone his skills: “There’s no question [the year in Puerto Rico] was a steppingstone in my getting to the major leagues. It gave me confidence.”54 He would occasionally return to Puerto Rico, including throwing out the first pitch at the 1976 All-Star Game and a 2007 visit with Sadaharu Oh for the World Children’s Baseball Fair.55 He fondly recalled his stay: “I learned a lot in Caguas. … That’s where I became an outfielder, thanks to my manager, Mickey Owen. … I played alongside my good friend, almost brother, Félix Mantilla … and my daughter Gaile was born in Caguas in 1954.”56

TONY S. OLIVER is a native of Puerto Rico currently living in Sacramento, California, with his wife and daughter. While he works as a Six Sigma professional, his true love is baseball and he cheers for both the Red Sox and whoever happens to be playing the Yankees. He is fascinated by baseball cards and is currently researching the evolution of baseball tickets. He believes there is no prettier color than the vibrant green of a freshly mown grass on a baseball field.

NOTES

1 Tom Van Hyning, “Remembering Hank Aaron’s Remarkable 1953-54 season in Puerto Rico,” Béisbol 101, January 24, 2021, https://beisbol101.com/remembering-hank-aarons-remarkable-1953-54-season-in-puerto-rico/.

2 Ennis Davis, “Four Hammering Hank Aaron Sites in Jacksonville,” The Jaxson Mag, February 23, 2021, https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/four-hammering-hank-aaron-sites-in-jacksonville/.

3 “Aaron es líder en seis fases,” El Mundo, August 24, 1953: 1; Ed Goins, “La Ambición de Aaron: Refuerzo de los Criollos Aspira Llegar a Bravos,” El Mundo, September 3, 1953: 17.

4 Nick Diunte, “Hank Aaron’s Lone Season in Puerto Rico Forever Altered His Path to the Hall of Fame,” Forbes, January 22, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickdiunte/2021/01/22/hank-aarons-lone-season-in-puerto-rico-forever-altered-his-path-to-the-hall-of-fame/amp/.

5 Officially, the Caguas franchise was known as the Criollos Brujos of Caguas-Guayama during 1953-54. The original Brujos (Warlocks) of Guayama were one of the league’s original teams but folded after four seasons. Given the proximity of the two cities, the co-branding made sense, but the Criollos played only in the Solá Morales Stadium of Caguas that year. Mayagüez was given the Indios Tiburones moniker, playing on the city’s proximity to Aguadilla, home of the former Tiburones (Sharks) franchise.

6 “Promedios Generales,” El Mundo, October 17, 1953:

7 Miguel Rivera, “Mayagüez y Caguas se Mantuvieron Invictos al Ganar Anoche,” El Mundo, October 15, 1953: 19.

8 “Box Scores,” El Mundo, October 23, 1953: 18.

9 Diunte.

10 In 2013, to commemorate the league’s 75th anniversary, both Rodríguez Olmo and Vargas were named among the league’s top 75 players of all time.

11 Howard Bryant, The Last Hero (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010), 60, 239.

12 Hank Aaron and Lonnie Wheeler, I Had A Hammer (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 79, 80.

13 “Aaron es 4to lesionado,” El Mundo, October 23, 1953: 20.

14 “Promedios Generales,” El Mundo, October 24, 1953: 19.

15 “Roberto Vargas: Part 2,” SABR Oral History Collection, August 8, 1992, https://sabr.org/interview/roberto-vargas-1992/

16 “San Juan se Impuso al Caguas, 10-9,” El Mundo, October 31, 1953: 1.

17 “Líderes,” El Mundo, November 4, 1953: 1.

18 Miguel Rivera, “Debutante Rotblatt, el perdedor,” El Mundo, November 21, 1953: 1.

19 “Líderes,” El Mundo, November 24, 1953: 1.

20 “Líderes,” El Mundo, December 8, 1953: 1.

21 Santiago Llorens, “Imports Win Puerto Rican All-Start Tilt,” The Sporting News, January 6, 1954: 22.

22 Through 2024, only five players have hit a pair of home runs in an all-star game: Josh Gibson, Roberto Clemente, Ismael Oquendo, and Candy Maldonado.

23 The format of the all-star game has changed over the years. For many decades it featured the “Metropolitan area” (San Juan, Santurce, Caguas/Bayamón) against the “rest of the island” (Ponce, Mayagüez, Arecibo). It is now an interleague competition between the stars of the Puerto Rican and Dominican Republic Winter Leagues.

24 Thomas Van Hyning, “Remembering Hank Aaron’s Remarkable 1953-54 season in Puerto Rico.”

25 “Líderes,” El Mundo, December 28, 1953: 1.

26 Héctor Barea, “Caguas Explotó a Harshman y Aaron Dió 5-4 en Victoria, 11-3,” El Mundo, December 28, 1953: 1.

27 Santiago Llorens, “Braves’ Kids Help Caguas in Flag Fight,” The Sporting News, December 30, 1953: 23.

28 “Box Scores,” El Mundo, January 4, 1954: 19.

29 “Líderes,” El Mundo, January 8, 1954: 19.

30 “Hit Smith,” El Mundo, January 9, 1954: 15, 17.

31 “Líderes,” El Mundo, January 14, 1954: 1.

32 Héctor Barea, “Jonrón Aaron en 9o. Dió Triunfo a Caguas Sobre Santurce, 8-5,” El Mundo, January 14, 1954: 1.

33 El Mundo, January 16, 1954:1 15, 177.

34 “Aaron Dió 9º Jonrón; Pasó 1º en Bateo,” El Mundo, January 22, 1954: 1.

35 “Bombones,” El Mundo, January 25, 1954: 1.

36 Héctor Barea, “Los Criollos a ½ Juego de la Tribu,” El Mundo, January 30, 1954: 1.

37 “Box Scores,” El Mundo, February 5, 1954: 19.

38 From 1951-1952 to 1957-1958, the league’s top three teams qualified for the postseason. Since then the format has switched to two semifinal series (1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3), a round-robin playoff (1980s-1990s), and back to the current semifinal setup.

39 Guido Ortiz, “El Mayagüez con Dominio en Ofensiva,” El Mundo, February 10, 1954: 1.

40 Miguel Rivera, “Caguas-G. al Frente en Serie Final al Ganar Buhl, 5-3,” El Mundo, February 12, 1954: 1.

41 “Tribu Empató Serie con Triunfo de Valentine, 5-1,” El Mundo, February 13, 1954: 1.

42 El Mundo, February 15, 1954: 22-23.

43 “Box Score,” El Mundo, February 17, 1954: 17.

44 Diunte.

45 Van Hyning, “Remembering Hank Aaron’s Remarkable 1953-54 season in Puerto Rico.”

46 Van Hyning.

47 Van Hyning.

48 Van Hyning.

49 Van Hyning.

50 Jorge Figueroa Loza, “Hank Aaron: Fallece una leyenda de las Grandes Ligas,” El Nuevo Dia, January 23, 2021: https://www.pressreader.com/puerto-rico/el-nuevo-dia1/20210123/281535113650281.

51 Aaron and Wheeler, 80.

52 Bryant, 57.

53 Aaron was an All-Star in 21 straight years but played in 25 contests. From 1959 to 1962, two All-Star Games were played each year.

54 Thomas Van Hyning, Puerto Rico’s Winter League: A History of Major League Baseball’s Launching Pad (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1995), 19. Van Hyning cites USA Today, December 22, 1988, as the original source.

55 Matt Rothenberg, “Hank’s Giving: Henry Aaron’s Legacy Continues Off the Field,” Baseball Hall of Fame, https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/support/hank-aaron-continues-legacy-through-giving.

56 Luis Rodríguez Mayoral, “Hank Aaron, genial pelotero que vivió agradecido de Puerto Rico,” Béisbol101, January 22, 2021, https://beisbol101.com/hank-aaron-genial-pelotero-que-vivio-agradecido-de-puerto-rico/.

New Orleans was long considered a “baseball town,” despite never having a major-league franchise located there.

Going back to the 1880s, the city had been the home of the minor-league New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans’ last season in New Orleans was 1959. Before Florida and Arizona became the primary sites for major-league spring-training camps, eight major-league teams conducted their camps in the city from 1900 to 1939.1

New Orleans area high schools produced their share of professional players from the 1920s to the 1960s. Major leaguers like Mel Ott, Mel Parnell, Howie Pollet, Connie Ryan, Putsy Caballero, Al Jurisich, Jack Kramer, George Strickland, and Rusty Staub were signed out of high school by major-league teams. A New Orleans Times-Picayune article in 1939 reported that 100 professional players that season had ties to the city.3

The city’s attempt to attract a major-league team was triggered by the construction of the Louisiana Superdome in the early 1970s. Following the lead of Houston, which built the Astrodome as the home of its major-league baseball Astros and NFL Oilers teams, Louisiana state officials and local businessmen wanted to build a multisport domed stadium in New Orleans. It was their intention to accommodate baseball in addition to the existing NFL Saints and NBA Jazz franchises.4

Aaron played his first big game in New Orleans decades earlier. He began his major-league career with the Milwaukee Braves as a 20-year-old in 1954. By 1956 he had established himself as a legitimate star, as he led the National League in hits (200), batting average (.328), and total bases (340). He finished third in the National League MVP voting, behind Dodgers pitchers Don Newcombe and Sal Maglie.

After the 1956 regular season, Willie Mays hand-picked a barnstorming team of Black players who toured Southern cities and played exhibition games against a team of Negro American League players. Aaron was one of the players featured on Mays’ team, called the Major League All-Stars. Cincinnati Reds outfielder Frank Robinson, the 1956 National League Rookie of the Year, and New York Yankees outfielder-catcher Elston Howard were also on the team.5

With the city’s past history with Negro League baseball, the exhibition games on November 4 and 6 between the two teams were highly anticipated events within the Black community. The games were scheduled at Pelican Stadium, the ballpark of the hometown minor-league Pelicans, as well as the Negro League teams when the Pelicans played out of town. The first game, on a Sunday, drew over 5,300 fans. After the major leaguers scored once in the first inning, Aaron hit a two-run home run in the third. The Negro Americans tied the score in the fourth, and it remained even until the ninth inning. The Major League All-Stars finally prevailed, 4-3, on an RBI single by Al Smith.6 The second game scheduled for two days later was canceled because of rain.7

Aaron followed his barnstorming stint with an MVP season in 1957 in which he led the National League with 44 home runs and 132 RBIs and helped propel the Braves to their first World Series championship since 1914.

Henry Aaron returned to New Orleans for a 1984 Old-Timers game in the Louisiana Superdome and hit a two-run homer off Bob Feller in the first inning. (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

Henry Aaron and Tommie Aaron crossing bats at Bradenton, Florida on March 1, 1962. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

“Relationships between brothers can be complex things,” concluded the award-winning author Tom Stanton, right after commenting about Hank Aaron and his far less famous Braves teammate, his brother Tommie. Stanton was mainly expressing empathy for Tommie having to play in the imposing shadow of his Hall of Fame brother, and the author was by no means alone in having done so. Still, he provided a valuable insight into the health of the dynamic between the two: “Almost every lengthy story about Tommie Aaron included comments from Hank, who played the role of big brother admirably, deflecting some of the spotlight off himself and onto his sibling,” Stanton said. In the case of the two Aaron brothers, Stanton perceived value in understanding that relationship, or at least in trying.1 In fact, other writers who were clearly intrigued by the relationship between the Aarons offered insights worth pondering.

This complexity probably means one should tread carefully, especially with regard to generalizations. It might help to keep in mind that how sportswriters perceived the relationship between the Aaron brothers while both were still alive could have been very different from how they perceived their relationship many years later. If so, that would be thanks to the advantage of hindsight, just as halls of fame commonly have a waiting period before a retired player can be considered for enshrinement.

It might be necessary to explain seemingly inconsistent or even contradictory statements, if not behavior, by the brothers – assuming such statements were sincere. That said, relationships between brothers can certainly change over time, for better or worse, or some of both. Also, comments are sometimes made in the proverbial heat of the moment. Of course, sportswriters are external to such family dynamics, but it’s possible that any “dirty laundry” they might air could undermine brotherly bonds, if it makes it back to the siblings. In the particular case of the Aaron brothers, that was quite rare. Tom Stanton would clearly agree that if any common practice in sports journalism could damage the rapport between the Aaron brothers, it was when the large gap between the outputs of their playing careers served as the basis for a trivia question. It was practically a trick question, asking which brothers combined for the most career major-league home runs. “The nugget of trivia came at Tommie Aaron’s expense, reducing him to a punch line,” Stanton bemoaned.2 The Aarons remain the correct answer, but Henry hit 755 to Tommie’s 13.

Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising example of a reaction in print to this trivia question was in 1998, by a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and author of multiple New York Times bestselling books, Harvey Mackay. “Ninety million kids play baseball and dream of reaching the majors; only a handful do,” Mackay said in defense of Tommie Aaron. He then compared Tommie to a very different brother who was likewise relegated to a secondary status, namely Milton Eisenhower, who “was nobody’s comedy foil,” despite being a younger brother of President and General Dwight Eisenhower. Milton, Mackay noted, had been “president of Kansas State University, Penn State and Johns Hopkins. Who wouldn’t be proud of that kind of record?”3

If journalists questioned the strength of the relationship between Henry and Tommie Aaron, it was often simply by pointing out the difference between their ages, which was more than five years. Especially in such a large family, including three sisters and other brothers, such observations seemed to assume that it was unlikely for Henry and Tommie to have been close as the two were growing up. However, Howard Bryant noted in his book on Henry that in the family’s home at 2010 Edwards Avenue in Mobile (which has been preserved elsewhere as the Hank Aaron Museum), Henry shared a bed with Tommie and their oldest brother, Herbert Jr.4

When Tommie joined the parent club at the start of the 1962 season, there was an additional reason for the two bothers to spend considerable time together: They were instantly roommates when the Milwaukee Braves made road trips. Félix Mantilla had previously been Henry’s roommate on the Braves, but after the 1961 season Mantilla was selected by the New York Mets in the National League expansion draft. Henry’s autobiography said Tommie had reached the majors “just in time, (because) I needed a roommate on the road.” Henry didn’t mention any concern about loneliness as the only Black player on the roster, but it seems plausible to read that between the lines. Henry quickly switched to a humorous tone when he called Tommie “a great roommate, except for one morning at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis.” The elder Aaron recalled eating breakfast on his bed when the room’s air-conditioner exploded and burst into flames, causing smoke to quickly fill their room. He speculated that Tommie had earlier been “fiddling” with it, though quickly conceded, “I don’t know what happened, really.” Henry bemoaned the fact that everything in the room was ruined but then quipped, “The people who ran the Chase probably figured that’s what happens when you start letting in the coloreds.”7

Tommie Aaron. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

In actuality, it was Tommie who was thought to have a more obvious sense of humor than Henry, and it bolstered their rapport. “Tommie was always quick with a laugh,” noted their former teammate Joe Torre, “and he made it easier for Hank.”8 Howard Bryant said that “having Tommie in the big leagues changed the dynamic of the Braves clubhouse” for the better, because he was so popular with coaches and managers, in addition to teammates. “Having Tommie on the club brought Henry even closer to the city and the club,” Bryant asserted (emphasis added).9 “Their personalities came from opposite poles, with Tommie the talkative, outgoing type and Henry the Quiet Man. But the younger brother had the gift of gab plus the sense of humor that touched the heart and soul of his introverted but famous sibling,” wrote another Aaron biographer, Dan Schlossberg. “He made Hank laugh, though Tommie’s constant trips up and down between the majors and minors were no laughing matter to the brothers. They hated their separations.”10

Tommie Aaron celebrated his 35th birthday during his first season as a minor-league manager, of Double-A Savannah in 1974. He appeared in more than 100 minor-league games during 1973 as a player-coach but didn’t play at all during 1974. Though plenty of players continue on professional rosters well into their 30s, presumably Tommie knew he wasn’t going to be a player again. Whenever that realization occurred, it might have caused his perception of Henry to shift. Regardless, after the 1974 minor-league season ended, he reflected on their relationship. “You know, I kind of enjoy it, having a brother like that,” Tommie said. One sportswriter was convinced that at the start of Tommie’s baseball career, the likelihood of being compared to Henry routinely, and never being comparable, hadn’t occurred to him. “Maybe if it had, I wouldn’t have signed with the Braves.”11 It’s possible Tommie was simply saying what he thought the reporter wanted to hear, though longtime Braves scout and executive Paul Snyder, for one, was convinced that Tommie “was very genuine.”12

Tommie also offered an interesting comment about Henry’s disappointment that neither of the Aaron brothers was seriously considered by Atlanta Braves general manager Eddie Robinson to fill the club’s midseason managerial vacancy around the time their former teammate Eddie Mathews was fired on July 21, 1974. “Hank never talked about managing before,” said Tommie, “but if he wants to be, I’d be happy for him.”13 That could’ve been interpreted as an acknowledgment by Tommie that he and Henry had been out of touch. In fact, Henry had been consistent but only up to a point, with statements like, “I think Eddie Robinson should have had the courtesy to ask me if I was interested. I don’t want to manage, but I think he should have asked me if I did.” Henry’s change of mind was characterized as rather abrupt when he then told NBC broadcaster Tony Kubek, “I think I would accept at this time simply because there are no black managers in the major leagues.”14

Henry spoke to this sequence of events in his autobiography, explaining how he didn’t think he’d contradicted himself, but rather “was just telling the rest of the story.”15 Henry also spoke bluntly about Robinson’s stated reason for not considering Tommie for the vacancy, that the club didn’t want to interfere with the younger Aaron as he managed Savannah during a pennant race. “That was pure malarkey,” Henry wrote. “I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a situation where the organization considered the welfare of the minor-league club ahead of the major-league club.”16 It’s possible Henry Aaron was faking this indignity on behalf of his brother, though it’s difficult to see what he might have gained by such insincerity.

After the Aaron brothers were no longer major-league teammates, the next time they were closest in a baseball context may have been in 1977 and 1978, after Henry had retired as a player and taken an executive position in Atlanta’s front office and while Tommie peaked as a minor-league manager with the Triple-A Richmond Braves. Before the 1978 season, a Richmond sportswriter credited both Tommie and Henry, the latter as minor-league director, with making the tough decisions to assemble Richmond’s roster.17 The result was ultimately winning the International League’s playoffs in September, after which Tommie became a coach with Atlanta.18

It probably surprised few baseball fans in 1981 that, despite Henry’s having been retired for half a decade, plus Tommie having proved himself as a manager atop the minor leagues and having settled in as a Braves coach, the younger Aaron couldn’t escape a familiar shadow. “Fans and media representatives alike also usually get around to prodding Tommie for answers about Hank’s habits, his childhood, his stardom, and even his personal affairs,” noted one minor-league beat writer. “It’s Hank this and Hank that.” Tommie demonstrated that his attitude about his brother hadn’t changed over two decades. “I knew I wasn’t the same kind of player,” he said. “If I would have pretended to be, I would have only put pressure on myself. I went out and played my game of baseball.”19

Leukemia took the life of Tommie Aaron at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital on August 16, 1984, just 11 days past his 45th birthday. In addition to his wife and their three children, he was survived by both of his parents and six of his siblings.20 According to Howard Bryant, for well over two years before Tommie died, Henry phoned him every day, and often took him food during his extended illness. His widow said everyone at Tommie’s deathbed was startled when the end came and Henry punched a window in the hospital room.21 “Tommie never demonstrated any pain until the very last night before he passed,” said Henry Aaron. “It was the hardest night of my life.”22 Given the consistently of their comments about one another for so long, Henry’s assertion is quite easy to take at face value.

Bryant, writing in 2010, commented on the Aaron brothers’ respective genuineness, implying that when Henry was so serious in large groups, he wasn’t revealing his full personality. “Tommie Aaron was the one person who had bridged that gap with Henry, perhaps, apart from [Henry’s wife] Billye, better than any other person in Henry’s life,” Bryant concluded. “Tommie could swear and joke and loosen Henry up in public to the point where, around Tommie, Henry Aaron was a different person.”23 Dan Schlossberg, another Aaron biographer, had four full decades after Tommie Aaron’s death to reflect on the true nature of his relationship with Henry. “Tommie himself never won an MVP as a major league player,” Schlossberg noted, “but he was the Most Valuable Player for many who knew him, including his brother.”24

RICH BOGOVICH is the author of Frank Grant: The Life of a Black Baseball Pioneer. His prior book profiled another pre-1920 Hall of Famer, Kid Nichols. He has contributed chapters to more than a half-dozen SABR books on Negro Leaguers. In 2023 he solved the mysterious disappearance of Negro Leagues superstar Dave Brown a century ago. Richard has degrees from Northern Illinois University and is office manager of the Wendland Utz law firm in Rochester, Minnesota.

NOTES

1 Tom Stanton, The Road to Cooperstown: A Father, Two Sons, and the Journey of a Lifetime (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), 114. For Stanton’s credentials, see https://www.tomstanton.com/.

2 Stanton, 113-114.

3 Harvey Mackay, “Take Pride in Legacy of Your Own,” Fresno Bee, August 30, 1998: C4.

4 Howard Bryant, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010), 26.

5 Bryant, 292.

6 “Tom Aaron of Braves to Wed Nurses’ Aide,” Milwaukee Journal, October 10, 1962: 2, 19; Atlanta Braves’ Public Relations Department, Atlanta Braves 1984 Guide for Press, Radio and Television, February 15, 1984: 7.

7 Hank Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had A Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007), 224-225.

8 Bryant, The Last Hero, 292.

9 Bryant, 292, 293.

10 Dan Schlossberg, Home Run King: The Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron (New York: Sports Publishing, 2024), 158.

11 Alan Lassila, “Tommie Aaron Makes Name for Himself – as Manager,” Sarasota (Florida) Journal, September 19, 1974: 1D.

12 Bryant, The Last Hero, 449.

13 Lassila, 2D.

14 Alan Truex, “Tommie,” Atlanta Journal, July 24, 1974: 1-E, 8-E; Frank Hyland, “Hank,” Atlanta Journal, July 24, 1974: 1-E, 8-E. Fittingly, these two articles were printed side by side.

15 Aaron with Wheeler, I Had a Hammer, 384-385. Henry added that he could understand sportswriters’ perception that he was contradictory, but he was particularly bothered by Hyland – see Note 14 – writing that Henry had either lied to Atlanta sportswriters or on national television.

16 Aaron with Wheeler, 385.

17 Vic Culp, “R-Braves Receive Belloir and LaCorte,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 1, 1978: C-1.

18 Atlanta Braves’ Public Relations Department, Atlanta Braves 1984 Guide for Press, Radio and Television, February 15, 1984: 7.

19 Eddie Augustine, “Oh, Brother! Tommie Aaron ‘Hank’ers for Fame,” Anderson (South Carolina) Independent, July 11, 1981: 1B. The Anderson Braves played in the South Atlantic League.

20 Gerry Fraley, “Braves Mourn Loss of Tommie Aaron – Coach and Friend,” Atlanta Journal, August 17, 1984: 3-D; “Funeral Service Held in Mobile for Tommie Aaron,” Atlanta Daily World, August 24, 1984: 7. Fraley included a bit of trivia by reporting that on May 27, 1962, Aaron set a major-league record for most double plays initiated by a first baseman (3).

21 Bryant, The Last Hero, 449.

22 Aaron with Wheeler, 434.

23 Bryant, 449.

24 Schlossberg, Home Run King, 132.

Bill Adair: 1952 Eau Claire Bears

• Pre-Aaron: 239-124 (.658)
• With Aaron: 72-53 (.576)
• Post-Aaron: 1225-1127 (.521)1

Hank Aaron played only two seasons in the minors and benefited from having two supportive managers who focused more on his production at the plate than adhere to stereotypes stemming from the color of his skin. “The kid looks lazy but he isn’t,” Bill Adair told the Braves. “He may not be a major league shortstop but as a hitter he has everything.”2

Bill Adair and Aaron both came from Alabama. “Aaron wrote twenty years later that ‘a guy couldn’t have asked to break in under a better manager than Bill Adair. … I think because he was a southerner he was even a little more understanding of the little black kid he had playing beside him.’”3

Ben Geraghty: 1953 Jacksonville Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 550-542 (.504)
• With Aaron: 93-44 (.679)
• Post-Aaron: 837-657 (.560)

Making the jump from Class C to Class A ball, Aaron also increased his appreciation for his manager, who readily promoted his young player’s skills. After their time in Jacksonville had concluded, Ben Geraghty characterized Aaron as “a bad ball hitter who hits ’em no matter where they come. … If Henry has a strike zone … it’s from the top of his head to his ankles. In a year or so, he’s going to make the fans forget all about Jackie Robinson, and I’m not exaggerating.”4

Observers of Aaron often cited his wrists as the source of his remarkable power. Geraghty may have first made this observation even before Aaron debuted for the Braves. “He has the greatest pair of wrists I’ve ever seen on a young ball player,” Geraghty said.5

Unlike Adair, who came from the same state as Aaron, Geraghty hailed from a much different background, but one that did not prevent the two men from getting along well. Opined a sportswriter, “Geraghty, a wiry, beer-guzzling Irishman from New Jersey … was a brilliant handler of athletes. Aaron still says, ‘Ben was the best manager I’ve ever played for.’”6

Charlie Grimm: 1954-1956 Milwaukee Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 1680-1367 (.551)
• With Aaron: 198-156 (.559)
• Post-Aaron: 6-11 (.353)

With a jolly personality, Charlie Grimm should have ably filled the role of an ideal first major-league manager for a promising young player. Near the end of Aaron’s rookie season, Milwaukee general manager John Quinn observed, “Grimm has the knack of giving young fellows confidence, as he showed with [Johnny] Logan and [Eddie] Mathews in particular, and Aaron this year.”7

Instead, Grimm perpetuated the myth of Black ballplayers being lazy by derisively mocking the young player’s running style, calling Aaron “Snowshoes.” According to Aaron biographer Howard Bryant, “Henry did not care much for Grimm. Aaron believed it was Grimm who was responsible for much of the hazing he took from his teammates and the press. … Henry believed that Grimm should not have encouraged the creation of a minstrel character. … Henry had a guy calling him ‘Snowshoes’ to the press.”8

Grimm did recognize Aaron’s prowess with the bat. In Aaron’s second spring training, Grimm batted him second because, as he insisted, “I want Aaron to get up to bat as often as possible,”9 a common tactic in the twenty-first century but unusual in 1955. (In the regular season, Aaron started 17 games batting second and most commonly batted cleanup.)

Fred Haney: 1956-1959 Milwaukee Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 1090-1221 (.472)
• With Aaron: 340-228 (.599)
• Post-Aaron: n/a

Aaron and the Braves peaked as a team under Fred Haney, winning one World Series, losing another, and then falling just short of a third consecutive fall classic appearance by dropping two straight games to the Dodgers in a playoff in 1959 after the teams had identical records during the regular season.

Echoing Geraghty, Haney touted a physical attribute of Aaron, praising him for having “plenty of power and a pair of wonderful wrists, and you can’t ‘play’ him because he hits to all fields. Hank’s picking up fast defensively, too.”10

After winning the NL MVP Award in 1957, Aaron expressed his appreciation to Haney, saying, “He didn’t give me a ‘take’ sign all season. A lot of times I swung at a [3-and-0] pitch on my own.”11

Chuck Dressen: 1960-1961 Milwaukee Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 1020-973 (.512)
• With Aaron: 159-124 (.562)
• Post-Aaron: 312-251 (.554)

Chuck Dressen messed with success and talked about transferring Aaron from right field to other positions, including second base, ideas that Aaron disdained. Aaron wanted to try to steal more bases on his own initiative. Aaron had a mixed relationship with Dressen, disliking the manager’s defensive maneuvering but appreciating the freedom he gave Aaron to augment his offensive game.

The two talked in the winter of 1960. Dressen recounted, “I told him I had a few things on my mind, but that I would wait until spring training and tell him then. The second base idea was one of those things.”12

Aaron did not think much of the position switch. “He cited the danger of injury that exists at second base and made no bones about the fact that this was the main reason he preferred to avoid the keystone,” a sportswriter observed. “‘I don’t want to go back there,’ Aaron said, ‘but if he tells me to, I’ll go there. I’ll do the best I can.’”13

Aaron ended up playing only two games at second base in 1960, his first appearances at the keystone sack since 1955. But Dressen continued to pursue the idea, this time moving his slugger to center. “Asked about his avowed objections to playing center field, Aaron said, ‘I still don’t like it, but if [Dressen] says so, there’s no choice.’”14 In 1961 Aaron for the first time in his career had more appearances in center field (83) than in right field (78).

On baserunning, Dressen declared, “Aaron came to me and asked me how I felt about running. I said I play a running game, and he said he wanted to run. They never let him before. He’ll be running this year and making use of the things God gave him.”15 Dressen’s approach differed dramatically from that of his predecessor, according to Aaron, who asserted, “Haney was scared to let me run.”16

Birdie Tebbetts: 1961-1962 Milwaukee Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 454-429 (.514)
• With Aaron: 98-89 (.524)
• Post-Aaron: 315-286 (.524)

In Birdie Tebbetts, Aaron had for the first time an individual who neither appreciated his talents nor cared to understand the precarious position that Aaron occupied as a prominent Black man in a racist society. Years before managing Aaron, Tebbetts took a surprisingly tepid view of Aaron’s prowess: “What he has to learn is which bad balls can be hit and which ones he can’t afford to swing at,” Tebbetts said.17

As general manager of the Braves, a role he held before managing the squad, Tebbetts oversaw where the team stayed in spring training. Black players faced blatant discrimination in their accommodations in Florida. Aaron observed, “Sometimes the place is so crowded they have two guys sleeping in the hall. … You wake up in the morning and rush for the bathroom, and if you’re the last one, all the hot water is gone.” Tebbetts had said that the housing had been carefully selected. Aaron commented, “Carefully selected? From what?”18

Bobby Bragan: 1963-1965 Milwaukee Braves, 1966 Atlanta Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 798-732 (.522)
• With Aaron: 310-287 (.519)
• Post-Aaron: n/a

Unlike Dressen, Bobby Bragan smartly realized that moving Aaron around the diamond alienated his best player: “Why experiment with Aaron in other fields when he’s the best right fielder in the business?” Bragan said. “He doesn’t like to play center and we should be happy to keep him in right, where he prefers to be.”19

Bragan’s opinion of Aaron’s talents contrasted sharply with those of Tebbetts: “Henry doesn’t put on a show. He just goes out and hits the ball 430 feet and comes in and shakes hands. He costs us $25 a day in batting-practice balls.”20

Aaron appreciated Bragan’s willingness to let him branch out as a basestealer. “I’d have to call 1963 my most successful season,” he said. “Bobby let me steal bases (31) and that made me a complete ball player.”21

Billy Hitchcock: 1966-1967 Atlanta Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 322-311 (.509)
• With Aaron: 110-100 (.524)
• Post-Aaron: n/a

Even though the Braves under Billy Hitchcock had a marginally better record than the team under Bragan, “I didn’t like it when Bobby Bragan was fired midway through that [1966] season [and] replaced by Billy Hitchcock,” wrote Aaron in his autobiography.22

Reprising Dressen, Hitchcock talked about moving Aaron to center: “This is no experiment. Any move we make this time of season is strictly to help the ball club. … [W]hen I talked to Hank about it, he was perfectly willing.”23 In fact, the switch did indeed represent an experiment; Aaron played just five games in center in 1966 and 11 in 1967. Hitchcock’s successors did not attempt to follow suit with an aging Aaron, who after 1967 never again played the most demanding outfield position.

For the first time after Hitchcock’s departure, Aaron publicly unloaded on his manager. An Atlanta sportswriter described it this way: “The Braves had just played their final game of the season and Hank Aaron decided to get something off his chest. ‘I never went through a season like this,’ he said. ‘The morale on this club was very low. Some of the guys gave up two months ago. … I don’t want to sound as if I’m criticizing my teammates.’”24

Ken Silvestri: 1967 Atlanta Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 190-180 (.514)25
• With Aaron: 0-3 (.000)
• Post-Aaron: n/a

Having mostly interacted with Aaron as a coach rather than a manager, Ken Silvestri, who played in 33 games for the Yankees over three years, compared the slugger to two of the icons of New York baseball, saying, “Joe [DiMaggio], [Willie] Mays, Aaron … there are only a half-dozen or so like them to come along in a lifetime. You don’t find many who can hit for average or power, run and throw and field like DiMaggio.”26

Lum Harris: 1968-1972 Atlanta Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 168-175 (.490)27
• With Aaron: 379-373 (.504)
• Post-Aaron: n/a

As the baseball world began to realize that Aaron had a meaningful chance to break one of the sport’s most hallowed records, he for the rest of his career would have managers who treated him like a legend. He enjoyed performing for Lum Harris. “He’s a great guy to play for,” said Aaron, “the best I’ve played for in a long time. He treats you like a professional. Morale on the club is good. We are playing as a team and not as individuals.”28

Harris returned the respect in both the present and future tenses. As Aaron explained, “He approached me last Saturday … and told me he wanted me to be captain. It is a big thrill, something I’ve always dreamed about.”29

Harris recognized Aaron as a well-rounded person rather than just a meatheaded athlete, saying, “Aaron is capable of doing anything he sets his mind to. … He’s got a great knowledge of baseball and the temperament that a job like general manager would take.”30

Eddie Mathews: 1972-1974 Atlanta Braves

• Pre-Aaron: n/a
• With Aaron: 149-161 (.481)
• Post-Aaron: n/a

Aaron spent most of the final four seasons of his career playing for two former teammates. Fellow slugger Mathews, who hit 512 career home runs, first took on this potentially awkward position. The writer of a book on Aaron noted, “Though their personalities contrasted – Mathews was a drinker, rowdier, more temperamental than Aaron – they got along well and appreciated one another.”31

Their differences notwithstanding, Aaron looked forward to the new turn in their relationship. “I played with Eddie 12 or 14 years, and I’m sure he will be the same type manager he was as player – aggressive,” said Aaron. “I expect there will be more discipline, which is one of the most important things you can have.”32

Mathews had to decide when to play Aaron as the superstar approached Babe Ruth’s historic mark. In the imbroglio over whether Aaron should play road games or sit out and try to break the homer record at home, Mathews, contended columnist Art Spander, “decided winning wasn’t the only thing. Paid attendance at home was. … ‘Hank gave the people in Cincinnati a thrill,’ said Mathews, ‘now I want him to give a thrill to the fans in Atlanta. They should have a chance to see him hit it.’”33 Aaron did indeed break Ruth’s record in Atlanta.

Clyde King: 1974 Atlanta Braves

• Pre-Aaron: 109-95 (.534)
• With Aaron: 38-25 (.603)
• Post-Aaron: 87-109 (.444)

After breaking Ruth’s mark and slowing down considerably as a force on the field, Aaron understandably shifted his focus toward baseball life after the end of his playing career. “Aaron said on national television, during the All-Star Game, he would accept the [managerial] job if offered. It caused something of a stir at the time, but [Clyde] King said he has talked with Aaron and ‘[E]verything is beautiful.’”34

Del Crandall: 1975 Milwaukee Brewers

• Pre-Aaron: 497-500 (.498)
• With Aaron: 67-94 (.416)
• Post-Aaron: 835-662 (.558)

The innovation of the designated hitter allowed Aaron to return to Milwaukee for two final campaigns. Former teammate Del Crandall lauded Aaron, asserting, “Henry Aaron is not only going to make his contributions on the field, but also just being in the clubhouse. He’s going to make a difference in the way our players view their jobs.”35 Actually, the Brewers regressed with Aaron on the team. After a franchise-best .469 winning percentage in 1974, the team struggled with Aaron on the club in both 1975 (.420) and 1976 (.410).

The talk of Aaron’s next move gained momentum. After Milwaukee cashiered Crandall, a Milwaukee sportswriter noted that Aaron said he “can’t rule out” succeeding him, adding that he was “sorry to see Del go,” but “I’ve been in this game a long time and I have certain ideas about how a ball club should be run. I can’t rule out becoming a manager.”36

Aaron never did become manager, which seems like a blessing given his feelings toward the modern-day version of the role: “To be a manager these days, you have to be just like an airline hostess. … A professional babysitter. You have to be trained to deal with those kinds of problems.”37

Harvey Kuenn: 1975 Milwaukee Brewers

• Pre-Aaron: n/a
• With Aaron: 1-0 (1.000)
• Post-Aaron: 159-118 (.574)

Like Silvestri, Harvey Kuenn interacted with Aaron much more as a coach than a player. Aaron appeared to appreciate working with another accomplished hitter. After a slow start in 1975, Aaron asked Kuenn, then the Brewers’ batting coach, for advice. Kuenn “made a suggestion and it may have helped.’”38

Alex Grammas: 1976 Milwaukee Brewers

• Pre-Aaron: 55-90 (.379)
• With Aaron: 66-95 (.410)
• Post-Aaron: 67-95 (.414)

Managing an all-time great at the tail end of his career would challenge the most accomplished of managers; Alex Grammas’s record indicates that he fell far short of that standard. Aaron suffered a knee injury on August 3, 1976, that limited his playing time. “As of now, I can’t use him as a designated hitter because he can’t run,” said Grammas. “I could only put him in there in the latter stages of the game to get us a hit or a sacrifice fly.”39

Tied with Ruth for the most runs scored in his career, Aaron singled in his last plate appearance before leaving the game for a pinch-runner, which left him disappointed. Shockingly, his skipper claimed he was unaware about the chance to attain a final milestone: “I didn’t know that. I just wanted him to go out with a base hit. Nobody told me about [the tie with Ruth]. He’s had so many records.”40

Totals:

• With Aaron: 2080-1832 (.532)
• Without Aaron: 11,015-10,055 (.523)

Having played with all-time greats like Warren Spahn and Mathews, but winning only one World Series over the course of his long career, Aaron never had the manager he wanted for long. Just months before breaking Ruth’s record, Aaron observed, “My idea of a great manager … is Walter Alston. I’ve seen some terrible Dodger teams that he has managed into the thick of a pennant race.”41 With a career that paralleled Aaron’s in length, Alston managed the Dodgers to four World Series titles.

Opined sportswriter Sam Lacy, “Bobby Bragan, Billy Hitchcock, Ken Silvestri, Luman Harris and [Eddie] Mathews – all of whom, except Silvestri and Mathews, were warmed-over choices, and failures.”42

The 16 men who managed Aaron managed more than 21,000 games before and after his career. Of the course of a 162-game season, these managers won an average of 86 games with Aaron and 85 without him.43

MARK S. STERNMAN’s first favorite baseball player was Félix Millán, Hank Aaron’s teammate with the Braves from 1966 to 1972. Sternman, who became a fan of the Yankees after the Mets released Millán, previously wrote about Aaron in two Games Project stories, namely, October 8, 1958: Yankees score two in 10th to send the World Series to Game Seven, and October 9, 1958: Yankees rally late to beat Braves in Game Seven of the World Series.

NOTES

1 Since Baseball Reference does not have wins and losses for the 1956 Valdosta Tigers, the post-Aaron record excludes this team.

2 “Babe Ruth Was No Idol of Hank Aaron,” Louisville Defender, April 18, 1974: B13.

3 Bill James, The Baseball Book 1990 (New York: Villard Books, 1990), 174.

4 “Braves’ Rookie Aaron Has Cap-to-Ankle Strike Zone,” The Sporting News, April 28, 1954: 33.

5 Marion E. Jackson, “Sports of the World,” Atlanta Daily World, August 21, 1953: 7.

6 Hubert Mizell, “Aaron at 19: Shy, Clumsy Sally League Rookie,” St. Petersburg Times, reprinted in The Sporting News, April 20, 1974: 34.

7 Joe King, “Clouting ’Em … With Joe King,” The Sporting News, September 8, 1954: 12.

8 Howard Bryant, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010), 106-107.

9 Red Thisted, “Cholly Strums Pennant Mambo on His Banjo for Frisky Braves,” The Sporting News, March 30, 1955: 21.

10 Bob Wolf, “Robinson’s ‘Playboy’ Jab Jolts Braves,” The Sporting News, January 23, 1957: 4.

11 “Aaron Surprised Aaron, Figured Red as Choice,” The Sporting News, November 27, 1957: 47.

12 Bob Wolf, “Dressen Has Ace Up Sleeve – Chuck Rates Aaron Keystoner,” The Sporting News, January 27, 1960: 12.

13 Bob Wolf, “Keystone Hot Injury Spot, Aaron Reminds Dressen,” The Sporting News, February 17, 1960: 13.

14 Bob Wolf, “Chuck Halts Garden Tests; Aaron Gets Call in Center,” The Sporting News, May 3, 1961: 8.

15 Bob Wolf, “Braves’ Speed Will Win Flag – Dressen,” The Sporting News, March 23, 1960: 2.

16 Bob Wolf, “Friendly Fred, Chipper Chuck Fling Verbal Bombs and Barbs,” The Sporting News, May 11, 1960: 16.

17 Cleon Walfoort, “Aaron Turns Bad Pitches Into Base-Hits,” The Sporting News, June 26, 1957: 7.

18 Bob Wolf, “Aaron, Covington and Bruton Blast Housing Squeeze,” The Sporting News, February 15, 1961: 13.

19 Bob Wolf, “Brash Bobby Hopes to Bridge Two Wide Gaps in Picket Line,” The Sporting News, November 3, 1962: 8.

20 Mickey Herskowitz, “Skippers Sounded Off at Colts’ Round Table,” The Sporting News, November 9, 1963: 21.

21 Bob Wolf, “‘N.L. Race Will Be Free-for-All,’ Bing Tells Braves’ Fans,” The Sporting News, February 1, 1964: 9.

22 Henry Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had A Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 187.

23 “Aaron Moves to Center in Tepee Picket Switch,” The Sporting News, August 26, 1967: 29.

24 Wayne Minshew, “Aaron Blasts Mates: ‘Some Guys Gave Up,’” The Sporting News, October 21, 1967: 15.

25 Since Baseball Reference has wins and losses for neither the 1956 St. Petersburg Saints nor the 1957 Alexandria Aces, the pre-Aaron record excludes these teams.

26 Wayne Minshew, “Aaron A-Bombs Give Hinto to A-1 Year for Atlanta,” The Sporting News, May 6, 1967: 17.

27 Since Baseball Reference does not have wins and losses for the 1959 Florida International League Orioles, the pre-Aaron record excludes this team.

28 Wayne Minshew, “Pilot Harris Hypos Braves’ Morale,” The Sporting News, July 20, 1968: 10.

29 “Hank 1-0 in Openers as New Team Captain,” The Sporting News, April 19, 1969: 18.

30 “Hank Aaron Looks at Ruth’s Record, to Retire in 2 Years,” New Pittsburgh Courier, October 2, 1971: 13.

31 Tom Stanton, Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America (New York: William Morrow, 2004), 27.

32 Wayne Minshew, “Mathews Applies Acid Test to Braves,” The Sporting News, August 26, 1972: 13.

33 Art Spander, “A Sticky Situation,” The Sporting News, April 20, 1974: 23.

34 Wayne Minshew, “King Talks About Miracles as Braves’ New Chieftain,” The Sporting News, August 10, 1974: 12. The Sporting News nastily ran an editorial entitled “Calm Down, Henry” against what the paper saw as Aaron’s equivocating about whether he really wanted the managerial position, snidely highlighting “Henry’s vanity” and concluding that “we’d like to see the return of the even-tempered Aaron.” The Sporting News, August 17, 1974: 14.

35 Lou Chapman, “Brewers’ Fans Salute Returning Aaron,” The Sporting News, February 15, 1975: 35.

36 Lou Chapman, “Crandall Given Brewer Ax; Aaron Called ‘a Candidate,’” The Sporting News, October 11, 1975: 20. Milwaukee asked Aaron to manage the team, but he declined. Lou Chapman, “Hank Turned Down Offer to Manage Brewers,” The Sporting News, November 1, 1975: 20.

37 Lou Chapman, “Brewers Oust Del Crandall for Failure to Crack Whip,” The Sporting News, October 18, 1975: 27.

38 Lou Chapman, “Aaron Annoyed by ‘Washed-Up’ Tag,” The Sporting News, May 3, 1975: 16.

39 Lou Chapman, “Knee Injury May End Aaron’s Career,” The Sporting News, September 4, 1976: 34.

40 Lou Chapman, “Aaron Ends Illustrious Career With One Regret,” The Sporting News, October 23, 1976: 34.

41 Dave Newhouse, “Handball, Karate, Roadwork Keep Aaron Busy,” The Sporting News, January 5, 1974: 31.

42 Sam Lacy, “Aaron Didn’t Want to Manage, But …,” Baltimore Afro-American, August 3, 1974: 9.

43 By contrast, the 11 men who managed Willie Mays won an average of 89 games with Mays and 80 without him per the winning percentages calculated in Mark S. Sternman, “Willie Mays and His Managers,” Willie Mays: Five Tools (Phoenix, Arizona: SABR, 2023), https://sabr.org/journal/article/willie-mays-and-his-managers/ (accessed April 8, 2024).

A Henry Aaron and Eddie Mathews baseball card from Topps. (Courtesy of Topps)

Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews shared a baseball card in the 1959 Topps set.

The horizontal card, with a green-and-yellow background, showed the sluggers admiring their bats under the words FENCE BUSTERS.

That they were.

Aaron and Mathews combined for a record 863 home runs during the time they were teammates with the Braves from 1954, when Henry surfaced as a 20-year-old infielder, through 1966, when the team moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta before trading Eddie at the end of the season.

The number 863 may not be as famous as 714, 73, or 61 as home-run records go, but it was a huge though little-known milestone.

“I would have to say that was my proudest accomplishment in baseball,” Mathews said years later. “Not just because of the number or because no one else did it but because I shared the accomplishment with Hank. He was the best.

“He wasn’t flashy like Mays but he did everything well. I never saw Aaron throw to the wrong base or overthrow the cut-off man and he did it so well that nobody noticed. Maybe because his cap didn’t fly off.”1

When Mathews led both leagues with 47 homers in 1953, he not only ended Ralph Kiner’s streak of seven straight home-run crowns but produced more than any third baseman in baseball history up to then.

Over the next 13 seasons, Mathews combined with Aaron to hit more home runs than any tandem of teammates from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig (859) to Willie Mays and Willie McCovey (801).

For years, they shared the single-season franchise record for home runs. That peak of 47, which Aaron produced in 1971, eventually fell to both Andruw Jones (51 in 2005) and Matt Olson (54 in 2023).

“We weren’t jealous of each other,” Aaron said of Mathews. “That’s one reason we were successful.”2

If anything, Mathews resented any slights directed at Aaron – especially when they involved Willie Mays.

The slugging third baseman disdained the adulation the Giants star received from players, writers, and fans – especially when it came at Aaron’s expense. Never mind Willie, Mickey, and The Duke.

“Eddie couldn’t stand Mays,” wrote John Klima in Bushville Wins! “He didn’t like how he played the game and he hated Mays’ obsession with drawing attention to himself. He hated how Willie fiddled with his hat to make it fly off his head when he was on the run. Eddie didn’t mind Willie’s talent. It was his mouth and self-importance he couldn’t tolerate.”3

His contempt for the Giants’ center fielder even prompted Mathews to destroy framed Mays pictures in two separate bars. Both incidents sparked brawls in which the player was outnumbered.4

“Only Eddie could be crazy enough, drunk enough, and fearlessly insane enough to piss off a bar full of boxers,” Klima wrote.5

Mathews imagined himself Aaron’s defender, though the introverted, modest outfielder owned a personality that was the polar opposite of Mays.

“Eddie loved Henry Aaron for all the reasons he disliked Mays,” according to Klima. “Eddie made it known that anyone who wants a piece of Henry gets a piece of him. Eddie didn’t give a shit what anybody thought about that. Henry was his man.

“He was very loyal to Hank and vice versa. A lot of it was to protect Hank. Hank felt Eddie protected him on and off the field. It wasn’t anything ever said. It was in Eddie’s actions. Hank was his teammate and he loved him.”6

Mathews and Aaron competed against each other only in the original Home Run Derby television series, which enabled the latter to earn more than double his rookie salary of 1954, 12 years before the advent of free agency set salaries spiraling.

Friends but not drinking buddies, Aaron and Mathews invariably went to All-Star Games together, along with teammates Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette, a pitching tandem almost as prolific as Aaron and Mathews.

Consistency helped the pair become the best left-right punch in the big leagues. For his part, Mathews hit at least 30 for nine straight seasons before incurring an injury that stopped the streak in 1962. Then he hurt his shoulder with an overzealous swing against Houston’s Turk Farrell.

Before the injury, Aaron and Mathews often shared the headlines.

In the 1957 World Series, Aaron led both teams with a .393 batting average and three homers, but Mathews won Game Four with a 10th-inning homer and Game Seven with a spectacular grab of a Moose Skowron smash with the bases loaded in the ninth.

Two years later, they teamed to nullify a perfect game by Pittsburgh’s Harvey Haddix, who took a scoreless game into the 13th inning at Milwaukee County Stadium. After Felix Mantilla was safe on Don Hoak’s error, Mathews executed a rare sacrifice, moving the winning run to second. Not surprisingly, Aaron drew an intentional walk. But Joe Adcock then hit the ball over the fence for the only Milwaukee hit of the game. Aaron, seeing the winning run score, went directly from second base to the dugout, allowing Adcock to pass him on the basepaths. As a result, the final score was 1-0 rather than 3-0.

Aaron and Mathews both had their best years in that 1959 season, when the Braves finished in a first-place tie with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mathews homered in the best-of-three pennant playoff, breaking a tie for the home-run title with Ernie Banks of the lowly Chicago Cubs. In the MVP voting, however, Mathews was runner-up for the second time in his career while Aaron finished third. Banks won the trophy for the second year in a row even though his team went nowhere.

Two years later, when the 1961 Milwaukee Braves became the first team to hit four consecutive home runs, Mathews and Aaron hit the first two, followed by Joe Adcock and Frank Thomas.

By the time the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966, however, Mathews had physical issues (mainly shoulder and back) that sapped his power. He hit only 16 home runs, though one of them left a lasting impression.

Elevated to the ceremonial role of team captain by manager Bobby Bragan, who had hoped the title would inspire the player to conform to team rules regarding curfew-breaking and carousing, Mathews had such a rough first half that he had fallen into a platoon at third base. But he got his job back the minute the Braves booted Bragan for first-base coach Billy Hitchcock.

On the rainy night of August 9, 1966, with sensational southpaw Sandy Koufax working for Los Angeles, Mathews turned an 0-and-2 pitch into a game-winning solo home run, ending a 2-1 contest that sent 40,000 Atlanta Stadium fans into a frenzy.7 But their response was temporary.

“I do believe it’s true that as great as Eddie Mathews was, he’d have been even greater if he’d taken better care of himself,” said Bragan, who had moved with the team to Atlanta after the 1965 season.8

Aaron provided no such agita. But Mathews was still popular in the clubhouse and had the support of his teammates.

“Eddie was a gamer,” remembered Denny Lemaster, the winning pitcher in the game against Koufax. “He was always ready to play no matter what shape he was in. What Eddie did after he left the ballpark I always felt was his own business. Bobby was a teetotaler who didn’t think anybody else should drink either.”9

Eddie Mathews managed Henry Aaron and the Braves for parts of three seasons. (Photograph by Dan Schlossberg)

Henry Aaron and Stan Musial, two perennial All-Stars, talk hitting. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

In Henry “Hank” Aaron’s 23-year career in the major leagues, he earned 25 nominations to the National League All-Star team and played in 24 of those games – among the most games played by a single player in baseball history.1

Aaron’s astounding regular-season statistics made his ticket to these midsummer classics an easy bet. He retired with a career batting average of .305, an OPS of .928, and the all-time home-run crown. He was named National League MVP in 1957, won the NL batting title twice, and was a popular choice in All-Star voting, winning the largest share of votes two years in a row. He was in every respect an All-Star.

But Aaron looked like a different player in those games played with baseball’s best. In his All-Star outings, he managed a batting average of just .194 and an OPS of .506. In 1972, when his All-Star batting average dipped to .186, Aaron told the press he was “embarrassed.”2 “You might liken it to the only blemish on a masterpiece,” mused Milton Richman, a sportswriter for the wire service United Press International, of Aaron’s dim average. The uncharacteristic metric “stood out like a pimple on Miss America.”3

SUBDUED ’50S, QUIET ’60S

The 1950s and 60s proved to be a quiet All-Star run for a quiet man who was usually loud at the plate.

Aaron made his All-Star Game debut in 1955 at the age of 21. He was in his second season with the Milwaukee Braves. He entered the game midway through the contest and contributed two hits, a run, and an RBI in a 12-inning National League 6-5 victory. In 1956 Aaron, who went on to win the NL batting title with an average of .328, replaced an injured Stan Musial but flied out in his only at-bat. In 1957 Commissioner Ford Frick placed Aaron and Mays on the team after it came to light that zealous Cincinnati fans had stuffed the ballot box.4 Aaron, who was named NL MVP for 1957, managed just one hit in four at-bats. The following year, Aaron started the All-Star Game in right field and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly but otherwise had a quiet game.

From 1959 to 1962, the two leagues staged two All-Star Games per season to help raise money for the players’ pension fund. These additional games gave Aaron extra chances to prove his All-Star mettle. He almost did in 1959 when his performance in an All-Star Game rivaled his regular-season performance. On July 7, the first game of 1959, Aaron, who won the NL batting title that year, started in right field for the National League at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. After a slow start – striking out in the first and lining out in the third – he singled in the sixth inning and again in the eighth, driving in Ken Boyer and then scoring on a triple by Willie Mays. Thanks to Aaron’s late-game contributions, the National League overcame the American League’s lead to win 5-4 in front of 35,277 fans.

The second All-Star Game of 1959, held on August 3, saw the American League trump the National League, 5-3. Aaron hit a sacrifice fly to bring in a run but otherwise failed to reach base.

The National League nearly accomplished a decade-long sweep of the American League during the 1960s, winning 11 of 13 games, losing one and tying the other. Aaron played in every game but one and contributed good defense but otherwise put up subdued batting numbers and not a single home run.

The NL secured victories in both All-Star contests of 1960 – 5-3 in Kansas City and 6-0 in New York. Despite having seven at-bats across the two games, Aaron went hitless.

The following year, Aaron finally broke through. In the July 11 game at Candlestick Park, he pinch-hit in the 10th inning, singled to center, and was driven home by Willie Mays in a 5-4 win. But in his second appearance that month, at Boston’s Fenway Park, he went hitless again.

In 1962 Aaron was sidelined because of an injury in the first All-Star Game that year and went 0-for-2 in the second as the AL won 9-4. His 1963 outing included a run scored, but no hits. In 1964 he struck out in his one at-bat and in 1965 he struggled again, getting a single in his five turns at the plate. In 1967’s 15-inning marathon, Aaron collected one hit in six at-bats. In 1968 and 1969, he added a hit and a stolen base, and later a run scored, but his overall All-Star stats through the 1960s remained modest. He was Hammerin’ Hank Aaron everywhere except at the midsummer classic.

“THE GREATEST THRILL”

Fans voted Aaron onto the National League All-Star team in 1970. Even though he won more votes than any other player, sportswriter George Lapides argued that “Hank Aaron had no business playing in it.”5

The reason: Aaron’s failing health.

“Hank Aaron is hurting something awful these days,” lamented Lapides. “Aaron’s knees are killing him.”

Yet Aaron played the game at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, pain and all. He went hitless in two at-bats before being replaced in the fifth inning by hometown hero Pete Rose, who made that game famous when he collided with catcher Ray Fosse at home plate and left him with a separated shoulder.

Aaron’s quiet All-Star performance continued a trend: Despite his career excellence, he could hardly hit the ball in the All-Star Game, let alone a home run. Still, the fans loved him, awarding Aaron the most All-Star ballots in 1970 and 1971.6

For those fortunate fans, Aaron’s All-Star home-run drought ended on July 13, 1971, at Tiger Stadium in the “Night of the Home Run.”7 The game saw a record-matching six home runs that night, including Aaron’s first in an All-Star Game.

Facing American League ace Vida Blue, Aaron stepped to the plate in the third inning.

“The All-Star game has not been Henry Aaron’s bag,” remarked Curt Gowdy, the play-by-play man on the TV broadcast.8 “He’s played in a lot of ’em, but he’s hit only .175. He’s had 10 hits and they’ve all been singles. Tonight, he wants his first extra-base All-Star hit.”

“If his knee holds up and his health continues good, he might have a chance,” said Gowdy.

With a 1-and-2 count and two out, Aaron launched a homer into the upper deck, delivering what fans had long hoped to see. Despite his heroics, the AL beat the NL, 6-4.

A year later, in front of a TV audience of 50 million, Aaron had the chance to repeat the feat. At first it looked as if it wouldn’t happen. Aaron struck out in the first inning and flied to right in the fourth.

On his third and last at-bat, Aaron wiped that blemish away. He homered to left-center off a splitter by Gaylord Perry to bring home César Cedeño. His two-run shot helped the National League edge out the American League, 4-3.

“I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t,” Aaron told reporters afterward. “It was the greatest thrill I ever had.”9

The next year, at the 1973 All-Star Game at Royals Stadium in Kansas City, Aaron started at first base and hit an RBI single that brought home Joe Morgan in the National League’s 7-1 trouncing of the American League. In 1974, the year Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home-run record and cemented his status as baseball’s mightiest batter, he went hitless in his two All-Star at-bats.

STANDING-O

Aaron’s final All-Star Game appearance came in 1975 at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. This marked his 24th selection, tying the record held by Willie Mays and Stan Musial. He was 41 years old and, according to the press, “a bit paunchy” and “no longer the graceful outfielder or the fleet baserunner.”10

Now representing the American League as a Milwaukee Brewer, Aaron received a two-minute standing ovation from the home fans that made him “tingle all over.”11 He pinch-hit in his only turn at the plate and shattered his bat on a line drive to short. The AL fell, 6-3.

The All-Star Game proved a struggle for Aaron and a strange bit of baseball history. The home-run king couldn’t put on the show he wanted to – for fans or for himself. His muted All-Star Game performances are footnotes to an otherwise legendary career.

ROBERT GRANT PRICE lives in Burlington, Ontario, with his wife and their son. His career includes stints as a report- er and managing editor for national trade publications in Canada’s retail and biosciences sectors. Currently, he lectures at the University of Toronto Mississauga and spends summers coaching house league baseball.

NOTES

1 Unless otherwise indicated, the author used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org as the primary sources.

2 Milton Richman (United Press International), “All-Star Game Was Dream Game for Some,” Sanford (North Carolina) Herald, July 26, 1972: 2.

3 By comparison, Willie Mays’ All-Star Game performance mirrored his success in the regular season. Over 24 All-Star appearances, Mays managed a .307 batting average, a .533 slugging percentage, and a .366 on-base percentage – numbers close to his career totals of .302 batting average, .557 slugging average, and .384 OBP. Similarly, Stan Musial, who played in 24 All-Star Games, looked like much the same player in those outings, but with a notable surge in power. While his averages were comparable (.331 batting average vs. .317; .417 on-base percentage vs. .394), his slugging jumped 76 points, from .559 in the regular season to .635 in All-Star Games.

4 Alan Cohen, “July 9, 1957: Stengel’s ‘Replacements’ Do Well to Give AL a Win in All-Star Game,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-9-1957-stengels-replacements-do-well-to-give-al-a-win-in-all-star-game/.

5 George Lapides, “So Who Was the All-Star Numero Uno?,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, July 15, 1970: 36.

6 Tom Stanton, Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America (New York: William Morrow, 2004), 121.

7 Hal Bodley, “N.L. Streak Gone With the Wind,” Wilmington (Delaware) Morning News, July 14, 1971: 25.

8 “Hank Aaron HR 1971 All Star Game,” YouTube, April 29, 2021, 2:02, https://youtu.be/uQzB5rO3IRA?si=BPjqESso_m2B86Sz.

9 Richman, “All-Star Game Was Dream Game for Some.”

10 “Aaron Still Most Valuable .239 Hitter in Baseball,” Marshfield (Wisconsin) News-Herald, July 15, 1975: 9.

11 “A Thrill for Henry,” Kenosha (Wisconsin) News, July 16, 1975: 29.