By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Hank Aaron could have played in Boston — and he’s still the true home-run king

Hank Aaron. Photo (cc) 2015 by David Valdez.

Imagine if the Braves had never left Boston. The great Hank Aaron, whose death at the age of 86 was announced Friday, might have played here. Of course, Boston was a notoriously racist city when Aaron was playing, and we still have plenty of problems. But it’s interesting to ponder what might have been.

Like many fans, I remember watching the Braves as Aaron approached and then surpassed Babe Ruth’s seemingly unbreakable record of 714 in 1974. Braves games were carried on national TV during Aaron’s pursuit, which meant that the entire country could watch. Sadly, the obits all go into some detail about the hate to which Aaron was subjected for having the temerity to break a white man’s record.

On Friday, Twitter was abuzz with the possibility that Major League Baseball’s recent decision to regard the Negro League as “major” might mean that Aaron’s final home-run total of 755 would be revised upward — conceivably by enough to pass Barry Bonds’ steroid-tainted 762. But apparently that’s not going to happen. Mike Oz of Yahoo Sports addressed the matter in December:

One thing that would have caused a tectonic shift in the record books was if Hank Aaron’s 1952 season in the Negro Leagues counted. He hit either eight or nine home runs that season, depending on the source, but Barry Bonds sits atop the all-time home run leaderboard by seven, so either one of those being accepted would have made Hank No. 1 again.

Alas, the 1948 cutoff was chosen because most of the top talent fled the Negro Leagues after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, making the leagues more like the minor leagues than the majors by the time Aaron arrived.

That’s a shame, and maybe MLB will revisit the issue. Either way, though, Henry Aaron will always be the truth home-run king.

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1 Comment

  1. Steve Ross

    SOME parts of Boston were notoriously racist. I lived on and around Columbia Rd. until age 11 and saw little of it. But that was the dividing line between stable White and Black neighborhoods. My mother was a social worker caught up in the Grove Hall riots, and would not have gotten the college needed, without her Black boss. I remember by best friend playing Cruspus Atticus in an 8th grade play. I played his ghost (ghosts are White, after all). I don’t remember more than a line of the play, but I still remember our parents sitting together in the third row, cracking up.

    BTW, my mother had worked on school board staff but was fired when Louise Day Hicks took over. Mom noted that Roxbury Memorial had better IQ scores and less violence than South Boston High. So it was the Blacks who should have criticized cross-busing. Boston media always ignored that little detail.

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