Fifty years ago today, the most important home run in Major League Baseball history left Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. Hank Aaron broke the career home run record held by Babe Ruth when he hit his 715th career homer against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Dowling on April 8, 1974.
Fifty years later, Vin Scully’s call on the Dodgers’ game broadcast stands as an eloquent description of both the moment and its historical significance:
“What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world,” Scully said. “A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron… And for the first time in a long time, that poker face in Aaron shows the tremendous strain and relief of what it must have been like to live with for the past several months.”
Aaron, who passed away in 2021, retired as baseball’s all-time home run leader with 755 home runs. His record was not surpassed until Barry Bonds did so with the San Francisco Giants in 2007. The impact of Aaron’s home run on American history was not lost on the journalists who chronicled his pursuit of Ruth — and the hate mail received along the way.
Nor was it lost on Downing, the pitcher who allowed the home run.
“I congratulated Hank,” Downing said in a recent interview with Dodgers team historian Mark Langill, “and he told me people would mention the home run and I shouldn’t let it bother me. He told me I was a great pitcher.”
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In 1999, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Aaron’s historic home run, Major League Baseball introduced the Hank Aaron Award to honor the best overall offensive performer in each league.
Monday, the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum announced new a Hank Aaron statue will be unveiled in Cooperstown on May 23.
Aaron is best remembered for the home run he hit 50 years ago today, but power was just one of his many remarkable baseball skills. He retired in 1976 with a career .305 batting average and 2,297 RBIs — still an all-time record. While today’s sluggers routinely strike out 200 times or more in a season, Aaron never struck out even 100 times in a single season in his 23-year career.
In 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush awarded Aaron the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his philanthropy and humanitarian endeavors.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.