To Him, Legend Is Just a Swing and a Myth

Hank Aaron is 58 and a senior vice president with the Atlanta Braves. His office is on the 14th-floor of the CNN building in Atlanta. Ted Turner’s door is just 25 steps away.

But the distance between baseball’s all-time home run leader and the man whose record he broke is a lot farther.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the movie “The Babe” has brought back some sour memories for Aaron, 18 years after he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1974.

Aaron still has the hate letters written to him when he pursued, caught and passed Ruth’s mark of 714 home runs. From time to time, he rereads the letters.

Aaron has not seen “The Babe,” in which the myths associated with Ruth are recycled.

“I mean no disrespect to Babe Ruth and what he did, but I played the game,” Aaron told Joe Strauss of the Journal-Constitution. “There ain’t no way somebody can tell me Babe Ruth or anybody else can stand up and point their finger and say, ‘I’m going to hit a home run.’ I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.”

Today in history: On this day in 1915, Ruth, playing for the Boston Red Sox, hit his first major league home run, off Jack Warhop of the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds.

Trivia Time: With their 25th NHL amateur draft coming up June 20, how many times have the Kings been without a first-round draft choice?

The producers: Laurel Entertainment and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have acquired the rights to produce a made-for-TV movie based on the World War II exploits of the all-black 761st Tank Battalion. Abdul-Jabbar and Laurel are in a development and producing partnership.

Chirp, chirp: It’s early, but the rejuvenated Baltimore Orioles are averaging 44,169 fans, which in the opinion of Baltimore Sun columnist Mike Littwin is directly tied to a winning record, unlike, say, last year, when they finished 67-95, 24 games behind Toronto.

How bad was it?

Said Littwin: “Last season was about as thrilling as a rain delay.”

Chirp, chirp II: For what it’s worth, former Angel third baseman Jack Howell has five home runs, one of them a grand slam, playing for the Yakult Swallows in Japan.

Area code 312: Last week was the “deadline” set by Minnesota outfielder Kirby Puckett to agree to a contract extension with the Twins. Nothing happened, although the Twins supposedly have a four-year, $22.5-million deal on the table.

Said Puckett, when asked about the offer: “I don’t know. You’ll have to call me in Chicago next year.”

Punt formation: According to Vito Stellino of the Baltimore Sun, owner Jack Kent Cooke of the Washington Redskins wants the D.C. Armory Board to give him a $900,000 break on his lease, all the while threatening to build a new stadium in Virginia. If Cooke doesn’t get it, he’s threatening not to play his games at RFK Stadium next fall.

Stellino said there is one flaw in Cooke’s threat: “There is no other stadium in Washington.”

Trivia answer: Seventeen times. This year’s No. 1 choice belongs to Philadelphia via Pittsburgh in the trade for Paul Coffey.

Quotebook: Miami center Rony Seikaly, who watched Michael Jordan score 46, 33 and 56 points in the Chicago Bulls’ sweep of the Heat: “He’s like a grenade without the pin.”