715 : It Was 20 Years Ago Today That Hank Aaron Eclipsed One of Sport’s Most Magical Numbers, Breaking Babe Ruth’s Home Run Record

April didn’t come in like a lion or a lamb in the Eastern United States 20 years ago, but blew in with Ruthian gusto, as if presaging the ensuing tumultuous events.

On April 3, 1974, a series of wicked tornadoes touched down in the Cincinnati area. Hail the size of tennis balls pelted traffic on Interstate 75. The small town of Xenia, Ohio, an hour or so north, nearly disappeared, as did several neighborhoods of Cincinnati itself.

On the heels of the twisters, Hank Aaron and the Atlanta Braves blew into the city for the next day’s baseball opener, trailing a media cyclone

that cut a swath the length of the baseball world, from the United States to Latin America to Japan.

Aaron was one home run away from tying Babe Ruth’s career record of 714, one of sport’s magical numbers. The countdown had been on hold since the previous October, when the 39-year-old Aaron finished fast, hitting his 40th homer of the season--No. 713--in Houston on the final Saturday.

The media and publicity crush--a virtual caravan had begun traveling with the Braves late in the ’73 season--was such that Aaron often had to stay separately from his teammates, check into different hotels under assumed names and generally live like a rock star, though he remained largely the same quiet, unassuming man he had been when he joined the Milwaukee Braves as a skinny 20-year-old in 1954.

Remarkably, Aaron was outwardly unfazed by the hubbub, from tornadoes to media to racist hate mail. But his actions touched off storms of controversy throughout the week leading up to the record.

“He handled it better than everybody. He was amazing,” Eddie Mathews recalled from his Del Mar home. Mathews, who had paired with Aaron to become the most prolific home-run hitting teammates in baseball annals, was the Braves’ manager as Aaron approached the mark.

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Aaron trivia: Starting late in the 1973 season, umpires used different baseballs for Aaron’s at-bats, with special stamps (visible under UV light) so fans--or even players--couldn’t claim to have a historic ball; advertisers from as far away as South America were offering $25,000 for No. 715.

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Thursday, April 4, dawned sunny and breezy, thankfully calm of tornadoes. Vice President Gerald Ford was on hand for the game, after a helicopter tour of the remains of Xenia. The tornadoes dominated the day’s headlines. They wouldn’t for long.

Aaron, recently turned 40, wanted to set the record in Atlanta. He was going to sit out the opening three-game series at Cincinnati, but at the urging of major league baseball, he started the opener against right-hander Jack Billingham, who had slept on the floor while twisters tore through his neighborhood. Aaron didn’t keep people in suspense long. With two on in the first inning, Aaron sent homer No. 714 on a low trajectory over the left-field fence.

It was his first swing of the season. Left fielder Pete Rose watched it sail over the wall into an area below the permanent stands, where it was retrieved by a policeman. The game was stopped, Aaron made a brief speech and waved. Billingham then retired the side. In the dugout after the first inning, Billingham saw teammates looking at him pensively. “Didn’t waste any time, did I?” he commented.

Aaron’s next at-bats were uneventful, and the Reds came back to win, 7-6.

That home run would make Mathews’ job tougher. Friday, April 5, was an off-day. Before Saturday’s game, Mathews announced that Aaron would sit out the games Saturday and Sunday; the Braves thought Cincinnati had gotten its fair share of him. Atlanta had drawn poorly the previous two seasons, had an 11-game home stand coming and envisioned sellouts.

“He was getting some miles on him, it wasn’t like he was going to play every day,” Mathews said of Aaron, who eventually played in 112 games that season. But baseball had other ideas--best interests of the game, fielding your most competitive team, etc. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn told the Braves to play Aaron. Mathews got his hackles up and kept Aaron on the bench Saturday against young fireballer Don Gullett, saying: “Right or wrong, this is Eddie Mathews’ decision.”

News conferences occurred hourly. Influential New York columnists Red Smith and Dick Young took the Braves to task. The Atlanta media hotly told these carpetbaggers to butt out. Kuhn phoned. Mathews recalled: “He made it clear there were going to be repercussions. He said, ‘I’m going to suspend you, the general manager, the owner and everybody in the Atlanta front office.’ So I played him Sunday.”

The finale of the series proved anticlimactic, even embarrassing. Aaron struck out twice and grounded out weakly against Clay Kirby, misplayed a fly ball in left field and was replaced by Ralph Garr in the seventh inning. The caravan packed up and moved to Atlanta for a home stand starting against the Dodgers on Monday, April 8.

The Dodgers arrived in town at 1:30 a.m. Believe it or not, there were tornado warnings in Atlanta, but the threat subsided for that night’s game. Dodger left-hander Al Downing was the scheduled starter.

Kuhn, as vilified as Gen. Sherman in Atlanta, was in Cleveland addressing a banquet that night. He feared that his presence in Atlanta might detract from the event and sent assistant Monte Irvin in his place.

A national TV audience was tuned in. There was a palpable air of expectation in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The sellout crowd was treated to a pregame ceremony honoring Aaron. A soft drizzle began. In the second inning, Aaron walked without offering at any of the five pitches.

In the fourth, Aaron came to bat with Darrell Evans on first base. Downing threw a changeup for a ball. His second pitch, at 9:07 p.m., was a fastball that was supposed to tail but didn’t. With his first home-field swing of the season, Aaron sent the ball over the left-field fence into the Brave bullpen, where pitcher Tom House caught it. Dodger left fielder Bill Buckner, who had discussed splitting the reward with center fielder Jim Wynn, tried to scramble up the wire fence, but saw House glove it.

“Our first game in Atlanta, I’ll be darned if he doesn’t hit the homer,” Mathews remembered with a laugh. “About half the stadium got up and left in the middle of the game. If he hadn’t hit it (right away), we’d have had 55,000 every game.”

Aaron was swamped at home plate by teammates and a few fans who made their way onto the field while he was circling the bases. His parents were brought down from the stands.

House, approaching the mob to present the historic ball to Aaron, was shocked to see the new home run king fighting back tears as he hugged his mother. “Suddenly, I saw what many people have never been able to see in him--deep emotion,” House said later. “I looked, and he had tears hanging on his lids. I could hardly believe it. I put the ball in his hand. He said, ‘Thanks, kid,’ and touched me on the shoulder.”

A few minutes later, Aaron took a congratulatory call in Mathews’ office from President Nixon. He expressed relief, saying it felt like “the weight of a stove” was off his shoulders.

Downing had control problems after the ceremony, walked two batters and was taken out of the game by Manager Walter Alston. A cab was called, and Downing left the stadium. With good cheer that has never failed him, he told the one reporter who tracked him down before he left: “I’m more concerned about my next start. This thing is over. It’s history. It won’t bother me.”

Downing has joined Tracy Stallard, Tom Zachary, Dennis Eckersley and a select few other pitchers remembered as the answers to home run trivia.

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Aaron trivia: Steve Garvey was the first baseman for two of the most documented hits in baseball history: Aaron’s 715th homer and Rose’s 4,192nd hit, which broke Ty Cobb’s career record. Garvey was with the Padres for Rose’s hit and was the first player to greet him. He apparently had no plan to cop a souvenir. If Aaron had caught Ruth at the end of the ’73 season, Houston first baseman Lee May told George Plimpton he had planned to bear-hug Aaron as he rounded the bag--and grab his batting helmet. He’d planned to keep it in his den and display it: “There it is, the helmet Bad Henry wore when he hit 714.”

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Twenty years later, no one has approached Aaron’s final total of 755, and there’s nobody on the horizon. Check back in 15 or 16 years to see if Ken Griffey Jr. or Juan Gonzalez or Frank Thomas mounted an assault.

But in some ways, Aaron never supplanted Ruth, which he readily admits. “Somebody can come along and hit 800 home runs, and it’s never going to mean as much as Babe Ruth’s record,” he said recently. “Babe Ruth’s homers are always going to be legend.”

Did Mathews ever have the sudden realization that Aaron might be the one to finally overhaul Ruth? “We didn’t look at things like that,” Mathews said, adding: “He was the best player I’ve seen, all-around. He went out there every year to play every game.”

Two decades later, there’s a radical thought.