People with humble beginnings can achieve great things. Henry Louis was born on February 5, 1934. Henry became interested in baseball when he was a child. His family was too poor to afford a baseball bat or even a baseball. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Hank practiced his batting by hitting bottle caps with broomsticks. He used anything he could find to use as bats and balls. With his makeshift gear, he could hit harder and farther than any of the other kids.
In 1949, 15-year-old Henry got his first tryout with a major league baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Henry’s boyhood idol was the legendary Jackie Robinson, who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Everything seemed to be falling into place, but Henry was devastated when he was not selected to join the team. In the same year, Henry joined the Prichard Athletics, an independent Negro league team. While with the Athletics, Henry earned $2 per game. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $24 in today’s money. Next, he played for the Mobile Black Bears, and earned $3 per game.
On November 20, 1951, a baseball scout who had been watching Henry, signed him to a contract with the Indianapolis Clowns where he earned $200 per month. Now, that’s about $2,350 in today’s money. Not too bad. Remember, these teams were in the Negro league, and it was the early 1950s. Racism was rampant. Henry remembered back to a time when he and the other Indianapolis Clowns visited Washington, D.C. for a game:
“We had breakfast while we were waiting for the rain to stop, and I can still envision sitting with the Clowns in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium and hearing them break all the plates in the kitchen after we finished eating. What a horrible sound. Even as a kid, the irony of it hit me: here we were in the capital in the land of freedom and equality, and they had to destroy the plates that had touched the forks that had been in the mouths of black men. If dogs had eaten off those plates, they’d have washed them.”
The constant racism he had to endure coupled with being homesick, Henry contemplated giving up baseball altogether. His brother, Herbert Jr. convinced Henry to keep working toward his dream. With a pep talk from his brother, Henry worked harder than ever. Word of Henry’s talent spread while he was with the Clowns. After just three months with the Clowns, Henry received two telegrams with offers to join two Major League Baseball teams, the New York Giants and the Boston Braves. Henry later recalled:
“I had the Giants’ contract in my hand. But the Braves offered fifty dollars a month more. That’s the only thing that kept Willie Mays and me from being teammates – fifty dollars.”
Fifty dollars a month may not sound like much, but that would be nearly $600 a month extra in today’s money. Henry decided on the Braves, but remember that he was still under contract to the Clowns. The Braves purchased Henry’s contract for $10,000, just over $117,000 in today’s money. On June 12, 1952, Henry officially joined the Braves. Henry quickly earned a nickname, but that nickname had nothing to do with his powerful hitting. His teammates called him “pork chops.” Henry explained, “it was the only thing I knew to order off the menu.” One of his teammates said, “the man ate pork chops three meals a day, two for breakfast.” Opposing pitchers often called him “Bad Henry.”
Henry prospered with the Braves. By the end of his first season with the Braves, the league unanimously named him Rookie of the Year. In the following year, 1953, the Braves won the league championship. Henry led the league in runs, hits, doubles, RBIs, total bases, and batting average. Henry won the league’s Most Valuable Player Award. Still, there was racism aimed at Henry. One sportswriter said “Henry… led the league in everything except hotel accommodations.” While traveling in the South, Henry was segregated from his teammates due to Jim Crow laws. While his white teammates had hotel accommodations made for them, Henry had to arrange his own hotel accommodations.
Throughout his career, Henry earned many accolades, too many to list. In 1973, something big was happening. Henry, then playing for the Atlanta Braves, was closing in on Babe Ruth’s career home run record of 714. During the summer of 1973, Henry received so many letters each week, usually in the thousands, that the Braves hired a secretary to help Henry. Not all of the mail Henry received was positive. Henry received a lot of hate mail and death threats. How dare he even attempt to break Babe Ruth’s record. Due to the high number of death threats, policemen worked in shifts to protect Henry. On September 29, 1973, Henry hit his 713th career home run in a game against the Houston Astros. He had just one more home run to tie Babe Ruth’s record. Two more home runs to beat Babe Ruth’s record. But Henry failed to hit another home run in that game. The season ended the following day.
Henry feared that he would not live to see the 1974 baseball season. During the offseason, his amount of mail, including hate mail, increased. He received so much mail that at the end of 1973, the U.S. Postal Service sent him a plaque for receiving more mail than any other person, with the exception of politicians. He received approximately 930,000 letters that year. The number of death threats increased exponentially. Lewis Grizzard, executive sports editor of The Atlanta Journal, who had been preparing coverage on the home run record, secretly had one of his sportswriters write an obituary for Henry because he was afraid that Henry would be murdered before he had a chance to break Babe Ruth’s record.
Henry did live to play in the 1974 season, but there was a problem. Braves managers wanted Henry to beat Babe Ruth’s record while in Atlanta, but their first three games were away games. The managers were going to have Henry sit out of the first three games, but the baseball commissioner insisted that Henry play in at least two of the three games. On April 4, 1974, in a game against the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati, Henry made a home run and tied Babe Ruth’s record. The managers certainly wanted to win the game, but they did not want Henry to make another home run before returning home to Atlanta. Henry did not hit another home run in an away game.
Four days later, April 8, 1974, the Braves played against the LA Dodgers in Atlanta. It was a home game. A record-breaking 53,775 people attended the game. In the fourth inning, Al Downing of the Dodgers pitched the ball. Henry swung. The ball flew over left-center field and into the Braves’ bullpen. Cannons fired in celebration. Henry had broken Babe Ruth’s record. As Henry rounded the bases, he saw his mother proudly waiting for him at home plate to give him a congratulatory hug.
Henry Louis is one of the most revered players in baseball history. And it all started with broomsticks and bottle caps. Even if you are not a baseball fan, you will have heard his name. Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron.