Hank Aaron And Bob Dylan: Searchin’ High, Searchin’ Low For Dignity
May 26, 2023 by Jeff Cochran · Leave a Comment
Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
Dignity never been photographed
Or so Bob Dylan says in “Dignity,” a song he wrote in 1988 after learning of the death of basketball great Pete Maravich. Dylan has a point. Dignity isn’t an item or commodity that can be replicated and mass-produced. It’s a quality of fortitude and bearing, guiding one on how to respond whether the news is good or bad.
The one possessed with dignity feels for others and thinks carefully on the consequences of his or her actions. Sometimes a dignified action doesn’t pay off materially. It can also be misunderstood. Sometimes it’s so discreet it isn’t even noticed. Yet the individual who’s mindful of taking the unselfish approach would do it all over again. Those with such innate qualities persevere and leave the rest of us richer for their doing so.
Dignity also describes the 86 years of Henry Aaron’s life, which had its own red-letter day 49 years ago. On April 8, 1974, Aaron, playing his 2967th game as a major league baseball player, hit an Al Downing pitch over the left field wall of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, giving Baseball a new all-time home run champion. Home run number 715, one more than Babe Ruth hit in a 22-year career that ended in 1935.
At the time, Ruth was a member of the Boston Braves, the team Aaron signed with in 1952, just one year before the team moved to Milwaukee, where they played through the 1965 season, and moved again — this time to Atlanta. Aaron’s triumph filled goodhearted Atlantans, no matter their race, color or creed, with joy.
There, in the city regarded by many as the cradle of the civil rights movement, a Black man now held the game’s most celebrated record. 53,775 fans cheered Aaron as he touched home plate, making the homer official. Play was stopped and a short ceremony was held. With his parents standing on the field with him, Aaron stepped up to the microphone and said, “Thank God it’s over.”
In his 1991 memoir, I Had A Hammer , Aaron wrote that a few hours later, after the festivities, alone in his room, he “felt a deep sense of gratitude and a wonderful surge of liberation at the same time. I got down on my knees and closed my eyes and thanked God for pulling me through.”
Aaron depended on God to not only give him the strength to hit number 715 but also to get him through the hoopla and turmoil of approaching the hallowed record. While there were fans nationwide pulling for him, there were also thousands who didn’t. They made their feelings known with a hatred that was pitiful and cowardly.
Along with the usual fan mail and requests for signed photos, Aaron, as he pursued Ruth’s record, received threatening and coarse letters. Too often the salutation in the letters was “Dear N…..,” such as the one excerpted below:
Dear N……, In my humble way of thinking, you are doing more to hurt Baseball than any other that ever played the game. You may break the record and you may replace Babe Ruth in the hearts of the liberal sportswriters, the liberal newspapers, TV and radio, as well as in the heart of the long-haired Hippies. But you will never replace the Babe in the hearts of clear-thinking members of our Society. So, roll on in your deserved glory, Black Boy.
So, did the guy make himself clear? The liberal media and the hippies were working to overthrow the republic and topple the Sultan of Swat? So pathetic. So laughable. Having bought many albums at the record stores in Atlanta’s hippie c ommunity and while working at Atlanta’s underground newspaper, The Great Speckled Bird , I never sensed the slightest hostility toward Babe Ruth.
The Bambino was alright with us, even as we who followed the sport pulled for Henry Aaron to claim the home run crown, just as Ruth, perhaps the greatest athlete baseball has ever seen, would have. Greatness understands what it’s like to triumph after the long journey uphill.
However, grand achievements had little influence with such bigots who were supposedly protective of Ruth’s legacy. They proved ignorant of Ruth’s personal history. Early in his baseball career, his physical features were thought to be those of a freak, or an ape. And that led to him being called the “n-word” by some in the game and many in the stands.
Robert W. Creamer, in his book, Babe, The Legend Comes To Life , wrote of what Ruth went through while he was still with the Boston Red Sox. Harsh epithets were built around the “n-word.” It was used freely, mixed with all manner of vile invectives. Ruth’s experience was a foretelling of what Jackie Robinson was to endure thirty years later. From Creamer’s book:
The word was hurled so often at Ruth that many people assumed he was indeed partly black and that at some point in time he, or at least some immediate ancestor, had managed to cross the color line. Even players in the Negro baseball leagues that flourished then believed this and generally wished the Babe, whom they considered a secret brother, well in his conquest of white baseball.
For Aaron, even when anticipating his celebratory moment, that uphill journey was tough every step of the way. Hate mail. Death threats. Worries over the safety of his children. Financial pressures brought on by unscrupulous business partners. Feeling unappreciated by team ownership and the town he would play in for nine seasons. Despite his success, walls seemed to be caving in on him. And all he wanted was to do his best, like always, and help his team in the game he had loved since a child.
Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid
Have you seen dignity?
A player so skilled, focused and diligent should’ve been embraced by Atlanta when the Braves moved to Georgia’s capital city in 1966. In that year, Aaron led the National League in home runs with 44 and runs batted in with 127. What a model of consistency: nine years earlier, when the Braves played in Milwaukee, Aaron was the National League’s Most Valuable Player.
At an age when many superstars slow down, Aaron turned on the juices again. The “smart money” believed he was a solid bet to break Ruth’s record, even as he approached his mid-thirties and — over 250 home runs away from number 715.
Great hitting aside, many Braves “fans” chastised the way Aaron appeared on the field. His finesse and fluid movements made some believe Aaron didn’t give his all or have his head in the game. If he was thrown out, the misinformed complained it was because Aaron only “shuffled” to the next base. Aaron’s hustle, cheered by fans on a previous play, was forgotten. In a region obsessed with football, the studied approach and nuances applied by Aaron were too often overlooked.
Still, those who saw him day-in and day-out watched in awe. Bob Wolf, a legendary sportswriter with The Milwaukee Journal , observed that as Aaron advanced in both prestige and experience, he became “more and more the perfectionist” on the field. Sadly, Atlanta blew hot and cold on Henry Aaron, too often missing the humble artistry he brought to his game.
For decades, Atlanta has been among the top of the front-runner towns. A hot team, a hit recording artist or a record-setting athlete drawing national acclaim has long been a ray of sunshine in a region often embarrassed over past associations with Jim Crow. Of course, Henry Aaron, a native of Alabama, knew of the trouble Jim Crow made. Well into his adult years, Aaron kept running into Crow, even as the nation sought to vanquish the Crow legacy through new laws, and at times, a change of heart.
At times the change of heart revealed itself in curious ways, as it did one afternoon in the summer of ’68. Aaron’s first memoir, “Aaron, r.f.” , had just been published and he was making the book store rounds, with hundreds of fans lined up to receive personally signed copies of his book. One such store was the Eller News Center, an oasis of culture in the mostly white and dry city of Forest Park, a suburb just south of Atlanta.
There were racist hotheads in the city’s schools and churches, but there were also those who simply marveled at Aaron’s prowess and dedication between the lines. They were fans — admirers even– and they were interested in what Aaron had written about his life (all 34 years of it at the time). They’d get his book, his autograph, maybe get to shake his hand and perhaps learn if that rumor about Hank Aaron moving to Forest Park was true.
People, with no idea how the rumor started, were talking about Aaron moving to Forest Park’s most exclusive street. Which house the Braves superstar would buy had already been determined, according to townsfolk. It was a house on a hill with a rolling yard in a verdant enclave barely a long noisy out from the typical middle class subdivisions that went up in the late ’50s.
Aaron would make his place among other professionals on the street: the doctors, lawyers, veterinarians, store owners, and Forest Park’s mayor. It made sense to us; near the end of the ’67 season, The Sporting News reported Aaron planned to move his family from the Milwaukee suburb of Mequon to a year-round home in the Atlanta area. And Forest Park had easy access to I-75, making for a quick trip to his work at Atlanta Stadium. This was going to be great. Maybe Henry Aaron, who lives just a half-mile away, could get me on as a Braves batboy! Of course, there must have been two dozen boys within that half-mile thinking the same thing.