Hank Aaron – MLB Legend Hammerin’ Hank First to Break Babe Ruths Home Run Record

Hank Aaron was a former American professional baseball right fielder and nominated hitter who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for 23 seasons, from 1954 to 1976. The legendary baseball player Hank Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama, on February 5, He was the third of eight children born to Estella and Herbert Aaron, a shipyard worker at Alabama Drydock and shipping company. Aaron was raised in Toulminville, a town on the outskirts of Mobile, and graduated from Josephine Allen Institute in 1951.

Growing up in Alabama, baseball legend Henry “Hank” Aaron (1934-2021) polished the skills that eventually propelled him to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Aaron was most known for smashing Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs from a total of 755, a record he held from 1974 to 2007, and his other records. Aaron was also known as “Hammerin Hank” and “Bad Henry” for his power-hitting during his playing career.

Aaron played outfield and third base for his high school baseball team as a freshman and sophomore, and he helped his club win the Mobile Negro High School Championship in both years. He was also an excellent football player. In fact, he got several football scholarship offers. Instead, he declined those offers in order to focus on baseball. Aaron was a right-handed batter with power. Hank got his first audition with a major league organization when he was just fifteen years old. It was with the Brooklyn
Dodgers, but he was not selected for the team.

In 1951 Hank Aaron abandoned school to play in the Negro Leagues for the Indianapolis Clowns. After leading his team to victory in the league’s 1952 World Series, Hank Aaron was enrolled in the Milwaukee Braves. The Braves assigned their new youngster to the Eau Claire Bears, one of their farm clubs, where Hank Aaron was crowned Northern League Rookie of the Year.

He is regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time, having spent 21 seasons in the National League (NL) with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves and two periods with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL). Aaron possessed the majority of the game’s main career power-hitting records when he retired. He shattered Babe Ruth’s long-standing MLB record for home runs and remained the lifetime leader for 33 years. From 1955 to 1973, he hit 24 or more home runs every year and was one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a period of fifteen times.

After retiring as a player, Aaron became one of the league’s first black executives in the front office of MLB, working for the Atlanta Braves. He was also a member of the NAACP Foundation’s president’s circle, the philanthropic arm of the influential US civil rights organization. He was also the vice president of business development for the airport network. Hank Aaron died on Friday, January 22, 2021, at the age of 86 and was recognized as both a superb player in the sport known as “America’s pastime” and a civil rights hero in the United States.