SN 140 Moments: No. 9 – Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record with No. 715 originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
In the Atlanta Braves’ 161st game of the 1973 season, Henry Aaron hit his 713th career home run, leaving him one away from matching the record Babe Ruth had established in 1935. For decades, many had believed Ruth’s mark would never be topped. Willie Mays retired at the end of the 1973 season with 660 homers, the closest anyone else had come.
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When Aaron homered on Opening Day in 1974 to match Ruth at 714 in Cincinnati, it looked like the fans in Atlanta might miss out on the historical moment they craved, but a day off and an 0-for-3 set the table for a proper celebration in Aaron’s home stadium.
Aaron batted cleanup for the Braves against the visiting Dodgers on April 8, 1974, and LA starter Al Downing walked him in his first trip to the plate, drawing boos from the sellout crowd. He returned in the bottom of the fourth and took a ball in the dirt before turning on the next pitch and driving it out to left-center for No. 715.
“What a marvelous moment for baseball,” Vin Scully exclaimed on the broadcast. “What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.”
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