Hammerin' Hank: Revisiting the Home Run Record 35 Years Later

Before him there was the Sultan of Swat none other than Babe Ruth. And if you have Netflix or Blockbuster there is a super documentary / bio available that I happen to have at home right now simply named Babe Ruth that has footage of him skiing, playing golf, dancing things you've never seen before I guarantee it.

He was quite a character and one helluva athlete who could do just about anything on a baseball diamond mostly as the most famous member of the New York Yankees Murderer's row hitting in front of and sometimes behind the legendary Iron Horse AKA Lou Gehrig.

As most know Ruth was baseball's home run king at 714 for nearly a half a century until that other baseball superstar who spent a quarter century playing in the major leagues playing for the Milwaukee Braves who later in his career morphed into the Atlanta Braves.

Thirty five years ago today the man known as Hammering Hank broke Ruth's record at the beginning of the 1974 season on April 8th of 1974 after as one can imagine the most brutal of years he ever had previous in '73 while chasing the record under death threats and the likes the black Aaron received while traveling around the mostly at the time quite dangerously racist country that America still was, even towards great athletes and celebrities like himself.

The saddest part to me of the Aaron legacy was to watch his hard earned and finger to the bone worked for record being broken last season by the now confirmed steroid consuming fraud of sorts Barry Bonds who may have even broken the record anyways had he not cheated as so many other home run swatters did those few years in the late 90's and early new millennium.

Read a piece that I wrote at the time and what I thought about the juicing related to the broken record then and still think about it today,

Players like Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmiero of the Texas Rangers, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees but most of all Bonds and his fellow cheat Mark McGuire who famously broke the half century old Roger Maris 61 homer season record that so famously wore an asterisks due tot he fact that he played in more games than Ruth needed to set the record, in the awesome season Maris and Mickey Mantle battled it out until Mantle was injured towards the 3/4 of the season leaving the record Maris' to claim, which he did to the sad chagrin to many sad New Yorkers not wishing to see the Babe's record for homers in a season, 61..

Here's a video of Aaron hitting 715 and then a great post i read about this today on a sports blog called the bleacher report..

A Tribute to Hammerin' Hank: Revisiting the Home Run Record 35 Years Later | Bleacher Report: "Thirty-five years ago today, on Apr. 8, 1974, Hank Aaron turned on a fastball from Dodgers' pitcher Al Downing and sent it over the outfield fence for his 715th career home run.

The image of an old, tired-looking Aaron jogging around the bases is now part of baseball lore.

With that one swing of the bat, Aaron overtook The Great Bambino for sole possession of the most coveted record in all of professional sports.

And he did all this despite enduring heavy racism, criticism, and even death threats in the months leading up to this day.

Aaron also played in a tougher era than Babe Ruth, competing against players of more races, while having difficulties that Ruth didn't—relief pitchers, night games, a longer season, and so on.

Aaron's home run record has since been surpassed.

Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run on Aug. 7, 2007, and later finished his career with 762, but rumors of steroids have tarnished Bonds' record.

Many fans feel Aaron is the true home-run king, for doing so without the aid of any illegal performance-enhancing drugs." continued

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