Word: aarons
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...that Aaron is closing in on 715, his fans are growing restless. Two weeks ago, after Aaron hit Nos. 708 and 709 against the San Diego Padres, the California crowd roundly booed Padre Pitcher Mike Caldwell for striking Henry out on his last time at bat. After a rash of racist hate mail early this year, Aaron has been receiving nearly 2,000 letters weekly from such varied admirers as moonstruck teen-agers ("We love you, Hanky-poo") and Alabama Governor George Wallace. NBC stands ready to interrupt its regularly scheduled programs to show Aaron hitting Nos. 712 through...
...road Aaron draws up to 10,000 additional fans to the host team's ballpark. Last weekend in Cincinnati, the leftfield seats were pregame sellouts. At home, attendance remains woefully low because Atlanta is pre-eminently a football town, because the Braves are nowhere near being pennant contenders and because an Aaron home run is a common occurrence in a stadium that the players call "the launching pad." Nonetheless, the Braves and the city fathers are beating the promotional drums. Giant billboards have been erected to give Aaron's latest homer total. A street and school will...
What makes his success this season all the more remarkable is that many teams are defending against him by using an "Aaron shift"−moving the second baseman and the rightfielder to the left side of the diamond to counter his pull-hitting power. Pitchers are giving him nothing but bad stuff or walking him intentionally. "Hell," says Aaron, "I don't even see good pitches in batting practice anymore...
...Aaron played high school football well enough to be offered a college scholarship, but books were not his speed. At 18, with $2, two pairs of pants, and two sandwiches in a brown paper bag, he took his first train ride and joined the Indianapolis Clowns, a barnstorming black team. He played shortstop for $200 a month. Looking Aaron over one month later, Braves Scout Dewey Griggs was startled to find that he was batting cross-handed, a handicap that every schoolboy learns to avoid. The scout advised Aaron to switch to the standard grip, then watched as Henry collected...
...know what it would take to get this guy," Griggs told the Braves' management, "but I'd pay it out of my own pocket." It took, as it happened, just $350, or $50 more a month than the New York Giants were offering Aaron at the time. That paltry sum, recalls Aaron, "was the only thing that kept Willie Mays and me from being teammates." And the Giants from winning untold World Series...