Hank Aaron (part eleven)

And so it was, in the fourth inning when Aaron came up to the plate for his second appearance the earth shook yet again. The first pitch skipped low and just above the plate and Aaron held off it. He kicked the dirt at his cleats, touched the center of the plate with his bat, and gave a few half swings. Then he anchored the bat behind his shoulder and leaned into his stance. The second pitch flew chest high somewhere around 95 miles an hour and appeared to drop slightly just as pitcher Al Downing whispered to himself, “Oh, please don’t swing,” and Aaron torqued his body, and his bat chopped from shoulder to belt, straight and horizontal over home plate, and connected with the ball, and he turned the bat up toward his other shoulder and to the skies in a fluent motion and so rapidly that it resembled the stuff of a superpower, almost not of earth an act next to godliness. The sound was loud and whispered, quick and forever, and powerful and peaceful, like the voice of a man baptizing the New World.

The crowd knew the ball was gone by the time he swung the bat. They roared a stampeded and atomic roar to be counted by the Ages. Imagine the thunder from the throats of over 53,000 awaiting a miracle they now know has just been fulfilled.

Fireworks, crimson and ocean-silver and a lustrous amber as it were precious metals buried deep behind the sky, exploded like Sherman’s cannons and lit the dark night.

While Aaron rounded the bases, each opposing player he passed shook his hand.

Second baseman Davey Lopez gave him a high-five and patted him on the back with his glove while he trotted by so swiftly and quick that shortstop Bill Russell barely could just touch his back with his glove. Not once did he leap for joy or raise a hand in the air or reveal any celebratory triumph at all to suggest his excitement and status as the greatest of all time.

He jogged the base paths like a stallion’s stride after winning the Kentucky Derby, and plastered to the wall behind him were great wooden billboards as big as the scoreboard itself advertising Budweiser and Coca-Cola. Lit across the electric scoreboard in over a hundred fiery blazing bulbs, was the number 715.

Some reports said the ball was worth $60,000 at the time, more than twice what Aaron’s salary was throughout most of his career.

Two fans, one in a navy sweater and blue jeans and the other with shaggy hair wearing a brown felt coat came up behind him as he picked up dirt with his cleats headed toward third, and they were sprinting to keep up with his trot. In the stands, Aaron’s wife closed her eyes and feared the worst. Feared they had guns or knives and feared what they might do to him. His personal security guard kept a pistol in his binoculars case and almost reacted by shooting, based on what they did next.

They reached out with their arms for Aaron’s shoulder blades where would have been planted a set of wings and tried to hug him, and nearly tripped trying to keep up with him, and they had smiles on their faces fit for a child, and they leaped in the air behind him and appeared as a people who had just been led to a Promised Land. As Aaron rounded third, they dispersed and let him have the moment.

The third base coach Connie Ryan swung out one of his hands and Aaron slapped it and with his other hand Ryan patted Aaron on the back as he turned the final bag and headed home.

The twenty or so seconds it took for him to lap the base paths after hitting number 715, when watching the clip, seem to pass as quick and brief as seven seconds, as though all it was, was just seven seconds. But the crowd, there, in Atlanta, Georgia made sure the moment existed beyond earth and beyond time. The heavens heard them. They didn’t quit screaming to sip their beer or to try and breathe. They screamed until God listened.

In an article for the Bitter Southerner, George Lancaster remembers being fourteen at the time and taken to the game by his Presbyterian minister father, with seats in the upper level called the nosebleed section and after the ball dropped over the wall he saw a beautiful mature woman strip down from all her clothes and run up and down thirty or so stairs wildly and freely, totally naked as though the Garden of Eden had just been made again.

When Aaron crossed home plate, his mother was there waiting for him, screaming in ecstatic tears and bear hugging him as though she had just witnessed the resurrection of Christ.

Legendary Dodger announcer was calling the game and he said, “What a marvelous moment for baseball, 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 the record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron. It will be seen all around the world. And you can hear Georgia around the world.”

Aaron was given a microphone to speak to the fans and he thanked them and then thanked God it was finally over with. When he found his wife in the front and they hugged each other, he told her he’s so glad it’s over, so glad that it’s over.

At a party at his house in celebration and honor of his incredible and monumental achievement, he walked down the hallway and into a room all by himself, got down on his knees and began to cry.

In that near five seconds when he hit the homerun, where the ball appeared tied to the constellation and horns of Aries, that ram in the sky sketched by the stars, one can almost feel and bear witness to the tides of eternity.