“715 at 50: The Night Henry Aaron
Changed Baseball and the World Forever”
The author:
Randy Louis Cox
The publishing info:
Summer Game Books
162 pages; $24.99
Released March 4, 2024
The links:
The publishers website; the National Baseball Hall of Fame store; at Bookshop.org; at Powells.com;
at {pages a bookstore}; at BarnesAndNoble.com; at Amazon.com
“Home Run King: The Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron”
The author:
Dan Schlossberg
The publishing info:
Sports Publishing
288 pages; $32
To be released May 14, 2024
The links:
The publishers website; at the authors website; at Bookshop.org; at Powells.com; at {pages a bookstore}; at BarnesAndNoble.com; at Amazon.com
“Baseball’s Ultimate Power:
Ranking The All-Time Greatest Distance
Home Run Hitters”
The author: Bill Jenkinson
The publishing info: Lyons Press; 352 pages; $24.99; released April 2, 2024
The links: The publishers website; at Bookshop.org; at Powells.com; at {pages a bookstore}; at BarnesAndNoble.com; at Amazon.com
The prelude
Before going forward, play this in the background and enjoy the tribute:
Now, we look back at history.
The reviews in 90 feet or less
So where were you when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home-run record on April 8, 1974?
I was sitting in the third-base dugout of my Hawthorne American Pony League Dodgers’ team (and we wore green and white for some reason). It’s about 6 o’clock and the sun is in our eyes as usual. Lots of squinting to see what was going on in front of us. Amidst the glare, everyone on my team — and around the park — knew the Dodgers were in Atlanta playing the Braves. A few of our parents brought their transistor radios with them, listing to Vin Scully’s call. It was also a nationally televised game on NBC, with Curt Gowdy doing it. But we had Vin.
There was a buzz was in the stands as Aaron hit his 715th homer in the fourth inning off the Dodgers’ Al Downing.
I knew I was going to the Dodgers-Braves game at Dodger Stadium a few weeks later. The Dodgers gave away a special poster commemorating the feat. On May 17, 1974, it was “Hank Aaron Poster Day” at Dodger Stadium — a Friday night, the first trip the Atlanta Braves came to L.A. that season. Downing actually started this game and went the first eight innings in a 5-4 loss to the Braves that went into the 11th inning (as Aaron went 0-for-3 against Downing this time.)
The beauty of this poster is that it was a chart so kids could document Aaron’s home runs in 1974 — and we dutifully logged in the information. We participated. We were invested in recording history.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Aaron’s accomplishment, so many things were going on April 8, 2024.
The Baseball Hall of Fame announced it was erecting a new statue in Aaron’s honor. An MLB Network remembrance narrated by Bob Costas. A new set of U.S. postage stamps for those who still use letters. At a ceremony before the Braves’ game, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced a $100,000 endowment of a scholarship at Tuskegee University, a historically Black university in Aaron’s home state of Alabama.
Continue reading “Day 15 of 2024 baseball book reviews: #OTD – Babe moved over, and here came Henry”
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