Baseball player who eclipsed the great Babe Ruth and for many years held the record for the highest number of career home runs
For three decades the
baseball player Hank Aaron, who has died aged 86, held the record for hitting more home runs – 755 – than anyone in major league history, and will be remembered in particular for No 715, which broke Babe Ruth’s career record.
America had invested the number 714 with mythic significance, and Aaron discovered that many people resented a less charismatic figure relegating a legend to second place – especially when that man was black. When he ended the 1973 season one short of Ruth’s record, Aaron was receiving as many as 3,000 letters a day, many of them spewing racist hatred, including death threats. “This changed me,” he said. “The letters remind me not to be surprised or hurt. They remind me what people are really like.”