Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs, drove in more runs than anyone in history, and passed Babe Ruth with a dignity that outlasted the hate mail. For 23 seasons he was the most relentlessly excellent hitter in baseball — never flashy, rarely hurt, and almost impossible to fool.

Henry Louis Aaron grew up poor in Mobile, Alabama, learned to hit by swatting bottle caps with a broomstick, and came up through the Negro Leagues and the newly integrated minor leagues of the Jim Crow South. He reached the majors at 20 and won an MVP and a World Series at 23. Then he did something rarer than any single great season: he stayed great. Twenty straight seasons with 20 or more homers. Twenty-one straight years as an All-Star. And in April 1974, the swing that made him a national figure.

Here is the full story, from the sandlots of Toulminville to the Braves, the Brewers, and Cooperstown. When you’re done, see how much stuck with the Hank Aaron quiz.

Hank Aaron

Bottle Caps and Broomsticks

Aaron was born February 5, 1934, in a Mobile neighborhood called “Down the Bay,” one of eight children of Herbert and Estella Aaron. The family soon moved to nearby Toulminville, where Herbert worked at the shipyards and everyone pitched in. Henry picked potatoes, tended the garden, and helped on an ice truck. Nobody could afford real equipment, so he hit bottle caps with sticks and broom handles for hours at a time.

That homemade training left him with a quirk: he batted cross-handed, with his hands reversed on the bat, and kept doing it into his first year as a pro. He starred in football and baseball at Central High School, and at 15 he tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers, inspired by Jackie Robinson, whom he had watched in exhibitions in Alabama. The Dodgers passed. Aaron finished school at the private Josephine Allen Institute while playing semipro ball for the Pritchett Athletics and then the Mobile Black Bears, who paid him $3 a game. His mother’s one condition: no road trips.

Hank Aaron

From the Clowns to the Sally League

On November 20, 1951, Aaron signed with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League for $200 a month. The skinny shortstop hit a reported .366, and by the spring of 1952 two big-league clubs had sent offers. The New York Giants wanted him. So did the Boston Braves. Aaron picked Boston, he later said, because the Braves offered $50 more a month. Aaron and Willie Mays in the same outfield came down to fifty dollars. His Clowns season is part of the larger story on our Negro Leagues page.

The Braves sent him to the Class C Eau Claire Bears, where he hit .336 and was named Northern League Rookie of the Year. In 1953 he was one of five Black players who integrated the South Atlantic League, playing second base for Jacksonville in the heart of the segregated South. He led the league in batting (.362), hits, runs, and doubles, won the MVP, and carried Jacksonville to the title. One writer put it best: Aaron “led the league in everything except hotel accommodations.” That summer he met Barbara Lucas at a Jacksonville game; they married in October.

Hank Aaron

A Broken Ankle Opens the Door

After a winter in Puerto Rico learning the outfield and refining his new conventional grip with coach Mickey Owen, Aaron reported to spring training in 1954 as a long shot. Then on March 13, veteran outfielder Bobby Thomson (the man who hit the “Shot Heard ’Round the World”) broke his ankle sliding into second. Aaron took the job and never gave it back.

He debuted April 13, 1954, at Cincinnati. His first hit, a double, and his first home run a week later both came off the Cardinals’ Vic Raschi. A broken ankle of his own ended his rookie season in September, the only serious injury of his career. Around then the Braves’ publicity man, Don Davidson, started calling the quiet kid “Hank” to make him seem more approachable. Family and friends always called him Henry.

Hank Aaron

1957: MVP, Pennant, and a Ring

Aaron won his first batting title in 1956 (.328), then made 1957 his masterpiece. Topps printed his baseball card backward that spring, with the photo flipped so he looked like a lefty, and it didn’t slow him down at all. He led the National League with 44 homers, 132 RBI, and 118 runs and won the NL MVP, the only one of his career.

The signature moment came September 23 at County Stadium: an 11th-inning, two-run walk-off homer off St. Louis’s Billy Muffett that clinched the pennant. His teammates carried him off the field, and Aaron always ranked that night among the greatest of his career. In the World Series against the Yankees he hit .393 with three homers, and Milwaukee won in seven for its only championship. His partner in the middle of that lineup gets his own spotlight in the Eddie Mathews quiz.

Hank Aaron

The Quiet Superstar

The Braves returned to the World Series in 1958. Aaron hit .333, but New York won in seven, and he began a three-year run of Gold Gloves in right field. His 1959 season might have been his best: a .355 average, 223 hits, a .636 slugging percentage, and 400 total bases, all tops in the majors. That year he also won six straight matches, and $13,000, on the TV show Home Run Derby. He later joked that he retooled his swing for power because “they never had a show called ‘Singles Derby.’”

Through the 1960s, the so-called decade of the pitcher, Aaron simply kept producing. On June 8, 1961, he was part of the first four consecutive home runs in major-league history, alongside Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, and Frank Thomas. In 1963 he hit 44 homers and stole 31 bases to join the 30-30 club, leading the league in homers and RBI and missing the Triple Crown only because Tommy Davis out-hit him by seven points.

He did it with his wrists. At six feet and 180 pounds he was slender by slugger standards, but his hands were so quick he could wait an extra split second and still turn on anything. “I never worried about the fastball,” he said. “They couldn’t throw it past me. None of them.” Don Drysdale gave up 17 of his home runs, more than any other pitcher. The league’s hurlers had their own nickname for him: Bad Henry.

Hank Aaron

Atlanta and the Road to 714

When the franchise moved to Atlanta in 1966, Aaron, a son of Alabama who had already helped integrate one Southern league, went with it. He led the NL in homers and RBI in that first Atlanta season, hit his 500th homer in 1968, and passed Mickey Mantle for third on the all-time list in 1969. In the first National League Championship Series that October, he hit .357 with three home runs in three games before the Miracle Mets swept Atlanta.

On May 17, 1970, he singled against Cincinnati for hit No. 3,000, becoming the first player with both 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. In 1971, at 37, he hit No. 600 off Gaylord Perry on the way to a career-high 47. In 1972 he passed Willie Mays for second place. By the end of 1973, at 39, he sat at 713, one shy of Babe Ruth.

Hank Aaron

The Chase

What should have been a celebration turned ugly. Aaron received roughly 930,000 pieces of mail in 1973, more than any American outside politics, and a staggering amount of it was racist. There were death threats, the FBI investigated threats against his family, and he spent a long winter stuck on 713 knowing exactly what waited for him in the spring. He kept the letters.

Plenty of Americans rallied to him once the hatred became public, but Aaron carried the weight mostly in silence. He never lashed out, and he never stopped hitting. “I don’t want them to forget Ruth,” he said. “I just want them to remember me.”

Hank Aaron

April 8, 1974: 715

The Braves opened 1974 in Cincinnati, and Aaron tied Ruth in his first at-bat of the season: No. 714 off Jack Billingham on April 4. Four days later, in front of 53,775 fans at Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, he drove a 1-0 pitch from the Dodgers’ Al Downing into the left-field bullpen in the fourth inning. Braves reliever Tom House caught it. Two fans jogged alongside Aaron around the bases, and his mother, Estella, met him at home plate with a hug.

Braves announcer Milo Hamilton shouted, “There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron!” On the Dodgers broadcast, Vin Scully let the crowd roar and then summed it up: “A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.” Aaron’s own first words were simpler: he just thanked God it was over.

Hank Aaron

Home to Milwaukee: No. 755

Aaron hit his 733rd and final home run as a Brave in October 1974. On November 2, Atlanta traded him to the Milwaukee Brewers for outfielder Dave May and a minor-league pitcher, and Aaron was thrilled: “I’m going back home.” As the Brewers’ designated hitter he passed Ruth’s career RBI record on May 1, 1975, made his 21st straight All-Star team that summer, and on July 20, 1976, hit No. 755 off the Angels’ Dick Drago at County Stadium. He played his last game on October 3, 1976, and went 1-for-3 with an RBI.

Hank Aaron

Front Office, Cooperstown, and Beyond

Aaron went straight back to the Braves as vice president of player development, one of the first Black executives in a major-league front office, and later served as a senior vice president with the club and with Turner Broadcasting. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1982 on 406 of 415 ballots (97.8 percent, at the time second only to Ty Cobb) and was inducted alongside Frank Robinson that August.

Away from the field he built a business career in car dealerships and restaurants, wrote the 1990 autobiography I Had a Hammer, and with his wife Billye founded the Chasing the Dream Foundation to help young people pursue their talents. Mobile named its minor-league ballpark Hank Aaron Stadium, Major League Baseball created the Hank Aaron Award in 1999 for the top hitter in each league, and President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.

When Barry Bonds hit No. 756 in 2007, Aaron congratulated him in a video message on the scoreboard, saying he had been “privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years.” Aaron died in his sleep in Atlanta on January 22, 2021, two weeks shy of his 87th birthday, and is buried at South View Cemetery.

Hank Aaron

Records and Honors

2,297 RBI: the all-time major-league record
6,856 total bases: the all-time record, more than 600 ahead of anyone else
1,477 extra-base hits: the all-time record
25 All-Star selections: the all-time record, across 21 straight seasons (1955–1975)
755 home runs: the career record from 1974 to 2007; still second all-time
3,771 hits: third all-time
1957 NL MVP and 1957 World Series champion
Two batting titles (1956, 1959), four home run titles (1957, 1963, 1966, 1967), and four RBI titles (1957, 1960, 1963, 1966)
Three Gold Gloves (1958–1960)
National Baseball Hall of Fame, class of 1982
No. 44 retired by both the Braves and the Brewers
MLB All-Century Team, Presidential Citizens Medal (2001), and Presidential Medal of Freedom (2002)

Hank Aaron

Hammer Fun Facts

He wore No. 5 as a rookie before switching to No. 44, then hit exactly 44 homers in four different seasons (1957, 1963, 1966, and 1969).
For all that power, he never hit 50 in a season. His career high was 47, at age 37.
Take away all 755 home runs and he still has 3,016 hits.
He and Babe Ruth finished with the exact same number of career runs: 2,174.
He and Eddie Mathews hit 863 home runs as teammates, the most by any pair in history.
He and his brother Tommie hold the record for home runs by siblings: 768 (Hank 755, Tommie 13).
He hit 20 or more home runs in 20 consecutive seasons, from 1955 through 1974.
Muhammad Ali called him “the only man I idolize more than myself.”

Think you know the Hammer now? Prove it with all ten quizzes in the Hank Aaron collection, take the Hank Aaron quiz in the Braves lineup, tour his ballparks in the Braves Stadiums quiz, or browse the full Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers quiz collections.

The postseason

October Accolades

Year	Series	Result	G	H-AB	BA	HR	RBI
1957	World Series	Braves def. Yankees, 4–3 World Series champion; led both teams with 11 hits and 3 home runs	7	11-28	.393	3	7
1958	World Series	Yankees def. Braves, 4–3 Second straight NL pennant	7	9-27	.333	0	2
1969	NLCS	Mets def. Braves, 3–0 Homered in all three games of the first NLCS	3	5-14	.357	3	7
Postseason	3 series		17	25-69	.362	6	16

The clubs

Teams

Atlanta Braves 1954–1974
Milwaukee 1954–65, Atlanta 1966–74 · 733 HR, 1957 MVP and World Series title
Milwaukee Brewers 1975–1976
Came home to Milwaukee as a DH and hit No. 755 at County Stadium

The numbers

Season Stats

Season	Team	League	WAR	Games	PA	AB	Runs	Hits	RBI	2B	3B	HR	SB	BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
1954	Milwaukee Braves	NL	1.5	122	509	468	58	131	69	27	6	13	2	28	.280	.322	.447	.769
1955	Milwaukee Braves	NL	6.2	153	665	602	105	189	106	37	9	27	3	49	.314	.366	.540	.906
1956	Milwaukee Braves	NL	7.2	153	660	609	106	200	92	34	14	26	2	37	.328	.365	.558	.923
1957	Milwaukee Braves	NL	8.0	151	675	615	118	198	132	27	6	44	1	57	.322	.378	.600	.978
1958	Milwaukee Braves	NL	7.3	153	664	601	109	196	95	34	4	30	4	59	.326	.386	.546	.931
1959	Milwaukee Braves	NL	8.7	154	693	629	116	223	123	46	7	39	8	51	.355	.401	.636	1.037
1960	Milwaukee Braves	NL	8.0	153	664	590	102	172	126	20	11	40	16	60	.292	.352	.566	.919
1961	Milwaukee Braves	NL	9.5	155	671	603	115	197	120	39	10	34	21	56	.327	.381	.594	.974
1962	Milwaukee Braves	NL	8.6	156	667	592	127	191	128	28	6	45	15	66	.323	.390	.618	1.008
1963	Milwaukee Braves	NL	9.1	161	714	631	121	201	130	29	4	44	31	78	.319	.391	.586	.977
1964	Milwaukee Braves	NL	6.8	145	634	570	103	187	95	30	2	24	22	62	.328	.393	.514	.907
1965	Milwaukee Braves	NL	7.9	150	639	570	109	181	89	40	1	32	24	60	.318	.379	.560	.938
1966	Atlanta Braves	NL	7.9	158	688	603	117	168	127	23	1	44	21	76	.279	.356	.539	.895
1967	Atlanta Braves	NL	8.5	155	669	600	113	184	109	37	3	39	17	63	.307	.369	.573	.943
1968	Atlanta Braves	NL	6.8	160	676	606	84	174	86	33	4	29	28	64	.287	.354	.498	.852
1969	Atlanta Braves	NL	8.0	147	639	547	100	164	97	30	3	44	9	87	.300	.396	.607	1.003
1970	Atlanta Braves	NL	5.0	150	598	516	103	154	118	26	1	38	9	74	.298	.385	.574	.958
1971	Atlanta Braves	NL	7.2	139	573	495	95	162	118	22	3	47	1	71	.327	.410	.669	1.079
1972	Atlanta Braves	NL	3.9	129	545	449	75	119	77	10	0	34	4	92	.265	.390	.514	.904
1973	Atlanta Braves	NL	4.7	120	465	392	84	118	96	12	1	40	1	68	.301	.402	.643	1.045
1974	Atlanta Braves	NL	2.1	112	382	340	47	91	69	16	0	20	1	39	.268	.341	.491	.832
1975	Milwaukee Brewers	AL	0.1	137	543	465	45	109	60	16	2	12	0	70	.234	.332	.355	.687
1976	Milwaukee Brewers	AL	0.4	85	308	271	22	62	35	8	0	10	0	35	.229	.315	.369	.684
Career	23 seasons	NL/AL	143.4	3,298	13,941	12,364	2,174	3,771	2,297	624	98	755	240	1,402	.305	.374	.555	.928