April 1974---The Blast Heard Around Major League Baseball That Marked A Major Milestone in African American History That Was Better Than The Feats of Jackie Robinson—But I Was Unable To Recall at Age 3

          Well, this Major League Baseball player was probably inspired by the feats of Jackie Robinson, and was born to hit dinger after dinger in the milieu of professional baseball, even on the day of April 10^th  1974, where not even death threats against him can keep him from achieving one of the greatest milestones in this national pastime sport.

          

       As I saw TV pictures of what I do not remember at 3 years old, here is this guy in an Atlanta Braves uniform of white and dark blue with a blue cap, and I see that the field is awash in bright light (so hence it was a nighttime game), facing off against Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Al throws a pitch that he can hit, probably a center-cut fast ball that was about to sink a little bit below the zone, and I see this batter connect perfectly with a loud crack, and I knew that ball was going to be out of there…in several seconds. I then see the Dodger left fielder run towards the left field wall, even though I do not know his name (but not until after digging that this player turned out to be Bill Buckner, who would also play for the Cubs). I also see that some of the employees of the left-field bullpen as well as the players were trying to vie for supremacy to try to catch history—the famous home-run ball. The left-fielder then scales up to the fence to try to catch the ball, outstretching one of his glove hands but I saw that the ball was out of his reach and landed into the bullpen area, and I hear the roar of the crowd. The loudest roar ever in a stadium known at that year as Turner Field.

         As soon as this guy makes his home run trot towards second base, he is mobbed by 
some several strangers and then I hear something like cannons going off in honor of his 
milestone dinger—which was actually aerial pyrotechnic salutes (probably 35-40 shots 
of them in 30 seconds) blowing up above the stadium—which almost reminded me of 
similar explosions inspired by the Oakland A’s president, Charles Finley, for his Alameda
 County Coliseum for his baseball team. (He would have liked those explosions anyway 
because those explosions were used when the A’s got the 1973 World Series title.)  
Then as he gets mobbed again by the Braves players who greeted him with hugs and celebratory jumps and handshakes (the pyro ends at that point), and then, I see the crowd in the stands basking in one of the greatest feats they had ever saw—Babe Ruth’s record 714 career homers was ruptured for good, and this new man, who one radio broadcaster, Milo Hamilton (1927-2015), who recently died, exclaimed

“We have a new home-run king!”. Then I heard Vin Scully take a chance on that home-run call, making it simple, saying “Going, going, going, [and] it’s gone!”

and he stops speaking to let the TV viewers bask in the celebratory melee—the mobbing, the pyro exploding, and the fans cheering for this guy who had the famous nickname—“The Hank”. 

Who was that guy? That guy was no other than Hank Aaron.