DAVE ANDERSON
The New York Times
May 4, 2006
AS Barry Bonds closes in on Babe Ruth, the story line is somewhat the same, yet so different from Hank Aaron's pursuing, catching and passing the Bambino.
Controversy and the commissioner surround Bonds, who has 712 homers after going 0 for 4 in the Giants' game last night in Milwaukee, just as controversy and the commissioner surrounded Aaron in 1974, when he hit his record-breaking 715th home run on the way to his record total of 755.
Steroid allegations and possible perjury and tax-evasion indictments hound Bonds; death threats and racial hate mail haunted Aaron.
Commissioner Bud Selig declared that Major League Baseball would not officially celebrate Bonds's 715th home run. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ordered the Braves to play Aaron in Cincinnati rather than save him for the Atlanta home opener. Then Kuhn did not attend the Atlanta opener when Aaron surpassed the Babe.
And the personalities are so different: Bonds arrogant and defiant, Aaron humble and gracious.
Bonds's chase narrowed when he hit his 712th homer Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco before 34,641 cheering customers and dozens of reporters and television cameras that recorded the moment before the Giants departed for a two-game series in Milwaukee, where Selig lives and has an office and where throngs of reporters and cameras waited.
Aaron, who hit his 712th on a Saturday night in Houston, returned to Atlanta for the final week of the 1973 season, when some 15 out-of-town reporters and a few cameras had gathered for the countdown, but Atlanta itself didn't seem to care.
In the hours before two midweek games attracted crowds of 10,211 and 5,711, Aaron sat at his locker and talked casually and easily with the reporters until it was time for batting practice. With a smile, he picked up his bat and said, "Let me go hit."
Attendance improved. Aaron hit his 713th homer off the Astros left-hander Jerry Reuss before 17,836 on a Saturday night. During the season finale Sunday afternoon, 40,517 held their breath whenever Aaron swung. Three singles lifted his average to .301 with 40 homers and 96 runs batted in, quite a season for a 39-year-old outfielder.
But in the off-season, he would wonder about the dozens, if not hundreds, of death threats among the thousands of letters and packages he received and eventually saved. Most were encouraging, like the youngster's letter that read, "I hope you beat that other guy in homers." Many other letters warned that he would be shot.
"I can't go into hibernation now," Aaron said. "I can't hide. I've said that all I have to do to break Babe Ruth's record is to stay alive, but I got to live my life."
Aaron later became a prosperous auto dealer in Atlanta, but with an estimated $200,000 salary in 1973, he drove a Chevrolet Caprice that "gets me around."
As the 1974 season approached, the Braves announced that they would not play Aaron in the opening three-game series in Cincinnati, thereby ensuring that he would not tie or break the record until the Braves' home opener. Stirred by criticism in the news media, Kuhn objected; he expected Aaron to play at least two of the three games in Cincinnati.
On his first swing against the Reds right-hander Jack Billingham in the season opener, Aaron walloped his 714th homer, tying the Babe's record. But after Aaron was kept out of the lineup for Saturday's game, Kuhn telephoned Braves Manager Eddie Mathews with a direct order to start Aaron in Sunday's game or face "serious penalties." Aaron struck out twice and grounded out.
Kuhn had been expected to be in Atlanta for the Braves' opener, but strangely, he didn't show. His explanation was that he had a previous commitment in Cleveland.
With the Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Al Downing pitching carefully before a hushed 53,775 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Aaron took a called strike before walking. His next time up, he shattered the silence with his first swing, a thunderclap that propelled his 715th homer over the fence in left-center field into the Braves' bullpen, where Tom House caught the ball.
Fireworks and cheers accompanied Aaron in his head-up, elbows-back trot. When two teenagers joined Aaron, Calvin Wardlaw, an Atlanta police detective the team had hired to travel with Aaron, wondered what those kids might be up to and gripped the .38 that he carried, but he didn't flash it. As Aaron crossed home plate, his mother, Estella, who had run from her box seat, hugged him, to protect him as much as love him.
"If they were going to kill my son," she said later, "they were going to have to kill me, too."
When Kuhn's representative, Monte Irvin, the former New York Giants slugger who worked in the commissioner's office, walked out to congratulate Aaron, he was booed. Years later, Aaron mentioned that he had talked to Kuhn about his absence the night of the 715th home run and that, in his mind, there were no hard feelings.
"Grudges," Aaron said, "are something I don't have time for."
But with Barry Bonds, grudges seem about all he has time for.
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