From Publishers Weekly
In April 1974, Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, breaking Babe Ruth's longstanding record for homers, which Aaron had days earlier tied on his first swing of the '74 baseball season. Stanton, whose
The Final Season won the Casey Award for best baseball book of 2001, gives a solid account of Aaron's career and the tumultuous year preceding his historic run. This is a fitting celebration in advance of the upcoming 30th anniversary of the event, as well as a solid tribute to the man who "played in more games, got more at-bats, knocked in more runs, collected more total bases, recorded more extra-base hits, and hit more home runsâ€"755â€"than any other ballplayer." The most fascinating and horrifying part of Stanton's accountâ€"sadly for baseball historyâ€"is the extent to which Aaron's historic run was marred by constant hate mail and death threats from so-called fans angry that a black man would soon be breaking a white man's record. Stanton effectively uses ballpark attendance records to show that, while Aaron was selling out stadiums across the country, his own Atlanta Braves ballpark was "two-thirds empty" on the day that he hit home run 700, and that 10,000 seats were unsold before the day he broke the record, while 35 million to 40 million people watched or listened to the game worldwide. Stanton shows how Aaron came to understand that "the home run record carried significance beyond baseball," and how he effectively used the media attention to consciously continue the legacy of Jackie Robinson and strongly argue for the increased role of African-Americans in major league baseball management.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Stanton covers the time from the funeral of Jackie Robinson in 1972 to the spring of 1974, when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run and passed Babe Ruth's record. His prose is awash in that sentimental, old-fashioned baseball reporting style as he connects Aaron to Ruth; to Robinson, who was one of Aaron's heroes; to Willie Mays, nearly Aaron's contemporary and the other great black player during his era; and to other black players of the time, including Dusty Baker. Stanton is at pains to describe the viciousness of the hate mail Aaron was subjected to as he challenged Ruth, the threats to his family, and the lack of support the Atlanta Braves got at home. But he also writes about the groundswell of support that grew for Aaron and the fan ecstasy that accompanied him at the end and beyond. It's a sobering tale, but a hero's story.
GraceAnne DeCandidoCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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