By: Kipp Branch

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

I sat at my favorite watering hole and was glued to the television, watching all of the opening day festivities associated with the Braves new home SunTrust Park. What a magnificent facility it is and the Braves opened the new park with a four game sweep of the San Diego.

As I was watching the ceremonies leading up to the game the event that touched me the most was when the Braves honored their retired numbers. 83 year-old Henry Aaron was introduced and I choked back tears because of what that man has meant to the city of Atlanta, the State of Georgia, and influence the man has had over generations of youth all across this great country of ours.

Try these career stats on for size: Batting Average: .305, Home Runs: 755 (non-steroid induced), Hits: 3,771, RBI’s: 2,297

These are just phenomenal numbers during a career where Mr. Aaron did not have much support on the Braves roster.

Henry Aaron grew up in an ugly time in our culture where he was hated for no other reason than just by the color of his skin. He told a story to CNN one time when he was seven years old growing up in Mobile, Alabama throwing the baseball outside in his neighborhood and his mother rushing up telling him to run in the house and hide under the bed because the KKK was marching close by. Aaron had to overcome a racist culture in the South to play the game he loved baseball.

Aaron received almost a million letters of hate mail as he approached Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs in the early 1970’s. He handled it all with the class that we have come to expect from the best player in Braves history.

I remember as an 8 year old kid in 1973, our Glynn County recreation department team, the Sterling Yankees won the Farm League championship and our reward was our parents and community members in Sterling raised enough money through fundraisers to send our team to Atlanta to go to Six Flags and to watch the Atlanta Braves play.

We left in vans to go to Atlanta and all we could talk about was would we get to see Hank Aaron hit a home run against the Montreal Expos.

So, on Saturday, July 14^th, 1973 I went to my first professional sporting event and it was the Atlanta Braves playing the Montreal Expos in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

We got to see Hank Aaron, in real life, our baseball hero growing up. Hank went 1-3 that night with a double off the left center field fence and the Braves won 4-1 and I’ll never forget that day as long as I live.

Our team was a team with black and white kids and we all had one thing in common we loved Hank Aaron. What a player he was.

I watched his 715^th home run in my living room on a Monday night on April 8^th, 1974; jumped up and down as it flew over the fence and could not wait to get to school the next day to talk about as a 9 year old boy in South Georgia.

As I watched Hank walk with the cane to his spot to throw out the first pitch last Friday all of those memories came rushing back and I realized how blessed I was as a child to watch this legend break racial barriers and home run records.

Henry Aaron is Atlanta Braves baseball to me and a man I have always looked up to. Thanks for all the memories Hank. God will have a special place in Heaven for you one day. You are the most humble professional athlete I have ever been blessed to see.