50th anniversary for 715 by Number 44
The incomparable Vin Scully calls the shot.
I watched Henry Aaron’s history-making moment on TeeWee with my dad; if I remember right, my folks had permitted me to play hooky from school the day he tied the Babe’s longstanding record of 714—a record most baseball people had sworn for years could never be equalled, let alone surpassed—so’s I could watch that one.
When I was growing up in Mt Holly, NC, it was de rigeur to root for A) the Washington Redskins (so naturally my ever-contrarian self was a diehard supporter of Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys), and B) the lovable-loser Atlanta Braves.
My dad took me down to ATL to see the Braves play at the old Fulton County Stadium a cpl-three times when I was a wee tyke; somewhere, I still have an old cone-shaped, cardboard Braves-logo’d popcorn container that, when all the popcorn was et, you could tear off the bottom corner and use it for a megaphone to cheer on Hammerin’ Hank and the perennially hapless Braves whilst doing the Tomahawk Chop.
Yeah, we were all RAYCISS!© like that.
Update! Just for shits and giggles I decided to go see if I could dig up a pitcher on the Innarnuts, and lo and behold!
That’s the very one I have moldering in the attic, no foolin’. As Scully said so many times after a memorable play: Whaddya know about thaaaat!