“Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron’s 715th
Today my RTS office is in an attic. 46 years ago my bedroom was.
On the evening of April 8, 1974, I sat at my desk doing homework. The radio was on, the volume low, and the Braves-Dodgers game in the background.
In the second and the fourth inning, I turned up the volume when one of my boyhood heroes, “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron, came to the plate.
And it was in the fourth inning that he smashed his record setting 715th homer off Dodger Al Downing. Braves’ announcer Milo Hamilton called the historic shot.
Of the hundreds of Braves games I listened to as a boy, that was by far the most memorable. I recorded the home run on my old reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Vin Scully’s call of Aaron’s homer is more famous, but it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to tune in anywhere but WSM Nashville, and catch the game with Milo Hamilton, voice of the Atlanta Braves.
