Hank Aaron died at the age of 86 last month. There have been many tributes for the baseball legend over the last few weeks, but fans are in for a treat thanks to The Ed Sullivan Show. On Friday night, the YouTube Channel of The Ed Sullivan Show features Aaron in a four-minute clip which originally aired on Oct. 5, 1958. He is with his Milwaukee Braves teammates who won the World Series in 1957. Catcher Joe Garagiola introduces the team and said that Aaron is so relaxed under pressure he “sleeps in between pitches.”
The appearance by the team was one year after they won the World Series, but the audience still enjoyed their time on the show. In the clip, Sullivan says to give “these very fine ballplayers out of Milwaukee” a “tremendous New York round of applause.” Aaron was a big part of the Braves’ success in 1957, hitting 44 home runs and 132 RBIs. Those numbers led to him winning the NL MVP award, and his career would continue to ascend.
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While Aaron made an impact in Milwaukee, he is known for his time in Atlanta. The Braves moved to the Georgia city in 1966, and Aaron made baseball history in 1974. In that season, Aaron would break Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record and finished his career with 755 home runs. That record wouldn’t be broken until 2007 when Barry Bonds hit his 756th career homer with the San Francisco Giants.
In a past interview, Aaron talked about how he was not too happy about the Braves moving to Atlanta. “Honestly, I was scared coming to a high-profile city like Atlanta,” Aaron told WSB-TV in Atlanta. “Knowing that Dr. King was here, Andy Young and some of the other great civil rights leaders that made their home here, and I’m coming from Milwaukee where there was no activity at all … It makes you start thinking about what it is, what can you do, what role you can play. And makes you feel like you kind of shortchanged everybody really, you didn’t do your job.”
While Aaron was the home run king, he was arguably the best hitters in baseball history. The Baseball Hall of Famer is the all-time leader in RBIs (2,297), total bases (6,856) and extra-base hits (1,477). He is also third in hits (3,771) behind Ty Cobb and Pete Rose.
