By CHARLES ODUM (AP Sports Writer)

ATLANTA (AP) — Hank Aaron refused to be intim­i­dat­ed by racist hate mail or threats dur­ing his pur­suit of Babe Ruth’s home run record.

Aaron’s team­mates, includ­ing Dusty Bak­er, wor­ried on his behalf even as the future Hall of Famer cir­cled the bases fol­low­ing his record-break­ing 715th homer on April 8, 1974. Bak­er, who was on deck, and Tom House, who caught the homer in the Atlanta bullpen behind the left-field wall, will return Mon­day for the 50-year anniver­sary of the homer.

After sprint­ing from the bullpen to deliv­er the ball to Aaron at home plate, House found Aaron’s moth­er giv­ing the slug­ger a big hug.

“You could see both of them with tears in their eyes,” House told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press. “… It was a moth­er and son. Obvi­ous­ly, that was cool. It was also mom pro­tect­ing her boy from at that time every­body thought some­body would actu­al­ly try to shoot him at home plate.

“So there were all kind of things. I gave him the ball. I said, ‘Here it is, Hank.’ He said ‘Thanks, kid.’”

Bak­er referred to Aaron as a father fig­ure or big broth­er who looked out for him as he began his play­ing career with the Braves. Bak­er and oth­er team­mates, includ­ing Ralph Garr, tried to look out for Aaron dur­ing the home run chase.

“We always felt the need to pro­tect him, always felt that need,” Bak­er said last week. “I think we were more afraid for him than he was actu­al­ly afraid because he nev­er showed any fear of the threats or what­ev­er. It seems like it drove him to a high­er con­cen­tra­tion lev­el than ever before was possible.”

Bak­er retired as Houston’s man­ag­er fol­low­ing the 2023 season.

Bob Hope, then the Braves media rela­tions direc­tor, said Aaron would not be deterred by the threats issued late in the 1973 sea­son as he approached Ruth’s record of 714 career homers.

“One time the FBI want­ed to come meet with him on a Sun­day and asked him not to play because they felt they had legit­i­mate death threats on him,” Hope said.

“We went down to the club­house and sat down with him and Hank just said: ‘What kind of state­ment would that be? I am a base­ball play­er. You guys do what you need to do to keep things secure, but I’m play­ing base­ball.’ And I thought that was very reflec­tive of his per­son­al­i­ty all the way through.”

Hope said most fan mail Aaron received was pos­i­tive. “The hate mail was not pleas­ant, but there wasn’t near­ly as much as you’re led to believe,” Hope said. “It was just a very, very small per­cent­age of the fans were caus­ing that problem.”

Hope and Bak­er remained close to Aaron after Aaron’s career and until his death in 2021 at 86.

“One of the hon­ors of your life that you don’t want is when Hank died, at his funer­al, Dusty and I were the only two non­fam­i­ly pall­bear­ers,” Hope said. “When I real­ized that at the funer­al, it was almost overwhelming.”

Wonya Lucas, Aaron’s niece and the daugh­ter of Bill Lucas, who with the Braves in 1976 became Major League Baseball’s first African Amer­i­can gen­er­al man­ag­er, said she can remem­ber “Uncle Hank” remain­ing strong dur­ing the chase. She said that stayed con­stant even when threats led to police cars show­ing up at Aaron’s home and Aaron’s old­est daugh­ter, Gaile, hav­ing to return home from college.

“I cer­tain­ly under­stood the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion and how the mood shift­ed is prob­a­bly a good way to put it,” Wonya Lucas said Fri­day. “But I do also remem­ber his qui­et strength, and despite all those con­di­tions I described I felt safe in the home because I felt he gave us a sense of comfort.”

To mark the 50-year anniver­sary of Aaron’s 715th homer, the Atlanta His­to­ry Cen­ter will open a new exhib­it to the pub­lic cel­e­brat­ing Aaron on Tues­day that will remain open through the 2025 All-Star Game in Atlanta. MLB Com­mis­sion­er Rob Man­fred is expect­ed to attend a pre­view of the exhib­it on Monday.

Aaron’s bat and the ball he hit for the record homer, nor­mal­ly housed at the Base­ball Hall of Fame in Coop­er­stown, New York, will be on dis­play at Tru­ist Park on Monday.

The Hank Aaron Invi­ta­tion­al is designed to encour­age high school play­ers from diverse back­grounds to play at high­er lev­els. Alum­ni of the Hank Aaron Invi­ta­tion­al include Cincin­nati pitch­er Hunter Greene, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in 2015, and Braves out­field­er Michael Har­ris II, who played in 2018.

Major League Base­ball also sup­ports oth­er ini­tia­tives, includ­ing the Andre Daw­son Clas­sic, designed to pro­mote diver­si­ty in the sport.

“For me, just hav­ing some­body that looked like me that could be that suc­cess­ful and do the things he’s done, the road he paved for play­ers like me, that’s pret­ty huge,” Har­ris said Friday.

Despite those efforts, the num­ber of Black play­ers on major league ros­ters has declined. A study done by The Insti­tute for Diver­si­ty and Ethics in Sport at Cen­tral Flori­da revealed African Amer­i­can play­ers rep­re­sent­ed just 6.2% of play­ers on MLB open­ing day ros­ters in 2023, down from 7.2% in 2022. Both fig­ures from the institute’s lat­est reports were the low­est since the study began in 1991.

A recent spike in the num­ber of African Amer­i­can first-round draft picks pro­vides hope that MLB’s efforts, includ­ing the Hank Aaron Invi­ta­tion­al, may make a difference.

___

More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb