![]() Professional baseball was also racially segregated in the 1940s, with black and white athletes playing in separate leagues. (Copyright Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images)Īs a freshman and sophomore, Henry attended Mobile’s segregated Central High School, where he excelled at both baseball and football. After the baseball season, the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee, and Hank Aaron moved with them. The Tars were a farm team of the National League’s Boston Braves. 19-year-old Hank Aaron is seen here talking with Tars manager Ben Geraghty. In 1953, Henry (Hank) Aaron, second baseman with the Jacksonville, Florida Tars, was chosen as the Most Valuable Player in the Southern Atlantic (Sally) League. His brother Tommie also enjoyed baseball, and would later join him in the major leagues. The family could not afford sports equipment, so Henry practiced batting by swinging a broom handle at bottle caps he tossed in the air, or by swatting at a bundle of rags he had rolled into a makeshift ball. ![]() Young Henry fell in love with baseball listening to games on a neighbor’s radio. His parents, Herbert and Estella, were hardworking people, but with eight children to raise, life was difficult for the Aaron family. Henry Louis Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama, and grew up on a farm in nearby Toulminville. ![]()
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