By Kevin Lewter
On April 8, 1974, my family was about to sit down to another delicious dinner made by my mother.
My dad walks in the door carrying a package from Radio Shack. It was a brand new cassette recorder, microphone and a handful of blank cassettes.
He cleared a spot on the table and set the stuff down. My dad then went to the back and brought out a small television from the bedroom. We watched in excitement as he plugged in the TV, adjusted the rabbit ears, and began opening the cassette player.
My dad told us that we were about to witness history and finished setting up the cassette recorder in front of the tinny television speaker.
The first time Hank Aaron came to bat, we stopped eating to see if this was the moment history would be made. By the third inning, we had finished dinner but continued to linger at the dinner table as we were engrossed in the game.
In the fourth inning, Aaron came to bat and smashed his 715th home run over the left field fence.
The Lewter family celebrated with the rest of the baseball world.
Days later we gathered in the den to listen to the tape several times over.
We even recorded our own home run calls and reenacted our excitement on that little tape recorder.
Fast forward to summer of 1987. I saw where a baseball card shop advertised Hank Aaron was coming to a local venue to sign autographs.
I decide to go to see the man that made history from my childhood. I bought my ticket and got in line. As I approached Mr. Aaron to get my autograph, I could barely contain my excitement. I laid my baseball on the table and his huge hand grasped it. He then rotated it to the sweet spot, signed it and rolled it back across the table to me.
I stood there knowing the history of his pursuit of the home run record and could only think of one thing to say… “Thank You, Mr. Aaron.”
