The Braves’ First Atlanta Season - It’s Personal
When I came across the journal entry below, I had forgotten that 1966 was the first season that the Boston (aka Milwaukee) Braves were now the Atlanta Braves. Mayor Ivan Allen, my hero for his courageous civil rights stands, had used Eminent Domain to raze homes and churches in the Black neighborhood of Summerhill to build Atlanta’s first major league ballpark.
Monday, July 4, 1966
Yesterday our Braves beat St. Francisco (17 – 3) behind the two grand slams of Tony Cloninger. [Rico]Carty, [Joe] Torre, and [Hank] Aaron also hit homers, Aaron’s 25th [of the year].
For you who were not Braves or baseball fans (or maybe weren’t alive in 1966), let me tell you how illustrious these four men were in the world of baseball.
First of all, Tony Cloninger was a pitcher, and pitchers aren’t supposed to be a threat in the batter’s box. John Smoltz may have been the best hitting pitcher that I have followed in more recent Braves history, and he hit five home runs in his 21-year Major League career. Tony Cloninger, in that 1966 season, hit seven home runs, had a batting average of .240, and had 27 RBIs.
Rico Carty played eight of his sixteen MLB seasons with the Braves. In 1970 he won the National League batting crown with a .366 average. That year he played in the All-Star Game, in the outfield alongside Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. His career batting average was .299 with 204 home runs. One of the early major leaguers out of the baseball-rich Dominican Republic, Carty was committed to helping the developing nation. In the 1964–65 off-season, he undertook a trip to his home country, on a mission to deliver clothing and supplies.
On April 12, 1966, Joe Torre hit the first major league home run in the history of the Atlanta stadium. [The new Atlanta Fulton County Stadium which, due to its less dense atmosphere in Atlanta’s high elevation, made it favorable to home run hitters, resulting in the nickname The Launching Pad.] Torre produced a career-high 36 home runs in 1966 with 101 runs batted in, a .315 batting average, and, led National League catchers with a 48.6% caught-stealing percentage. He was voted as the starting catcher for the National League All-Star team for the third successive year.
We know more today of Hank Aaron’s baseball career and his life after baseball since his prominence in Atlanta civic life and the extent that he has been honored in the year of his death 2021. Here is what was said of him in a Sports Illustrated article at the time of the Braves’ 17 – 3 July 1966 defeat of San Francisco:
Babe Ruth's record 714 is remote, but there are those who expect 200 more home runs of Willie Mays, who is 35; it is hardly less realistic to expect 300 more from Aaron, who is 32 [and who at this point has 424 home runs.]
Hank Aaron did surpass Babe Ruth’s record some eight years later, April 8, 1974. I found it interesting to learn that Aaron shares the record for most All-Star Games played (24) with Willie Mays and Stan Musial.
Does it matter that I grew up with three brothers and father that were all immersed in our own athletic pursuits and in sports at the college and professional levels? It could have been the arts or camping or any number of things, but for us sports was the glue that bonded us to our Dad and to each other. After my father’s passing, sports remains something that my brothers and I, in person and by phone, continue to squeeze into almost every conversation. As dessert is to a meal, so to life, for us, is an interest in sports.
