The great hitter was victimized by hate letters and phone calls as he chased and broke Babe Ruth's career record of 714 home runs.

"They called me nigger and every word you can come up with," Aaron told The Plain Dealer in 1973, when he had 684 career homers. "There are some sick people in this world."

The abuse backfired on the racists. Aaron later said it drove him to exceed Ruth's mark.

Sometimes the taunts went beyond mere vilification. "I got quite a few letters threatening my life and the lives of my family," Aaron recalled in a 1983 interview with the Los Angeles Times. "None bothered me as much as finding out what a lot of people think of a black person in this country."

He traveled with a bodyguard for more than two years. In team hotels, he would register in one room and be given another for safety reasons. The FBI and police opened his letters.

"It was a sad time in my career," said Aaron. "They just didn't want to see a black man surpass a white man."

Al Downing, a Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher who threw the ball that Aaron hit for his 715th homer in 1974, feels that the record has been slighted because of the slugger's skin color.

"Babe's record was considered the most unattainable in baseball," said Downing, 56, from his home in Santa Monica, Calif. "Somewhere along the line somebody decided it wasn't that important. Now I hear them talk about it like it's only in the top 10. Hank has not been given the credit and respect he deserves for breaking it."

Don Newcombe, 71, a splendid pitcher with the old Brooklyn Dodgers, contends that racial attitudes stalled Aaron's drive toward the Ruth record. "If Hank had a white face he would have been allowed to hit more homers," said Newcombe from Los Angeles. "He had a lot of walks his last few years. There weren't many black pitchers then and I'm sure there were racist managers who told their pitchers not to give him anything to hit."

In 1972, when he was getting close to 700 homers, Aaron was walked a career-high 92 times. In a 1973 game, Dodger pitchers walked him five times.

Ruth, however, had the same problem. The Babe ranks first in career walks, 2,056. Aaron is 19th with 1,402.

Downing disagrees that the walks to Aaron had anything to do with racism. "With Henry, you always pitched very carefully," he said.

It should be noted that Roger Maris, a white man, also was the target of abuse when he broke Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a season, hitting 61 in 1961.

Many fans and sports writers could not accept that Maris could exceed Ruth. They charged that Maris flourished because the schedule had been expanded to 162 games from the original 154, and because the two new expansion teams gave Maris 20 pitchers to bat against who would have been in the minors the previous year.

Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick tainted Maris' spectacular achievement, ruling that Ruth would continue to have the 154-game record and that Maris would have the 162-game mark, denoted by an asterisk.

In Aaron's case, critics diminish his achievement by pointing out he batted 3,965 more times than Ruth did, getting more opportunities to hit homers.

"You never hear them say that Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's hit record with 3,000 {actually 2,624} more at-bats," argued Downing.

Aaron tied Ruth's record on April 4, 1974, hitting a three-run homer off Cincinnati's Jack Billingham on his first at-bat of the season. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and Vice President Gerald Ford congratulated him on the field and the game was held up for six minutes.

"I'm not embarrassed at all," said Billingham. "He deserved it. He's the greatest I've ever seen."

Aaron broke the mark four days later, at home in Atlanta, hitting a 1-0 Downing fastball 400 feet to left field. The sellout crowd rose as one and teammates poured out on the field from the dugout and bullpen to congratulate him.

"People say, `I know you threw that pitch deliberately,' said the left-handed Downing. "But that's not true. I was there to shut them down. I was confronted with a great hitter and I challenged him. I wasn't going to let up."

The previous year, Kuhn had warned pitchers he would not tolerate easing up on Aaron after some hurlers hinted they might give him fat pitches.

Downing walked straight to his dugout as pandemonium ensued following the homer. The pitcher had been a teammate of Maris when he broke Ruth's single-season record, but he said far more excitement greeted Aaron's blast.

"The game literally stopped," Downing said. "A ceremony had been scripted. They had a half-hour show with {entertainer} Sammy Davis Jr. on the field. When Maris hit his homer we had to push him on the field for a curtain call, and that was it."

President Nixon phoned congratulations to Aaron during the game.

"I just thank God it's over," Aaron said.

Ruth's widow, Claire, sent Aaron a congratulatory wire. "I know the Babe was pulling for Hank," she said.

New York City bestowed its highest honor, a gold medal, on Aaron and claimed him as an honorary New Yorker. Mayor Abraham Beame called him one of the world's few authentic heroes.

Downing recalled that all the baseballs thrown to Aaron in that game had infrared ink, so that the ball could be identified if it was hit into the stands.

Aaron received carloads of letters after the homer, 60 percent of them negative. He played through 1976, finishing with 755 home runs. He also is baseball's record holder in runs batted in with 2,297.

Despite Aaron's records, he is usually rated just behind Willie Mays as the greatest player of his era. "Willie was more exciting," said Newcombe. "Hank was laid-back, but he could do everything Willie could. As a pitcher, I had more respect for Hank. Willie was a first-ball hitter. You didn't know what Hank would swing at. Mays hit everything between right-center field and left-center, but Hank used the whole field. He could put it down the foul lines."

Rival pitcher Curt Simmons paid Aaron his most memorable compliment. "Throwing a fastball past Aaron is like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster," Simmons said in 1973. The right-handed Aaron had great wrist action. His forearms were as large as some men's biceps.

He also had the perfect temperament. It was hard to fluster him. When the Braves played New York in the 1957 World Series, Yankee catcher Yogi Berra told the youthful Aaron: "You're holding the bat wrong. You're not holding the trademark up."

Aaron replied: "I came here to hit, not to read."

Downing said he still gets occasional letters from fans, asking him for autographs because he gave up the homer that beat Ruth. Every time the homer is shown on TV he receives calls from friends.

Downing doesn't mind being part of baseball history. "I think that record will stand forever," he said of Aaron's 755 homers.