On the eve of the 50th anniversary of Henry “Hank” Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record, Eastside Atlanta’s Gresham Park was hosting an invitational event for Black teenage baseball players to take a trip to Chicago for an exhibition. The event, held by former Atlanta Braves outfielder Marquis Grissom’s Baseball Association and Mentoring Viable Prospects, brings out dozens of young Black baseball players from across metro Atlanta.
It’s at Gresham Park where 50 years of Black history, Atlanta history, and baseball history converge, where Aaron’s ball feels like it’s still sailing to the heavens, and where everyone below is just trying to get by and play the game they love.
When I pull up to Gresham Park, there’s a Black kid who can’t be older than about 10 or 11 running across the parking lot, baseball shorts and cleats on, with a do-rag flapping in the wind behind him. It’s an image you’ve been told to believe is impossible, that little Black Atlanta boys don’t care about baseball anymore, that they’d rather be on their phones or playing basketball or football. And while that may be true for many, it’s not for this kid and his friends who are trying to get a spot in the invitational game in Chicago in May.
I try to follow the kid with my eyes to see where he’s running to. I imagine he’s going to link up with some teammates. Maybe he’s going to talk to his mom on the sidelines. But I lose him, because my eyes are now locked on a batting cage. A Black dad tossing the ball to his son, giving him tips with each swing.
Atlanta is a city uniquely equipped to valorize its Black heroes. It takes a singular combination of Black political power and luck to pull this off, of course. But everywhere you turn in the city, you see the name, likeness or monument of such Black icons as civil rights activists Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy and John Lewis.
Aaron, a child of the South born in Mobile, Alabama, who became a Negro League phenom and a MLB phenom everywhere from Boston to Milwaukee, arrived in Atlanta with the Braves for the 1966 season. That season started a few months after the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A few months into the season in June, Black nationalist Stokely Carmichael stood in front of a crowd in Greenwood, Mississippi, and made a call for Black Power.
In many ways, Aaron would represent that next phase of Black empowerment, one where Black folks had the opportunity to enter newly desegregated spaces and show that they can dominate. One where white folks could try to discredit their abilities but simply couldn’t because a Black boy from Alabama was hitting 30 home runs a season. And he was toppling the most beloved record in baseball in the face of racism and death threats, all in the city that would become the Black mecca.
The Gresham Park area of Atlanta was 95% Black at the beginning of the 21st century. It was a heartbeat of the city but also a space that was underserved. Still, the park was known for churning out some of the city’s best Black baseball players who’d go on to play at historically Black universities, other colleges and even to the pros. Recently, players such as Oakland A’s right fielder Lawrence Butler, the Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Taj Bradley and the Braves’ center fielder Michael Harris came through Gresham Park.
