ATLANTA — 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 is one of those icons.
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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.
In 2021, the Braves renovated the park, fixing up three diamonds. When I got to the park, I saw something I didn’t expect: two of the parks were hosting games played by white teams, with white audiences watching along. This, too, is Atlanta, where gentrification has run rampant and places that find themselves looking new are suddenly home to white folks. The Gresham Park area is now just 72% Black, by the way.
Across from those games was a non-renovated diamond, one that looked like the old Gresham Park. This is where kids from the area are just beginning to learn the sport. They’re 8 and under, wearing T-shirts and sweats, catching their first ground balls and tossing them somewhere near first base. They do this as the sound of aluminum bats clanging against baseballs ring off in the polished fields where the white kids are playing.
“I don’t know why our kids aren’t on those fields,” Jared Fowler said. He one of the coaches for the Gresham kids and his son is also out there figuring out how to field a ground ball. He is coaching because his dad got him into baseball at a young age and he wants to pass it down. “But this is what’s been going on in this area for a while.”
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Fowler says that the interest is there for baseball from kids early on, but as they get invested in other sports and hobbies, interest wanes. It’s a common tale, but one that’s challenged by what’s happening on the field to the back of the park. It’s another renovated diamond with 44, Aaron’s number, on the fence. It’s on this diamond where Black boys are zipping around, tossing rockets to extended arms at first, where batting practice turns into a series of bombs that careen off the back fence. where maybe one day the next Hammerin’ great will come from.
Looking on is Grissom’s brother, Antonio, who currently coaches Morehouse College’s baseball team and is helping scout the players. Next to him is Greg Goodwin, a former Dodgers scout whose Mentoring Viable Prospects program is also putting on the tryout. About half the kids who come from these programs go on to college to play baseball.
“We make sure we tell them about Aaron,” Goodwin said. “We make sure they know whose shoulders we’re standing on.”
As we talk, another man approaches, making fun of Morehouse along the way. He’s older. Ralph Gullatt. He used to coach Clark Atlanta’s baseball team. He grew up playing at Gresham Park, playing in the 12-year-olds league in 1974.
So you were alive for Aaron breaking the record?
Gullatt smiles.
“Oh, I was at the game.” His eyes never leave the diamond, watching the kids. He’s excited like a kid himself. Like he’s watching Aaron break the record again. “A friend of mine’s mother worked concessions and got us a ticket. I just happened to be there. I remember those white boys running up on him. We didn’t know what was going to happen. An incredible night.”
Gullatt goes back to talking smack. More men are around, talking about the high schools that ruled the area. The best players to come from Gresham. The white kids who are around more than before. They’re talking about baseball. But they’re talking about Atlanta. They’re talking about the Atlanta that owes so much of itself to Aaron. The Atlanta that embraced him, held him and deified him even as so much of the country – and parts of Atlanta itself – wanted him to disappear.
But Aaron and his legacy won’t disappear, as long as there’s a little Black kid in Gresham Park running to a baseball diamond to catch ground balls with his do-rag catching the air beneath it.
