ATHENS — Vince Dooley went to visit Hank Aaron at then-Atlanta Stadium in the spring of 1974, not long after the Atlanta icon had hit his record 715th home run for the Braves. As fortune would have it, Aaron hit another homer that day.
“Then he left the game,” Dooley recounted Tuesday. “He had gotten to that point in his career, where every time he’d hit one he was setting another record, and he would take the rest of the game off. It was about the fifth or sixth inning, and I went down there to meet him in the locker room.
“I congratulated him on the home run. He smiled and said, ‘I baited him.’ He said he crowded the plate, knowing the guy was going to pitch him inside. And when he did, he stepped back and he whacked it.”
Aaron gave Dooley an autographed bat that day, one from an All-Star game. And Dooley still proudly displays that bat in the den of his Athens home, next to one from another of his other baseball heroes, Stan Musial.
“That’s a pride and joy,” Dooley said of the bat.
Aaron’s life and career was celebrated in a memorial service at Truist Park on Tuesday afternoon. Aaron died in his sleep Friday. He was 86.
Aaron and Dooley were kindred spirits. Both grew up in Mobile, Ala., around the same time – Dooley is two years Aaron’s senior.
At the time of his record-breaking, Aaron was among the more famous sports personalities in America. Dooley, by contrast, was just a modestly successful college football coach, six years removed from his last SEC championship and six years away from leading the Bulldogs to their 1980 national championship.
But Mobile was what connected them, and that’s what kept them close for the better part of five decades. In fact, they spent at least an hour in the locker room reminiscing about old times that spring day in ‘74.
“We were both from the wrong side of the tracks, they were just different tracks because of segregation in those days,” Dooley said. “But we shared that in common and always enjoyed talking about growing up in Mobile.”
Aaron promised to return Dooley’s visit in Athens, and he did that several times over the years. In fact, Aaron returned the favor by attending a Georgia football game later that year in Sanford Stadium.
“Yeah, but it’s one I’d rather forget,” Dooley said. “That was the day Pepper Rodgers came back (in his first season as Georgia Tech’s coach) and we had rain and sleet and ice and got the heck beat out of us (34-14). I felt bad for him to have to come over in all that and watch us lose like that.”
There would be other visits. The late Dan Magill, who would’ve turned 100 on Monday, invited Aaron over to help him promote the coming NCAA tennis tournament by playing in an exhibition match.
Never one to overlook a memorable marketing opportunity, Magill arranged for Aaron to receive the opening serve of the match and ensured that it would be a high-bouncing lob to the right side of baseball’s home run champion.
“And Hank knocked it out of the park,” Dooley said, laughing hard at the recollection. “That ball must’ve gone 300 feet in the air. I mean, it was out of there! The crowd went absolutely crazy.”
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Dooley wasn’t sure how many more times they got together over the years, but it was many. Mostly at balls and banquets. Sometimes they’d find themselves off to the side reminiscing about Mobile. Others, they might just discuss gardening.
But Aaron always made a point to offer Dooley his help should he need it, even in recruiting. Dooley usually resisted.
“I didn’t ever want to ask him to do that because I just didn’t think that’d be a fair thing to ask him to do,” Dooley said. “I would never dare betray our friendship over that. He always handled things in such a classy way and was just a wonderful human being. That’s for sure.”
Aaron is just the latest prominent Braves figure to die recently. His death followed those of beloved pitcher Phil Niekro last month and broadcaster Don Sutton this month.
Dooley knew them and admired them, too. Now approaching a ninth decade on this planet, he has seen most of his heroes pass on.
Unpleasant as that is, though, he said he has learned to process it.
“Well, it’s sad, but there are always young heroes coming along,” Dooley said. “Just look at this Super Bowl game. You’ve got two quarterbacks, one of them (Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady) an old, 40-something hero and the other one (Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes) who’s a young hero in his 20s. So, there will always be heroes.”
But, Dooley added, it may be a while before another one the likes of Hank Aaron comes around.
“His legend will live on for many, many years,” Dooley said.
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