Cam Perron - Comeback Season: My Unlikely Story of Friendship with the Greatest Living Negro League Baseball Players

Hank Aaron playing for the Indianapolis Clowns, 1952 (from a promotional postcard produced by the Clowns).

Henry Hank Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1934. In February 1952 he turned eighteen years old and joined the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues. He played outstandingly for the Clowns, at one point leading the Negro American League in batting average, runs, hits, doubles, home runs, runs batted in, and total bases, and ranking third in stolen bases. He drew the notice of major-league scouts, and was signed in June 1952 to the Boston Braves minor-league team the Eau Claire Bears. He rose quickly through the minors, and in 1954, he was called up to the major-league roster for the Braves. (The Braves had moved from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953, and would move again, to Atlanta, in 1966). Aaron played with the Braves for twenty seasons, from 1954 to 1974, and had one of the greatest major-league careers in history. He holds the record for being named to the most All-Star rosters (25); ranks first all time in runs batted in (2,297); first in total bases (6,856); second on the all-time home runs list (755); won the World Series (1957); and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility (1982), having received votes on 97.8 percent of the ballots. He is currently senior vice president of the Atlanta Braves, and has worked in the Braves organization for nearly seventy years.

Let me start by saying if it hadnt been for the Indianapolis Clowns offering me a chance to play in the Negro Leagues, I dont know what would have happened to me. I have no idea what I would have done. They gave me the opportunity to keep playing a sport I wanted to play more than anything in the world.

My dad had played a little baseball, but he never went further than playing on a local team. My uncles also played a little on local teams. Up until I joined the Clowns in 1952, at age eighteen, I had only been playing on local teams as well. When the Clowns gave me the opportunity to show what I could do, I told myself: Dont let this chance pass you by!

When I was growing up in Mobile, Alabama, I taught myself how to hit by swinging at bottle caps with a broomstick. When you dont have a lot, you take it upon yourself to learn how to do things, to discover what you are capable of. But I never thought I was developing some kind of special talent by learning how to hit bottle caps. Its just what we had available. My friend Cornelius Giles, who is no longer with us, would pitch the bottle caps to me. Or I would toss them up myself. We would do this all day long.

Ive heard people say that the bottle caps gave me the eye to later hit a baseball so well, but I dont know if thats true. I feel like God was the one who gave me the eye to do some of the things in baseball I wound up doing. In addition to that, I took it upon myself to learn how to play the game the way its supposed to be played. I told myself: No matter what happens, you have to be the best you can possibly be.

The first professional baseball game I saw was when the Clowns came to Mobile when I was fourteen, in 1948. They were playing against little scrap teams that were put together from players in Mobile. I was excited by what I saw on the field, but I also had an important realization that day. I knew I could play on the same level as those guys. I could compete on a professional level.

The atmosphere at that game was so much fun; the Black community was so excited. We had no other forms of entertainmentto us, this was baseball at its height. This was our major league. I saw kids on the field that day who easily could have put on a Major League Baseball uniform and played in the white leaguethough I wasnt thinking about the white league at the time. [Jackie Robinson had debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers only a year earlier.] I just enjoyed watching them play.

I was seventeen years old in November 1951 when I heard from the Clowns that they wanted me to play with them the next year, after I turned eighteen in February. They sent me a contract for $200 a month. I thought I was in a dream. I couldnt believe I would get an opportunity to play in the Negro Leaguesand they would actually pay me. It was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. Two hundred dollars seemed like an awful lot of moneyI felt like I was robbing the bank. I had certainly never seen that much money. When I was growing up in Mobile, a nickel was a lot of money to me. But to be honest, I would have played in the Negro Leagues for free; I just wanted to play baseball.

When I left Mobile and showed up to spring training in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I didnt know whether I would even make the team and get a uniform. It was a lot colder in North Carolina and I didnt even have a jacket or warm clothes. All I was thinking was that I had to show them I could play.