Hank Aaron: Behind big numbers, a pair of Dayton street signs

It was a record that looked like it would stand a long time, and did.

Burick was understandably proud of that, but the rest of us in the office understood another ballplayer was fast approaching 714.

“Are you going to move up the street until Hank Aaron is finished playing?” we’d playfully ask Si.

I don’t remember what he answered, but he had to know we were correct. Aaron, who died Friday at age 86, was only in his mid 30s in 1970 and finished that season just shy of 600 homers,

As it happened, Aaron finished the 1973 season with 713 career homers and he and his Atlanta Braves were scheduled to open the 1974 season at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle about that. The Braves wanted Aaron to break the home run record at home, while then baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn wanted Atlanta to field its best lineup, which, of course, included Aaron.

A compromise was brokered with Aaron playing in the opener and told he could sit out the second game. If he hit two homers on Opening Day, so be it.

He hit one to tie the record on Opening Day, and I was sent from the press box to left field to interview fans who saw it coming straight at them but falling instead in the dead spot between the wooden fence and the stadium’s inside structure.

A couple days later, on April 8, 1974, Aaron hit No. 715 in Atlanta against the Dodgers with Burick in attendance to cover the event.

I’m not sure exactly when Burick asked for Aaron’s autograph on a ball he had that was also signed by Ruth, but the ball exists in a bank vault, along with a third signature Burick added of Japan’s Sadaharu Oh, who has the world home run record of 868. (Let’s leave Barry Bonds out of this discussion).

Oh signed the ball for Burick on a trip to Japan he made with the Reds in the late 1970s.

It’s been 50 years since I met Si Burick and helped cover one of Hank Aaron’s iconic games.

Burick died in 1986 and someone else lives at 714 Otterbein.

As for me, my wife and I moved to a condo last summer.

The street address is 755.

It doesn’t matter to me that a handful of Hank’s home runs from the Negro Leagues may someday be added to his present total.

I’m certainly no Si Burick or Hank Aaron, but right now, I share an ironic street number anecdote.

Si lived at 714. I live at 755, Hank’s final home run number. Not many sportswriters have a following like that.