Sports

LISTEN: WSB honors 46th anniversary of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run

With live sports events shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of old games are being re-aired on television and the Internet. And here's one particularly worth watching: the Braves-Dodgers game of April 8, 1974.

That was the historic game, of course, in which Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth's career record.

Starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday on their Facebook and YouTube platforms, the Braves will mark the 46th anniversary of that momentous feat by showing it again.

» MORE: How ticket buyers are affected by sports shutdown in Atlanta

If you watch, you'll see Aaron hit No. 715 in the fourth inning against Dodgers pitcher Al Downing before a crowd of 53,775 at Atlanta Stadium (later renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). You'll see Aaron's parents and all of his teammates meet him near home plate after he circled the bases.

Earlier on Wednesday, Atlanta’s Morning News host Scott Slade and WSB Radio Sports Director Jay Black paid homage to that piece of history. Using audio from the stadium as Aaron hits number 715, the pair paused to remember the remarkable moment.

The rebroadcast is part of a series of “Braves Classics” the team plans to stream throughout April on social media.

Other games coming to the Braves' Facebook and YouTube channels on the same day of the month  as they originally occurred: the April 10, 2012, game at Houston, featuring Chipper Jones returning from arthroscopic knee surgery to hit a home run in his first game of his final season; the April 14, 2017, regular-season opener at SunTrust Park (now Truist Park); the April 17, 2008, game against the Marlins in which Jones homered twice and John Smoltz picked up the last of his 210 wins as a Brave; and the April 26, 2018, game at Cincinnati in which Ronald Acuna hit his first career homer in his second major-league game. All of those are notable games, but the April 8, 1974, game remains in a league of its own.

» ALSO: What's new at Truist Park? New grass, new scoreboard sign

Copy shared from The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Tim Tucker.

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