Hank Aaron

He married Billye Williams in 1973 and has one daughter Ceci with her.

He is the elder brother of Tommie Lee Aaron, a baseball player who died at 45 after suffering from leukemia.

Aaron was born into a poor family to Herbert and Estella Aaron as the third of their eight children.

He attended the Central High School, where he played football and baseball and was outstanding in both. Later, he transferred to Josephine Allen Institute, a private school, for a better future in baseball.

In 1951 he quit school and played for the ‘Negro Baseball League's Indianopolis Clowns’.

After leading his team to success in the 1952 Negro League World Series, he joined the Milwaukee Braves, who put him the minor league baseball ‘Eau Claire Bears’.

He made his Major League debut in 1954 and finished the season with a fair .280 hit score. He finished the 1955 season with a .314 average, 27 home runs and 106 RBI

He played exceptionally well in 1956 and in 1957 he won the ‘Most Valuable Player’ title after making 44 homeruns and hitting an impressive .322. The same year he led his team Milwaukee Braves to a surprise victory in the World Series over the New York Yankees.

He reached a whopping 3000 hit in 1970, while playing against Cincinnati Reds and became the first player to reach this far.

In 1973, he fell short of one run, in breaking the record of legendary player Babe Ruth, who had a total of 714 homeruns. However, in April 1974 he broke the record and created his own with a massive 715 homeruns. The same year on October 5, he hit his last homerun to make a total of 733 runs.

Aaron was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on August 1, 1982, after a ballot in which he came second.

On January 8, 2001, U.S. President Bill Clinton awarded him the second highest civilian award ‘Presidential Citizens Medal’.

Molefi Kete Asante, an African-American scholar, historian, and philosopher, entered Aaron’s name on his list of ‘100 Greatest African-Americans’, in 2002.

He received the ‘Presidential Medal of Freedom’ the highest civilian honor, from U.S. President George W. Bush in June 2002.