This book is the first definitive biography of Henry Aaron -- baseball's great home-run champion and one of its most enduring legends. As the steroid controversy has increasingly tarnished baseball's image, Hank Aaron's achievements have come to seem all the more remarkable: the first player to pass Babe Ruth in home runs, Aaron held that record for thirty-three years while shattering other records (RBIs, total bases, extra-base hits) and setting new ones (hitting at least thirty home runs per season fifteen times). But his achievements run much deeper than his stats. Chronicling the social upheavals of the years during which Aaron played (1954 to 1976), Howard Bryant shows us how the dignity and determination with which he stood against racism on and off the field, and as one of the first blacks in baseball's upper management, helped transform the role and significance of the professional black athlete and turn Aaron into an national icon. - Publisher.