The Last Hero - A Life of Henry Aaron (Abridged, Standard format, CD, Abridged edition)

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 up-heavals 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 pro-fessional black athlete and turn Aaron into an national icon.
Eloquently written, detailed, and penetrating, this is a revelatory portrait of both the great ballplayer and the complicated private man.

"From the Hardcover edition."