1991: Hank Aaron reflects on baseball's less celebrated history

In 1973 as Hank Aaron closed in on breaking Babe Ruth's home run record, he got 900,000 pieces of mail, much of it full of vicious racial hatred.

His career began with the Negro Baseball League, before Jackie Robinson played Major League Baseball.

In this interview, Aaron tells KUOW's Ross Reynolds about the first time he played with white baseball players, coming up through the Negro league, and the secret of being a great hitter.

Interview Highlights:

On racism: “No matter what you do, you’re not going to be judged by your character but by the color of your skin.”

On the years before baseball players could become free agents: "We were losers. We were baseball players. [Baseball executives] were businessmen. When you went into talk about a contract, they always had the upper hand. No matter if you hit 350 or 250, you were going to get what they wanted you to have."