See the young man in this picture?


 He was 18 years old when it was taken at the train station in Mobile, Alabama, in 1952. He had $1.50 in his pocket and a bag with two changes of clothes by his foot. (And if his mama was anything like most Southern mamas, she probably packed him some sandwiches and snacks too.) He was on his way to Indiana for a new job.


He was going to play baseball for the Indy Clowns, a team in the Negro Leagues. He was really good at it. A couple of years later, he got signed by the Milwaukee Brewers (back then, they were a minor league team). He played for the Brewers for two seasons, then moved to the Braves, and followed them when they moved to Atlanta. He eventually became the last Negro League player to play in the major leagues.


He’s still connected to baseball today. Right now, he’s the senior vice president of the Atlanta Braves. Even though the team has moved to new stadiums (twice), his retired number, 44, still hangs on the wall of the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, right where he hit a home run to break Babe Ruth’s all-time record (which he held for 33 years).

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