Matt Tavares hits one out of the park with this powerful tale of a kid from the segregated south who would become baseball’s home-run king. Before he was Hammerin’ Hank， Henry Aaron was a young boy grow ing up in Mobile， Alabama， with what seemed like a foolhardy dream： to be a big-league baseball player. He didn’t have a bat. He didn’t have a ball. And there wasn’t a single black ball player in the major leagues. B ut none of this could stop Henry Aaron. In a captivating biography of Henr y Aaron’s young life – from his sandlot days through his time in the Negro Leagues to the day he played his first spring training game for the Braves – Matt Tavares offers an inspiring homage to one of baseball’s all-time greats.