Fifty years ago, on one of the final days of spring training, Henry Aaron was struck in the head by a baseball at West Palm Beach Municipal Stadium.
At the time, the Atlanta Braves slugger was the biggest story in sports — perhaps the biggest story, period, except for Watergate — and the focus of West Palm Beach’s most electrifying spring since the Braves started training there in 1963.
Aaron ended the 1973 season with 713 career home runs, one shy of Babe Ruth’s once-hallowed record. A new record would have to wait until 1974.