It was an event that captured the nation’s attention – the all-time home run record in line to be broken. Long held by the original Home Run King Babe Ruth, who retired in 1935 with 714 home runs, the all-time home run mark was thought to be one of those records that would not be broken. Along came Hall of Famer Henry “Hank” Aaron, whose legendary career began in Milwaukee with the Braves in 1954. Aaron didn’t have the prodigious single-season tallies ala Ruth, but steadily kept pumping out home runs year after year. Aaron would never hit 50 or more home runs in a season but had seven seasons of 40+ round trippers and entered the 1974 season with 713 home runs, just one shy of Ruth’s 714.

It didn’t take long for Aaron to tie Ruth, homering on the first at-bat of the 1974 season when he took Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jack Billingham deep to left center field for a 3-run Jack and suddenly, there was a tie for the all-time home run record. Goldin Auctions is proud to offer the very helmet worn by Aaron when he tied Ruth for the all-time home run record on April 4th of 1974 at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. This helmet has been conclusively photo matched to that home run by Sports Investors Authentication and Elite Sports Photo Matching. While we can’t say this with 100% certainly, it’s highly and extremely likely that this is also the helmet worn by Aaron when he broke Ruth’s record four days later at home in Atlanta against Al Downing and the Los Angeles Dodgers. While both companies have not conclusively photo matched this helmet to the record-breaking home run, Sports Investors has matched this helmet to other games of the 1974 season and given that players of that era were more often than not issued one helmet per season (sometimes multiple seasons), it’s more than reasonable to opine that this helmet was worn by Aaron for the record-breaking blast.

Images presented by Sports Investors show images of the inside of the helmet from when Aaron took off his helmet after he crossed home plate following his historic home run. Those images show very similar markings, including that of a missing piece of padding on the top of the helmet and similar placement of the manufacturer’s sticker and size label. The helmet was manufactured by American Baseball Cap Company of Media, PA, whose aforementioned size 7 5/8 sticker is affixed on the inside crown. There are no ear flaps and the helmet design meets team specifications from 1974. The outside of this helmet is mostly blue with a white front and brim and the Braves’ lower-cased “a” painted on in red with white and blue borders. The back of the helmet has Aaron’s number “44” in separate “4” decals that are white with black and white borders. As would be expected with a helmet used for an entire season plus, this displays heavy wear with scratches, gashes and indents throughout. Also showing are several paint repairs in the white area with touchups likely done in the offseason prior to 1974.

What can easily be an eye-pleasing artifact in Cooperstown is now available for sale. A picture is worth a thousand words and there are multiple pictures showing Aaron wearing this helmet during the 1974 season, including when he tied Ruth. This helmet comes with a LOA from Sports Investors Authentication (210614M2), who have conclusively photo matched this helmet not only to when Aaron tied Ruth, but other images in 1974 – making it likely he also wore this helmet in breaking Ruth’s record. Additionally, there are three photo match comparison sheets from Elite Sports Photo Matching (0022, 0023 & 0024) showing Aaron wearing or holding this helmet on April 4th, 1974 when he tied Ruth.

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