Hank Aaron Aaron led the league in runs (115), hits (208), doubles (36), RBI (125), total bases (338), and batting average (.362). He won the league's Most Valuable Player Award. and had such a dominant year that one sportswriter was prompted to say, "Henry Aaron led the league in everything except hotel accommodations." Aaron's time with the Braves did not come without problems. He was one of the first African Americans to play in the league. The 1950s were a period of racial segregation in parts of the United States, especially the southeastern portion of the country. When Aaron traveled around Jacksonville,
George Scott (first baseman) and leading his football and basketball teams to state championships. He chose baseball as a career "to make my living. I got tired of watching my mom struggle [with three jobs]. I didn't have the mind that I could go to college and see my mother struggle for another four or five years." Major league scout Ed Scott (no relation to George) of Mobile, Alabama, who had signed Hank Aaron to his first major league contract, discovered George Scott and signed him as an amateur free agent straight out of high school on May 28, 1962, for $8,000. Eventually promoted