Ours is a city that frankly hasn't made much history in major-league sports.

Just one world championship in 136 baseball, football, basketball and hockey seasons, by the Braves in 1995.

Curtis Compton / AJC (ENLARGE)

Usher Walter Banks, who's attended all but about 10 home games since the Braves came to Atlanta in 1966, recalls Aaron's 715th homer in great detail.

File (ENLARGE)

Hank Aaron (44) is swarmed by Braves teammates at home plate after his record 715th home run on April 8, 1974 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

MORE BONDS HEADLINES Bonds hits No. 756 to break Aaron's home run record  Downing philosophic about his link to 715th  Fans: HR record is forever Hank's  Aaron's final homer began odyssey for man, ball         More Bonds coverage

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Just two players enshrined in a sport's Hall of Fame who played the majority of their careers here, baseball's Phil Niekro and basketball's Dominique Wilkins.

And now Atlanta's most prominent entry in the sports record book is on the verge of eradication.

On April 8, 1974, in the late Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Braves' Hank Aaron hit the 715th home run of his career to surpass Babe Ruth, giving Aaron — and this fledgling big-

league city — the most hallowed record in sports.

Three more home runs by the San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds, and the record no longer is Aaron's — or Atlanta's.

And look who shows up in San Francisco on Monday to open a four-game series against Bonds and the Giants: the Atlanta Braves.

Aaron, who hit 40 more home runs after No. 715, has said often through the years that records are made to be broken, that he's held this one long enough, that he doesn't need it.

Others in Atlanta, though, aren't ready to let it go.

Change will be hard to accept

"Honestly, I'll be a little sad about it," said Braves chairman and CEO Terry McGuirk, Aaron's friend for 30 years. "I've taken a great deal of pride in the fact that this record is Hank's and he's in Atlanta and he's part of the Braves organization."

Atlanta's affection for Aaron, contrasted with the overwhelming suspicion of steroids use that envelopes Bonds, makes some downright defiant about the imminent transfer of the home run crown.

"Actually, I think people just won't accept it," said Bob Hope, the Braves publicist when Aaron broke Ruth's record and now president of Atlanta public relations firm Hope-Beckham. "It's one thing to have a record. It's another thing to have people respect the record.

"If we in Atlanta want to continue to look at Hank as the home run king, by golly, we can do that. And I think we will."

Walter Banks surely will.

Now 68, Banks was in attendance when the Braves played the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 8, 1974, as he has been at all but about 10 home games since the team moved here in 1966. He was working as an usher at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium back then, as he now does at Turner Field in the owner's box.

The moment that Aaron surpassed Ruth was so powerful to Banks that, 33 years later, from the 3,000-plus Braves games he has worked, he spontaneously recreated the scene upon a reporter's inquiry along the Turner Field concourse.

"It was 9:07 p.m.," Banks said. "Darrell Evans was on first base. Dusty Baker was on deck. The crowd was 53,775."

You can look it up. Correct on all counts.

A student of baseball and numbers, Banks has figured out a way that in his mind Aaron's record is not on the verge of falling.

This is how he chooses to see it: "Mickey Mantle has the home-run record for switch-hitters. Hank Aaron has the home-run record for right-handed hitters. Barry Bonds has the home-run record for left-handed hitters."

And so, after Bonds hits No. 756, "Hank Aaron will still be my champion," Banks said firmly. "For me, his record won't be broken."

So there.

755 stays Turner Field's number

The Braves plan no diminution of the number 755 when Bonds posts a larger one. Turner Field's address will remain 755 Hank Aaron Drive. The stadium club will remain the 755 Club.

And this surely won't change either: Before every Braves game, fans of all ages congregate around Aaron's statue outside Turner Field, across a street and a parking lot from the landing spot of the Ruth-eclipsing No. 715, clicking photographs.

Larry Winter, founder and president of the Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame, says Aaron's 715th remains the most momentous event in the city's sports history.

He says hosting the 1996 Olympics "might be in the same breath," says the Braves' 1995 World Series win ranks high, says Sid Bream's slide into home plate to win the 1992 National League Championship Series merits a mention.

But it's no contest, really.

"We've actually talked about this within the Hall of Fame — talked about giving out an award that signifies the heritage of Atlanta sports," Winter said. "Hank Aaron is always on the top of the list."

Aaron played only nine of his 23 big-league seasons in Atlanta, playing the first 12 for the Milwaukee Braves and the final two for the Milwaukee Brewers. He hit his final home run, No. 755, on July 20, 1976, in Milwaukee, where Bonds is playing this weekend. Aaron retired as a player after the '76 season — and returned to Atlanta for good.

"I think over time it has been neat how Atlanta has gotten to know Hank better and better," McGuirk said. "It has been wonderful how Hank has developed his life after baseball and how he has come to be known as equally as fine a gentleman as an athlete. He has handled [life as home-run king] so easily and beautifully, at least on the outside."

When Bonds out-homers Aaron, the moment will be made more difficult, more awkward, for some by the steroids cloud over Bonds.

"I know exactly what every fan knows about it, which is only what we've read in the paper," McGuirk said. "But if what has been reported is correct — Hank will always have that record, will always have a special place in my mind when it comes to the home run record because of the way he did it."

Said longtime Braves season-ticket holder John Shafer: "I've got a lot of respect for Hank Aaron and what he's done for the community and everything about him as a person, and I don't respect the qualities of Barry Bonds. That's why I'm not going to be happy when that record falls."

Walter Banks is at peace about all of this, because in his mind, remember, Aaron's record won't fall. And nothing Bonds can do will diminish in the least what happened on April 8, 1974.

"I think that night not only put the Braves on the map," Banks said, "but it put Atlanta on the map."