Submitted photo Former New Ulm Mayor Carl “Red” Wyczawski, left, gives Hank Aaron Keys to The City of New Ulm at the 1978 New Ulm American Legion Baseball Banquet.

NEW ULM — Former New Ulm Mayor and Milwaukee Braves front office staffer Carl “Red” Wyczawski fondly recalled his experiences with the late Hall of Fame slugger Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron.

Aaron, 86, aka “Hammer,” “Hammerin’ Hank and the “Home Run King” who hit 755 home runs in the major leagues, died peacefully in his sleep Friday, according to an Atlanta Braves release.

Long-time New Ulm residents may best remember Aaron from 1978 when he spoke at the Post 132 American Legion Baseball Banquet after the team returned from its American Legion World Series appearance in Yakima, Wash.

Wyczawski said Aaron talked at the Legion baseball banquet about the difficulty he encountered when he began playing baseball in the south.

“He talked about how he wasn’t treated like white guys, how he couldn’t eat in the same restaurant with them,” Wyczawski said. “But he was well accepted in the Northern League. He told me he enjoyed playing in Eau Claire, Duluth, Superior, Fargo-Moorhead, Aberdeen and Sioux Falls.”

Wyczawski said the Northern League President told him his job was to introduce African American players, three of whom were on the Eau Claire team, to white people in minor league cities.

“He (Aaron) was a down-to-earth guy. We became good friends when he played for the Eau Claire Bears, (a Boston Braves affiliate) in the Class C Northern League,” Wyczawski said.

Aaron was unanimously named the Northern League Rookie of the Year in 1952, hitting .336 in 87 games for Eau Claire.

Wyczawski, an official scorer for the Eau Claire Bears and sports reporter for the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram after a U.S. Army stint in the Korean War, said he quickly became good friends with Aaron.

“We both lived at the YMCA. He was a quiet guy. We ate and traveled (on buses) together,” Wyczawski said. “At first, he told me he didn’t want to play up here, that he wanted to go back home (to Mobile, Ala.) Aaron said his dad told him to stick with it, that he would send him back up here on the train if he quit and came back home.”

Wyczawski, who turns 95 on Sunday, Jan. 24, said Aaron later grew to enjoy playing in the Northern League.

Several years ago, Wyczawski said he and his sons Paul and Tom traveled to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Atlanta to visit with Aaron again.

Aaron still holds major league records for RBIs (2,297), total bases (6,856), and extra-base hits (1,477). He is among Major League Baseball’s greatest in hits (3,771, third all time), games played (3,298, third) and runs scored (2,174, fourth).

Aaron’s 755 career homers was the major league record until 2007 when Barry Bonds broke it.