Celebrate Black History 2021 - Hank Aaron

by Dick Mac

Henry Louis "Hank" Aaron was born February 5, 1934, in Mobile, Alabama, and died in his sleep of natural causes, in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 22, 2021. He was 86.

Hank Aaron played 23 seasons, from 1954 through 1976, with the Milwaukee Braves and Atlanta Braves in the National League (NL) and two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL).

He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982.

Aaron started his professional career in 1951 with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League. He was scouted by the Boston Braves and New York Giants, signed with the Braves, who assigned him to their minor league teams.  By the time he was brought up to the majors, the Braves had moved to Milwaukee.

Jim Crow America prevented Aaron and other black athletes from being treated with the same dignity as their white teammates. In a story published at Wikipedia, Aaron tells this story: 

We had breakfast while we were waiting for the rain to stop, and I can still envision sitting with the Clowns in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium and hearing them break all the plates in the kitchen after we finished eating. What a horrible sound. Even as a kid, the irony of it hit me: here we were in the capital in the land of freedom and equality, and they had to destroy the plates that had touched the forks that had been in the mouths of black men. If dogs had eaten off those plates, they'd have washed them.

In 1970, Aaron collected his 3,000th hit, an important milestone in a baseball player's career.  But he is most famous for chasing and breaking Babe Ruth's home run record. Aaron ended the 1973 season one home run short of Ruth's record of 714.  In the off-season between 1973 and 1974, Aaron received so much mail that the Braves had to hire a secretary to manage it.

Sports Illustrated wrote:

Is this to be the year in which Aaron, at the age of thirty-nine, takes a moon walk above one of the most hallowed individual records in American sport? Or will it be remembered as the season in which Aaron, the most dignified of athletes, was besieged with hate mail and trapped by the cobwebs and goblins that lurk in baseball's attic?

He received death threats and hate mail from people who did not want to see Aaron, a black man, break Ruth's nearly sacrosanct home run record. Baseball apologists always spin this piece of history as though the threats were made to protect Ruth's legacy, but the truth is that these threats were leveled against Aaron because he was black, not because he was breaking a record.

Television broadcaster Vin Scully addressed the racism directly in his call of the game:

What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron ... And for the first time in a long time, that poker face in Aaron shows the tremendous strain and relief of what it must have been like to live with for the past several months.

Although I was a massive baseball fan from 1966 through 2003, I never saw Hank Aaron play. I knew him as the Home Run King who suffered mightily for breaking Babe Ruth's home run record. I knew him as a quiet, dignified man who said little to the press and stood proudly in public. I knew of him as a level-headed, clear-minded executive in the Major League Baseball hierarchy.

Hank Aaron is an American hero who battled the demons and evil of institutionalized racism with dignity and honor.

Watch Aaron break the home run record, and hear Scully's commentary: https://youtu.be/QjqYThEVoSQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Aaron

#blackhistorymonth #BlackLivesMatter #WorkForChange

756

It was 11:52 P.M. when I turned to Channel 35, ESPN2, last night. I had just finished watching a World Series of Poker show that I had DVR'd the night before and decided to record the next installment.

Barry Bonds was at bat versus the Washington Nationals, and I assumed it was a highlight show, but it wasn't. It was live.

First pitch, home run! Number 756. I had just seen Barry Bonds break Hank Aaron's all-time home run record. I still assumed it was a highlight show, but it wasn't. It was live. I had just seen Bonds become the Home Run King.

The cameras followed the arc of the ball into the right field seats, then followed him around the bases, then showed his family in the stands, then showed a tape of the fans scrambling to get their hands on the most valuable ball in baseball, then Bonds was waving to the crowd as his teammates surrounded him, then his family made their way to the field, then a gang of policemen were seen escorting the ball owner out of the stands in a manner resembling a major arrest of an evil mass murderer, then Willie Mays (Bonds' godfather) was on the field with a microphone, then the public address announcer introduced a videotape of Hank Aaron sending his congratulatory best wishes. This wasn't a highlights show, I had stumbled on the real thing. Live.

Bonds took the microphone from Mays and thanked all the right people. The crowd cheered, the home run was shown over and over again.

The game was delayed about ten minutes.

And that was that.

Baseball has crowned a new home run king.

Now maybe they can really get serious about cleaning-up their sport and ridding it of steroids, chemically constructed physical freaks, and cheats.

Bartender? Asterisks all around!


Dick Mac Recommends:

Juiced
Jose Canseco

Does Anyone Care About Baseball?

I don't care if Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's Home Run record.

Baseball is such a mess that its records mean nothing.

Hank Aaron's record means nothing.

Baseball is an embarrassment to America.

Is it any surprise that only forty percent of people who care about baseball care if Barry Bonds breaks the record?

Poll: Bonds' HR quest gets scant support
Mon May 7, 2:17 PM ET

Only about four in 10 baseball fans are rooting for Barry Bonds to break the career home run record and most think he knowingly took steroids, according to a poll showing stark racial divisions in how the San Francisco Giants' slugger is viewed.

Still, most fans think Bonds should end up in the Hall of Fame. He has 10 homers this season and 744 lifetime — 11 shy of Hank Aaron's record, one of the most revered in sports.

In the poll by ABC News and ESPN, 37 percent said they are rooting for Bonds to break Aaron's record, while 52 percent said they hope he falls short and 11 percent had no opinion. Twenty-eight percent of whites and nearly 75 percent of blacks said they were hoping Bonds succeeds.

Nearly three quarters said they think Bonds knowingly took the performance-enhancing drugs, which he has long denied. Just more than a third of blacks — and three-fourths of whites — shared that view.

Of those who think he used steroids, two-thirds said that makes him a cheater — even though major league baseball was not testing for the drugs at the time. There was no racial breakdown for that question.

Nearly six in 10 said Bonds should be elected to the Hall of Fame, including majorities of both races. About as many said they believe he has been treated fairly, including a third of blacks and six in 10 whites.

Of those who think his treatment has been unfair, more blacks and whites say it is because of his alleged steroid use than because of his race.

The ABC-ESPN poll involved telephone interviews with 799 adult baseball fans from March 29 to April 22. Its margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Those surveyed included 203 blacks, for whom the margin of sampling error was 7 percentage points.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Barry Bonds is a sneak.

Baseball is an industry filled with sneaks and liars.

Who cares about baseball?

Nobody should!

Stop giving them your money!


Dick Mac Recommends:

Juiced
Jose Canseco