Hank Aaron
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Extra Point
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The mainstream media was absolutely giddy with the prospect of him breaking Babe Ruth's record.
knightedsoldier5000
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Great ballplayer, but just another ungrateful, 'woe is me' negro. All of the worship, riches, and opportunities he received from living in a majority white country were for naught because of white people saying something rude. Reminds me of the documentary i watched about the best fastball pitchers, and when they interviewed bob gibson, all he did was whine about racism. Meanwhile, if these negroes had been born in an African country, they'd be eating bugs out of trees and living in mud huts instead of making big money playing a game invented by whites.
Hank Aaron compares Republicans who oppose Obama to KKK
On the anniversary of his record-breaking 715th career home run, Hank Aaron spoke out against the Republican party.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/hank-aaron-compares-republicans-who-oppose-obama-to-kkk/
"We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics. Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated.
"We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country.
"The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts."
"I don't think about it that much," Aaron says, "just because of the pain. I think about other things. There were other things in my life that I enjoyed more than chasing the record.
"I was being thrown to the wolves. Even though I did something great, nobody wanted to be a part of it. I was so isolated. I couldn't share it. For many years, even after Jackie Robinson, baseball was so segregated, really. You just didn't expect us to have a chance to do anything. Baseball was meant for the lily-white.
Hank Aaron compares Republicans who oppose Obama to KKK
On the anniversary of his record-breaking 715th career home run, Hank Aaron spoke out against the Republican party.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/hank-aaron-compares-republicans-who-oppose-obama-to-kkk/
"We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics. Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated.
"We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country.
"The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts."
"I don't think about it that much," Aaron says, "just because of the pain. I think about other things. There were other things in my life that I enjoyed more than chasing the record.
"I was being thrown to the wolves. Even though I did something great, nobody wanted to be a part of it. I was so isolated. I couldn't share it. For many years, even after Jackie Robinson, baseball was so segregated, really. You just didn't expect us to have a chance to do anything. Baseball was meant for the lily-white.
knightedsoldier5000
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I can't find the quote at the moment, but i remember reading about him being dismissive of Babe Ruth and whining about how he could care less about him since blacks weren't allowed to play in MLB back then.
knightedsoldier5000
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I'm sure we'll have to endure weeks of Hank Aaron worship and glorification about how he put racist whites in their place, and how he had it so tough. MLB will probably use it to come up with more anti-white propaganda to force down our throats.
knightedsoldier5000
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Just think of all the whites who went out of their way to allow blacks into MLB, and went out of their way to welcome them, including many ballplayers. Any acknowledgment or appreciation from Aaron about the whites who made it possible, like a shout out to friendly whites or whites who made it happen? Of course not. Just anger and complaining about evil white people.
Wow. That will be swiftly removed from the internet.
Charles Martel
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I remember Hank Aaron was a great ballplayer, having watched him during the second half of his career when I was a boy.
He was evidently a Christian, and I believe one reason for his longevity and consistency was the clean lifestyle he lived. Maybe Mickey Mantle had he been a Christian would have surpassed Ruth's record, since he was probably a bit more talented than Aaron, but Mantle consumed too much alcohol, didn't watch his diet and stayed out late.
Aaron wasn't a braggart like a lot of black athletes, in fact he was a quiet man. Barry Bonds who broke his record was a steroid cheater, but there were not a lot of PEDs back in Aaron's time so his accomplishments deserve more credit than those of Bonds.
He did have a bad attitude toward White people in his later years. He should have been more grateful, considering the very sport of baseball that he excelled at was invented by White people, as were the cars he drove and the televisions people watched him on.
He was evidently a Christian, and I believe one reason for his longevity and consistency was the clean lifestyle he lived. Maybe Mickey Mantle had he been a Christian would have surpassed Ruth's record, since he was probably a bit more talented than Aaron, but Mantle consumed too much alcohol, didn't watch his diet and stayed out late.
Aaron wasn't a braggart like a lot of black athletes, in fact he was a quiet man. Barry Bonds who broke his record was a steroid cheater, but there were not a lot of PEDs back in Aaron's time so his accomplishments deserve more credit than those of Bonds.
He did have a bad attitude toward White people in his later years. He should have been more grateful, considering the very sport of baseball that he excelled at was invented by White people, as were the cars he drove and the televisions people watched him on.
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La France Blanche
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I'm going to speak from the heart here, and at the same time try to keep this as "nice" as possible. People always say it's a sin to speak ill of the dead, but logically the true sin is speaking falsehoods of the dead, since they're not around to correct them. We should just tell the truth about the dead. And the living, too.
As a youngster (I'm 30, but that's a youngster by Caste Football standards), I obviously didn't watch Hank Aaron when he played, so I have no childhood memories of seeing him hit home runs or any other kind of emotional investment in him. So on a personal level, reading about him is all I have.
On a national (and international) level, Aaron was worshipped by the fans, black and white alike, both when he was playing and after he retired. In baseball media his popularity is second only to Jackie Robinson's. When he was chasing Ruth's home run record, he received thousands of letters from fans. The vast, vast majority of them were completely positive, praising him, giving him support, telling him to go out there and get that record. A tiny, tiny number were negative and "racist" (and I suspect that at least some of the most aggressively racist ones were false flags from the race-baiting radicals of the day).
In an interview, Aaron said that he would go up and re-read the negative letters on a regular basis. Not the positive ones, not the ones giving him encouragement and praise. Just the negative ones. Think about that for a minute. It's just so sad that someone who had the kind of life he did would focus so much on the tiny amount of negativity. There are millions of people, white and black, who would have given anything to live his life. And that's how he chose to react.
I truly hope that at some point before he died, Aaron let go of the bitterness in his heart, focused more on the positive, and found peace. I sincerely do.
As a youngster (I'm 30, but that's a youngster by Caste Football standards), I obviously didn't watch Hank Aaron when he played, so I have no childhood memories of seeing him hit home runs or any other kind of emotional investment in him. So on a personal level, reading about him is all I have.
On a national (and international) level, Aaron was worshipped by the fans, black and white alike, both when he was playing and after he retired. In baseball media his popularity is second only to Jackie Robinson's. When he was chasing Ruth's home run record, he received thousands of letters from fans. The vast, vast majority of them were completely positive, praising him, giving him support, telling him to go out there and get that record. A tiny, tiny number were negative and "racist" (and I suspect that at least some of the most aggressively racist ones were false flags from the race-baiting radicals of the day).
In an interview, Aaron said that he would go up and re-read the negative letters on a regular basis. Not the positive ones, not the ones giving him encouragement and praise. Just the negative ones. Think about that for a minute. It's just so sad that someone who had the kind of life he did would focus so much on the tiny amount of negativity. There are millions of people, white and black, who would have given anything to live his life. And that's how he chose to react.
I truly hope that at some point before he died, Aaron let go of the bitterness in his heart, focused more on the positive, and found peace. I sincerely do.
Flint
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Problem with Hank is that he was a nice guy. Quiet, polite, everyone liked him. Unfortunately he became famous in the Mohammad Ali era when the bad behaved black athletes were the popular ones. Aaron spent his whole post career trying to be as unpleasant and anti-white as possible in an attempt to make up for being an “Uncle Tom” his whole career.
white is right
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Yes AAron, Mays, Robinson and Morgan were a Mount Rushmore of angry and bitter old men when they needn't be (post career at least).
The media members must have known that Dick Allen was dying because there was a concerted effort to paint him as saintly post career when his image while playing was that of the previous Hall of Fame of Angry..
Great post, La France. Aaron was not a resentful man in his early career. As Flint points out here, I think he got a lot of pressure from influential blacks to adopt a resentful attitude and eventually he just caved to it. Undoubtedly, a LOT of pressure was brought. I remember reading a Sport magazine article in the 1960s saying that many blacks were disappointed that he'd not been helpful to the cause. Enough of that, of hearing you're an Uncle Tom (again, per Flint's factual post), would get hard to bear in the black community.
I don't feel that he was a naturally bitter person. In a recent interview he'd expressed his dislike for the showboating that goes on in baseball and football - the end zone tomfoolery and the bat flips, etc. And he was not at all the celebrity type. In an interview with Bob Costas he'd told how he used to go up to see the Cleveland Browns play football and how he'd preferred to sit in the bleachers with the "Dog Pound" guys to watching from the luxury boxes. Undoubtedly he was subject to a lot of coercion and vile expectation from the media for a juicy story about white racism. I wish he'd handled those things better.
However, I certainly agree with your point that black people in general do not show any gratitude for the many sacrifices made on their behalf by white people, including the supreme sacrifice of all, some three hundred thousand Union soldiers giving their lives so that slaves might be free, and many more above that maimed, crippled, disfigured. Why do they refuse to recognize such altruism? If they'd shown some degree of earnest gratitude, relations between races might have been much better than they are now.
The Hock
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Our local paper, which which was right leaning when I moved here years ago but it now with the left tilting herd, made the story of Aaron's passing the headline story.
I thought that was a bit much.
I thought that was a bit much.
I agree it was certainly a bit much. Did they also make Mantle's death a headline story, or Spahn's, or Whitey Ford's or Stan Musial's, or Dimaggio's? I bet I know the answer to that.
sport historian
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Mantle and Dimaggio's deaths were big stories at the time.
The Hock
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But were they the major front page headline story of the day? Doubt it.
sport historian
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Were you around then? They were.
white is right
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Mantle dying was huge news because of his love from boomers that grew up worshiping him. Costas spoke at his funeral and the NYC newspapers had tributes to him and headlines. The internet was in it's commercial infancy and the technology wasn't as good so it didn't seem as big as Aaron or other recent superstar deaths.
Joe D. while the tributes were similar it seemed slightly less of a story because he was older and he had less fans alive or saw him play live, but it was front page news a few years after Mantles death.
Extra Point
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I care about what happens to blacks about as much as blacks care about what happens to whites. Hank Aaron ended up being an anti-white racist so I don't care about him dying.
Booth
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Well said Extra Point!
For a long time many whites tried to be fair about giving credit where credit was due in athletics only to witness, time after time, blacks insulting white athletes, making derogatory comments about white athletes, and never reciprocating the same kind of respect black athletes had received from whites. It's that way in every sport but worst in boxing. Try telling any black that Dempsey and Marciano were among the greatest fighters ever, and all you get back is a boatload of ranting ----, especially against Rocky, whom they've never forgiven for beating their legacy hero Louis, not to mention Ezzard, Walcott, Moore, and others.
It's no wonder so many of us feel bitter about these things.
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sport historian
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Absolutely. I've been around a long time and there is every reason "to be bitter about these things." I can't begin to express the CONTEMPT I feel for the, shall we say hypocrisy. The DWFs (a term coined by Don, I believe) never notice their hero worship of blacks is never reciprocated. Not one iota.
However, Mantle and DiMaggio were eulogized at their deaths more than Aaron, if anything. In fact, the President of the United States (Bill Clinton) made a special announcement before the TV cameras when Joe DiMaggio died. That was over two decades ago. Now, Mantle and DiMaggio would be attacked as "symbols of white supremacy," which now happens to Tom Brady.
It's important to point out this cowardly, hypocritical behavior whenever possible.