Congratulations to Barry Bonds on hitting career home run #756 today, off Mike Bacsik, whose father, incidentally, also faced Hank Aaron when he had 755 and Bobby Bonds, Barry's dad. He will now live in history, linked with Barry. Hopefully, it is a duty that he does not mind.
Reporters Are Full of Crap
Giving reporters across the land a giant F-U middle finger salute, Hank Aaron was the video presentation the Giants played after his historic home run. Unfortunately I was not able to listen to the game at that time, but Jon Miller said that it was very appropriate and inspiring (I just listened to it off sfgiants.com and it was).
Most reporters have been implying (or worse saying) that Aaron was not comfortable with being associated with Bonds, that he was unhappy about Bonds passing him up, that he felt that Barry had obtained his homers illicitly and hated that Barry was going to pass him illegitimately.
However, clearly, with Hank Aaron willingly taping a congratulatory message for Barry, he showed that he had no problem with Barry, that all the reporters were full of crap for saying that Aaron had a problem with Barry passing him up. His message was sincere, humble, grand and expansive, and inspirational. There was no reservation in his message, unlike what Selig has been passing off as congratulatory messages, no mention of anything untoward or wrong with Barry passing him up.
It probably was as I has suspected: who wants to travel with Barry all over the country while waiting for 756 to happen. Barry has been within reach since July 19 when he hit 2 out in Chicago. That was 19 days ago, and since the Giants have been playing almost a game a day, probably 17-18 games ago. That would have been a good 3 weeks of traveling, from Chicago, to Milwaukee, to SF, to LA, to SD, again to SF (approximate; from memory). That's tough travel for young ballplayers, even worse for someone in his 70's like Hank.
Reporters Have No Shame
The reporters even got it wrong about his children. I read that they were not that supportive or excited. But his son met him at the plate and gave him lots of hugs and pats on the butt, then, from Jon Miller's description (on sfgiants.com), all his children were there and celebrating with their Dad. How do these reporters sleep putting words and feelings in children's mouths, reflecting how they feel and not what the children are feeling?
I wonder how the reporters will twist things now that Aaron has showed them where his sympathies lie. I doubt any of them will admit that they got it horribly wrong or apologize for characterizing Aaron as being unsupportive of Barry in his pursuit. I know that they won't apologize for stating that his children were unsupportive. Like most errors made by reporters, they will probably bury it quietly, hoping that no one noticed that the reporters were way off base.
Good Job Barry, Now Hit Some More
Congrats to Barry, hopefully this will release a stream of homers as he makes it harder for A-Rod, Pujols, and others to catch up with him. And thanks for all the homers.
Here is a link to the Giants article on Hank Aaron's congratulatory message plus a link to the video itself: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070808&content_id=2136645&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf&partnered=rss_sf
ReplyDeleteAs the article notes, the message puts the lie to all the "journalists" speculating that there was some sort of feud between Aaron and Bonds.
El Lefty Malo has a great description of Aaron's video that I have to quote here:
ReplyDelete"Last night, Hank Aaron’s speech reminded everyone that baseball is bigger than its players, its scandals, its franchises and tin-horn suzerains. Aaron forced everyone with a grievance to take a deep breath. He drew the arc of history over the evening in a way that fireworks, standing ovations and press conferences could never do. "
Full post is here, great read overall, I highly recommend it: http://www.leftymalo.com/2007/08/personal_history.php