Bonds passes* Babe and Who Cares

Bonds passes* Babe and Who Cares



No link love for The Cream and The Clear despite home run 715.

I grew up in the 70s in a sports fan household and even if Barry Bonds cheats his way to 756 only Hank Aaron will ever be The Home Run King. (also, only Muhammad Ali will ever be The Champ.) And no matter how harsh the reaction to Bonds is, it's nothing compared to the racist hate mail and death threats Aaron got. The pressure was so great that all Hammerin' Hank could say at the moment he broke the most hallowed record in baseball was "thank God it's all over." That's right, he didn't even get to enjoy it.

When I was about 11 my dad took us to see the Brewers, during the couple of years Aaron was playing out his string as a DH. I think he went 0 for 4 that day, I know thare was no home run. But I saw Hank Aaron play ball. Which, thanks dad, is cool enough that thirty years later I'm writing about it.

Also a bit of trivia: Aaron is WAS alphabetically the first player in the baseball encyclopedia (Kyle is making a career of correcting me), and he was the last big leaguer to have played in the Negro Leagues.