We speak with long time sports journalist Dave Zirin of the Nation Magazine and The Edge of Sports about the sudden passing of baseball legend Hank Aaron. Many consider him to be the greatest baseball player to ever take the field.
Later in the show, Rosa Clemente speaks with poet Jessica CARE Moore about the impacts of COVID and her new book, We Want Our Bodies Back: Poems.
In our interview w/ Dave Zirin he notes that Hank Aaron is best known for breaking Babe Ruth‘s home run record of 714, which seemed like an insurmountable mountain of a record back in 1974 when he broke it.
But beneath that landmark accomplishment, as Zirin points out, we see a guy who was more than just a long ball hitter. Aaron was named to the ML Allstar team 25 times, garnered over 3000 hits and was a tremendous outfielder.
As noted in the interview, Aaron’s athletic prowess is awe inspiring, but perhaps just as inspiring if not more, was his activism. In an age where we had folks like Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Kareem Abul Jabbar garnering headlines for their off the field activities, what Hank Aaron was doing was often overshadowed.
Dave Zirin details just how significant and transformative Aaron’s humanitarian efforts were and how much racism and pressure he faced throughout his career and yet he never backed down. He was active all the way up to the end. Two years ago he made headlines when he stated he would rebuff an invitation to the White House by President Donald Trump to come to the White House.
Two weeks before his passing Aaron got his Covid 19 vaccine shot and made it a point to do it publicly so people and Black folks in particular could be eased of their fears.
Long time Oakland based scholar and cultural activist of from the Oakland Maroons Kwadwo Addo Gyan summed up Aaron ‘s legacy in this recent Facebook post..
Hank Aaron is the Greatest Home Run Hitter of ALLTIME! I’ve said this before, but in the encyclopedia under the term ‘grace under pressure’ there’s just a picture of HANK AARON.
In over a half a century of public life there’s never been a whisper of controversy around this man. Watching Mr. Aaron as a kid we could see that he wasn’t some big towering giant and that made him even more impressive. His abilities at the plate were gained from practice, work ethics, hand eye coordination…pure skillz. I marvel at it to this day. And, despite his living legend status, all accounts of him say that he was humble to a fault.
The record created by Babe Ruth in the white leagues (misnomered “major”) should have an asterisk next to it because it is historically substantiated FACT that Ruth didn’t have to face his greatest BLACK competitors and there was no one threatening to kill him while he did it.
No one will ever have to overcome the virulent anti-Black hatred that Aaron faced in 1974 to break what was considered at that time THE greatest record in sports. The death threats to him and his family are a type of pressure that no other athlete is likely to face WHILE PLAYING THE GAME and FOR PLAYING THE GAME.
That dimension of his athletic achievement must ALWAYS be present when we honor his legacy. Rest with honor elder. Well done.
Oh, and PS: I’m of the school of thought that Barry Bonds deserves an asterisk by his record as well so that leaves Hank as the reigning home run KING.
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