Hank Aaron accepts Big Mac's apology

[Jeff in MD]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2010/news/story?id=4936554

Props to the Hammer, it shows you that he is the epitomy of class to not bash big Mac even though Mac deserves it.

[Jokey]

Like Aaron cares, it's not like Mark broke one of his records or anything...

[Gene in Minneapolis]

What did the hamburger ever do to him?

[johninpueblo]

  on the title of the thread.  Hank Aaron didn't forgive anybody; he said that Mark McGwire's apology was "welcome" and that he should be forgiven.    That being said, the fact that Hank Aaron had to play in a real life version of the Stucknut chat room and isn't somewhere drinking high-class hooch and pounding white  , much more turning out the class act that he is, is a  miracle in itself.

[Jeff in MD]

on the title of the thread.  Hank Aaron didn't forgive anybody; he said that Mark McGwire's apology was "welcome" and that he should be forgiven.    That being said, the fact that Hank Aaron had to play in a real life version of the Stucknut chat room and isn't somewhere drinking high-class hooch and pounding white  , much more turning out the class act that he is, is a  miracle in itself.

Fixed.

[emstrem]

I always respected Hank Aaron & still consider him the all-time Home-Run King. He is my 2nd favorite old-time baseball player after Al Kaline (of whom I have a ridiculous, bordering on insanity collection of).

As the last Negro league player to hold a regular position in the major leagues, I can see where Aaron's frustration would be coming from. I mean really you don't see many  O0 ballplayers other than the Santiago's, Rodríguez's, Pérez's, Hernández's, etc. They're all from South America or somewhere like that. Since Aaron got to see a little of the Negro Leagues before he came up to Milwaukee, & got to play against so many former Negro League stars once they made it to the show (including Jackie Robinson) it has to break his heart to watch the sport that he loves being neglected by so many young black kids, especially after all of the discrimination those guys went through, so that these kids today can have the world handed to them. He was lucky enough to play before the civil rights act was passed, so he got to stay at different hotels than his teammates, he got to (probably) eat his meals on the bus, while his teammates got to eat at whatever restaurants they wanted to, & all of this was before he started closing in on Babe Ruth's home-run record, when the serious death threats & enn-bombs were going off left & right.

I'm 39 years old, & I don't know what the white/black ratio is in my town, but all through my Little League career I only had 1 black teammate, & another pretty good friend who played on another team who was black (he actually ended up playing A ball for the Detroit Tigers)  http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/team.cgi?id=22385
When my oldest son played ball (he's 22 now), I'll bet he only had 3 black teammates all the way through high school, my youngest son had 2 but only played 3 years (he hated it). My daughter didn't have any black teammates (except for one girl on one of her All-Star teams). My younger brother was pretty good friends with Ian Gold in High School, but only remembers him running track & playing football. My cousin graduated with Kris Jenkins but doesn't remember that big  O0 touching anything but a football.

X-Box, Playstation, Wii, texting, & FaceBook have a lot to do with the downfall of youths playing sports (or anything for that matter) outside. It's a lot easier to play Madden, World of Warcrack, or Wii bowling, than it is to go outside & (God Forbid) play in the dirt. I bought a house in the neighborhood I grew up in, & one thing I've noticed, when I was a kid we had about 25-30 kids within a year or two of my age. I lived right down the street from the Little League fields, across the street from the Jr. High School, so we always had a baseball game going, plus my best friend & I stole bases from the ball fields (his grandpa was my next door neighbor, so we tore down the fence separating the yards (and built a backstop), so we had a full acre to play ball on). In the fall we'd play 6 on 6 football, or sometimes the bigger kids would come get us & they'd have a melee of a game. In the winter my Dad always flooded the back yard & made an ice rink, so we'd have usually a 3 on 3 game with kids my age, & the ones who didn't have skates would be the goalies with their Moon-Boots. My Pops put up flood lights on the deck of our pool (and spun them around in the winter) & some more on the baseball backstop so we could skate all night, & we usually tried. There also is only a very few kids left in the neighborhood, my oldest son had a good group of friends he grew up with, my daughter had 2 friends her age, then my 13 year old son has a best friend who's mom lives across the street, & his dad lives in Alabama (where he lives 8 months out of the year).

Kids today are just not interested in baseball especially, & if you polled them, (like the morons they are) they would rather have the Sosa's, McGwires, & just steroids in general, because they're dumb ass kids.

[Front Porch]

Nice take old man.  The kids of today....

The kids of today don't have 25-30 kids their age around them.  The parents don't allow them to ride their bike down to the local lot, playground or school and screw around.  They like the kids in the area where they can see them which greatly reduces the number of kids.  In an effort to save money the schools have cut back on the non-essential PE class.  They have killed after sports program until high school and we have developed those old empty lots into houses.

Blaming this on the kids, xbox, twitter or anything else is fun but the real problem isn't that it is us.  We tie our kids down to keep them safe.  I have found very few kids that would rather play xbox than go out and play games with a group of kids.  Certainly no more than we used to have.  The problem is we have restricted the freedom and places these kids have to go out and do that.

My son and his friend rode their back about a mile by themselves to go pick up something at the other's house.  They thought this was a big deal. The sad part is I remember making bike rides like that every day by myself to school and a full bike rack at the school.  Bike racks are empty now and mom's and dad's drive the kids to school and drop them off right in front so they can be sure they make it in.

 

[emstrem]

Nice take old man.  The kids of today....

The kids of today don't have 25-30 kids their age around them.  The parents don't allow them to ride their bike down to the local lot, playground or school and screw around.  They like the kids in the area where they can see them which greatly reduces the number of kids.  In an effort to save money the schools have cut back on the non-essential PE class.  They have killed after sports program until high school and we have developed those old empty lots into houses.

Blaming this on the kids, xbox, twitter or anything else is fun but the real problem isn't that it is us.  We tie our kids down to keep them safe.  I have found very few kids that would rather play xbox than go out and play games with a group of kids.  Certainly no more than we used to have.  The problem is we have restricted the freedom and places these kids have to go out and do that.

My son and his friend rode their back about a mile by themselves to go pick up something at the other's house.  They thought this was a big deal. The sad part is I remember making bike rides like that every day by myself to school and a full bike rack at the school.  Bike racks are empty now and mom's and dad's drive the kids to school and drop them off right in front so they can be sure they make it in.

 

You make a great addendum to my rant of last night FP. Maybe I'm lucky in that everybody pretty much knows everybody on my street & my wife's uncle lives at the far end of the street. It also helps that I live on a dirt road & nobody flies up & down the streets. I have a Wayne County Sheriffs Deputy who lives kitty corner to me (and that helps make a parent feel safer), even though he is my biggest drinking buddy on the whole block (he is also probably the biggest drunk on the whole block, but that's another story)

They built a park (and more soccer fields (they already have 2 of them & a football field at the Jr. High) at the far end of my street (where my old elementary school once stood), and it is right next to the Township Hall (and the local police department). My youngest kids have been going up there since it opened (as long as they go with a friend), and I asked one of my real good friends since childhood who is a cop in the Township and he said that they patrol around there all the time, plus my kids know him & always come home telling me that they talk to him when they see him (which makes me feel good).

I remember when my oldest son was playing Little League baseball, & to your point, they had a big dirt pile in between the fields & my younger son & daughter would live on this pile of dirt until the game was over. I remember overhearing 2 conversations among the other parents about this. Mind you, it was only maybe 100 feet away from the bleachers. The 1st conversation went "What kind of parents would let their children play in the dirt like that?", The 2nd was between another child about my daughters age & her mom, The girl asked if she could play on the dirt hill & the mom said "No, there are germs in dirt, how many times do I have to tell you!!" In all those years, only 1 other boy played on that dirt pile with my kids.

When we got home every day we'd literally have to hose those 2 knuckleheads off, they had more dirt on them than Mike Rowe has ever seen. They had mud rings around their mouths, so I know they ate some of the dirt, & it didn't kill them. These germaphobes wonder why their kids are always sick, well they keep them locked into a pristine  house with no dust-bunnies in it, they make sure they use anti-bacterial soap every time they use the bathroom, & get every knew vaccination that comes down the pike. Then they cannot understand why they are constantly taking their kids to the doctors.

[Jokey]

The problem is that back in 'teh day' the hoodlums packed knives at best. Today's gangstas in big cities pack machine guns. Not exactly a safe environment for kids to play in.

[GGT]

The problem is that back in 'teh day' the hoodlums packed knives at best. Today's gangstas in big cities pack machine guns. Not exactly a safe environment for kids to play in.

Sorry....I don't want to completely hijack this thread....

But to further complicate that problem.....Those ganstas with those guns are getting younger and younger.....

Now, back to baseball.....

[emstrem]

755

The real Home Run King



These Stats aren't to shabby neither!!

 Career     GAMES      AB         R           H      2B    3B     HR    GS   RBI       BB     IBB      SO     SH   SF   HBP  GIDP  AVG  OBP  SLG       
23 YEARS   3,298   12,364   2,174   3,771  624   98    755   16   2,297  1,402  293   1,383   21  121  32    328  .305 .374 .555     

   

"A grand jury, a tell-all book and a congressional committee have combined to form a major-league needle puncturing baseball's public image" , reported Chris Jenkins of USA Today in 'Players Admit Steroids Changed Baseball' (USA Today, 03/15/2005)

Between February 17, 2005 and March 9, 2005 five-hundred sixty-eight Major League players answered a survey and 79% believed steroids played "some role" in recent record breaking performances.

More than a century of baseball history is in jeopardy due to the actions taken by a few players who have chosen to cheat. Generations of fans have followed generations of players who have assaulted the record books, but now the fans and players are left wondering which records are accurate.

Major League players, former Commissioners of Major League Baseball, politicians, professional athletes, members of the media, and an epic number of fans have an opinion, often strong, about the impact and future of our national pastime.

The future is not yet known and baseball has stood the test of time. We here at 755HomeRuns.com love the game of baseball and we have created this site in honor of every one of Hank Aaron's 755 steroid free home runs — and the pitchers who served them up.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=aaronha01

[Jokey]

Yet we still have no concrete evidence that Bonds cheated...

[emstrem]

Yet we still have no concrete evidence that Bonds cheated...

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

[brendan in wilmington]

I just went to the doctor and he said that my cholesterol is at 8,000, my blood is the consistency of gravy, and i now have to have both legs amputated because of daibeetus. I SHALL ALSO BE WAITING FOR AN APOLOGY FROM BIG MAC!!! /s/ booger boges

[Jokey]

Yet we still have no concrete evidence that Bonds cheated...

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Post evidence that is admisable in a court of law and we'll talk...