Please don't disrespect Hank Aaron
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by user Ibearg
posted from Future GM Thoughts
As Bonds approaches the all-time record for home runs, inevitably people are going to want to compare him to Hank Aaron. They'll want to talk about how each one went through their trials and tribulations and were able to overcome them to become the greatest home run hitters ever. They may even talk about all the things Roger Maris has to go through in breaking the single season record. However to compare these men to Bonds is an absolute insult to both.
Hank Aaron played not too long after baseball had first been integrated when racism was still ripe in this country. He did nothing to bring negative attention to himself. His only "faults" were being born black and playing baseball. Nonetheless he received death threats and had to go through a tremendous amount of undue hatred. Despite this he remained extremely classy off the field, and performed to the best of his abilities on it. I can't fully appreciate what was happening at that time, but from what i read, and see on TV i can only admire the way he handled himself.
Even Roger Maris has a more legitimate gripe than Barry Bonds. Maris was just a nice guy who happened to have a good season, but the fans liked someone else. They wanted to see Mantle, their hero break Ruth's record, not some schmo they brought in from Kansas City. Maris ended up losing his hair because of that season.
Than you look at Bonds, who no one outside of San Fransisco has ever particularly liked. Even in college his own teammates voted to kick him off the team. His trials and tribulations are at least 50 percent his own fault (if you want to blame the media for the other 50 percent fine, but i don't). Even if steroids were common in this era it was still his choice to take them and the resulting backlash was not someone else's fault. We can debate whether Bonds knowingly took steroids or not, but when players know if a particular type of lettuce made them way an ounce more than another type of Lettuce i think Bonds knew what he was doing.
So, do I wish a classy guy like Aaron could keep the record? Sure. Do i hope a guy who's never really done anything particularly wrong in his career like A-rod breaks the record? Absolutely. However, Bonds is clearly going to break the home run record, I've come to accept that. There will not be an asterisk next to it and there shouldn't be. That being said just do me the favor of not comparing Bonds to Maris or Aaron; its insulting.
