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Charlie Sykes just read this on the  radio

4/15/2014

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Thought you might find it interesting.

Dear Hank:

I only have one picture of a non-family member on my desk.  It’s a picture of a much younger me shaking hands with my sports idol. You.

I’ve looked at it every day for more than a decade – you  gracious and polite, me awkward and star-struck.  So this is hard for me to write. 

Last Wednesday, on the 40 th anniversary of your  715 th home run, I devoted half an hour on my radio show to making the  case that you were the greatest athlete ever to play ball in Milwaukee. It  wasn’t even close. 

I ran through the stats, which you know better than I  ever will, but I also talked about the class and the character you brought to  the game. I was proud to have met you. Proud to have followed your career for  more than 50 years. Proud you played in my hometown. 
The next day, you compared me to a Klansman.  A white  hooded bigot. 

The headline read: " Hank Aaron compares Republicans and other Obama opponents to  KKK ." 

"The biggest difference is that  back then they had hoods," Aaron said. "Now they have neckties and starched  shirts." 

"Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at  a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from  all of the Republicans with the way he's treated." 

Of course, we’ve all had to get used to toxic political  rhetoric, the hate speech of partisan rancor that has become the background  noise of our ideological wars. But this felt different, somehow like a bond  broken.  

"We loved him," one fan told me. "And he slapped us." Her  reaction wasn't anger as much as it was disappointment. 

Hank, you have certainly earned the right to your views or  to state them as colorfully as you want. But did you realize that you were  calling perhaps half your fans – who disagree with the president politically --  bigots?  

Do you know who they are? 

They were the people who followed you, cheered for you,  supported you, stayed up late comparing stories about you.  Put pictures of  themselves with you on their desks. 

And yes, maybe they disagreed with you about politics. But  this was baseball and I don’t think I’m alone when I say that baseball helped us  leave those divisions behind.  I actually still get goose bumps when I  watch that scene in "Field of Dreams " where James Earl Jones says: 

 The one constant through  all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of  steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again.  But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our  past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be  again…" 

I guess part of me actually believes that. 

I’m not naïve enough to think that there is a bright line  that separate politics and sports, because the influence goes both ways. You and  Jackie Robinson helped show America  the stupidity and self-defeating  nature of racism. You did it with courage and dignity and did as much as any  politician to break down barriers and draw people together. 

It didn’t matter what your daddy did, or the color of your  skin, or whether you worked in a factory, when people sat in the stands and  watched that magnificent stride, the swing, and the arc of the ball off the  greatest home run hitter who ever lived. 

In commemorating your achievement as baseball’s "true home  run king," Commissioner Bud Selig called you "the embodiment of the American  spirit." 

So is it now the embodiment of the American spirit to call  people you disagree with hooded bigots? Maybe so. 

But we didn’t expect to hear it from you, Hank. 
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