Baseball great Hank Aaron knocked one out of the park in an interview with USA Today. Aaron said that President Obama’s critics are just as racist as those who threatened Aaron with death as he edged closer to breaking Babe Ruth’s record.
He says he still has the angry letters he received tucked away in his attic. ”You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it,” one of them reads. “Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. My gun is watching your every black move.”
He told USA Today that “we are not that far removed from when I was chasing the record.” He later added that “ 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,” Aaron said.
Some may argue that there has been an improvement, but Aaron does not think that we have made a lot of progress. ”We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country. The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts,” he said.
Aaron turned the conversation back to baseball to emphasize his point. ”When I first started playing, you had a lot of black players in the major leagues,” Aaron said. “Now, you don’t have any (7.7% of big-leaguers last season). So what progress have we made? You try to understand, but we’re going backward.”
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