Hall Of Famer Hank Aaron Speaks On 600 Home Run Plateau
Barry Bonds Is The Home Run King
Yesterday Major League Baseball saw New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez become the youngest player to hit 600 home runs. However Rodriguez also admitted last season that he he used steroids to help him reach this point. Steroids has left many fans inside and outside of baseball to view Hall of Famer Hank Aaron’s 755 home runs as the true home run king. Aaron had this to say about the 600 home run mark though
“When you reach that plateau, no matter where it is, whether you’re playing in the Majors or the Minors, it’s a tremendous accomplishment. It means an awful lot to whoever reaches this achievement . . . It really doesn’t matter what kind of asterisk you put by it — 600 homers is something special.”
Kind of a back handed compliment but he still is recognizing the fact that there is an element of hand and eye coordination that is required to even hit 600 home runs, no matter how you slice it.
Mike Bacsik Fired For Racially Insensitive Tweet
Hidden Racist?
For those that don’t know who Mike Bacsik is, he’s a former Major League Baseball pitcher and the son of Michael James Bacsik, who was also a pitcher in the majors. He’s most famous though for giving up Barry Bonds 756th career home run, which broke the all-time record formerly held by Hank Aaron.
Bacsik was fired just minutes ago from his producer role on The Ticket 1310 in Dallas after he allowed his racism to spill out onto Twitter after the Dallas Mavericks loss to the San Antonio Spurs in game 4 on Sunday night, with his above tweet. Shortly thereafter he deleted his comment, hoping it would forever cease to exist and followed it up with a back handed apology.
Bacsik, who originally was suspended indefinitely by the station, said that when the tweet went on national television, including CNN, the station decided to let him go.
“It’s been a rough couple of days. Obviously, I made a terrible mistake. It was very bad and stupid on my part. The last few days, I’ve been getting positive e-mails. But the station changed their mind and decided to go in a different direction.”
“When you tweet like I did, you can’t see the sarcasm,” he said. “It’s not a good joke. You can’t tell if it was pure hate or sarcasm. I never got to say anything. My tweets were talking for me. When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing. It’s not what it was meant to be.”
“If you want to do a job like this, your guard always has to be up,” he said. “It’s tough because my guard was down. I learned my lesson. I’m owning up to what I did. I did a horrible thing. I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”
I wonder if Bacsik feelings have changed or does this further fuel an anger inside him since it was just a basketball game that caused his racism to go viral, not something as major as losing his job. Does the hidden racism grow or does Bacsik really looked to change his beliefs?
WTF: Mike Bacsik
Hidden Racist?
For those that don’t know who Mike Bacsik is, he’s a former Major League Baseball pitcher and the son of Michael James Bacsik, who was also a pitcher in the majors. He’s most famous though for giving up Barry Bonds 756th career home run, which broke the all-time record formerly held by Hank Aaron.
Bacsik currently is the producer on The Ticket 1310 in Dallas for Norm Hitzges and performs other fill-in duties however he allowed his hidden racism spill out onto Twitter after the Dallas Mavericks loss to the San Antonio Spurs in game 4, with his above tweet. Shortly thereafter he deleted his comment, hoping it would forever cease to exist and followed it up with a back handed apology.
Mike Bacsik’s tweet is probably a very accurate representation of how he really feels about certain races when he out of public’s eye, if not where does these feelings come from then?
Black History Month: February 5th
Hall Of Famer
On this day Hank Aaron, one of baseballs elite on and off, was born. The man they called “Hammerin’ Hank” career spanned the from the years 1954 through 1976, played for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves in the National League, and his last two years (1975–76) with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League.
His most notable achievement was setting the MLB record for most career home runs with 755, which he held for 33 years until being surpassed by San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds on August 7, 2007.
He is the only player to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times. He is also one of only four players to have at least seventeen seasons with 150 or more hits. Aaron made the All-Star team every year from 1955 until 1975 and won three Gold Glove Awards. Aaron holds the MLB records for the most career runs batted in (2,297), the most career extra base hits (1,477), and the most career total bases (6,856). Aaron is also in the top five for career hits with 3,771 (third) and runs with 2,174, which is tied for fourth with Babe Ruth).
In 1957, he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award and helped the Milwaukee franchise to a World Series victory.
Vin Scully Will Tickle Your Ears Once Again In 2010
TOP 5 ALL TIME
Vin Scully who is one of baseballs greatest announcers of all time has decided to stick around the broadcast booth in 2010 and do what he does best, announce Los Angeles Dodgers games.
Scully who turns 82 later this month, has seen his share of amazing moments through his 60 years as a play-by-play guy. There was Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series…
“Got him! The greatest game ever pitched in baseball history, by Don Larsen! A no-hitter, a perfect game in a World Series. Never in the history of the game has it ever happened in a World Series. And so our hats off to Don Larsen — no runs, no hits, no errors, no walks, no baserunners. The final score: The Yankees: two runs, five hits and no errors. The Dodgers: No runs, no hits, no errors… in fact, nothing at all.”
And another ace for Sandy Koufax in 1965…
“And Sandy Koufax, whose name will always remind you of strikeouts, did it with a flourish: he struck out the last six consecutive batters—so when he wrote his name in capital letters in the record books, that K stands out even more than the O-U-F-A-X.”
Game 6 of the 1986 World Series which Boston Red Sox fan will never forget…
“Little roller up along first… behind the bag! It gets through Buckner!! Here comes Knight and the Mets win it!”
Scully was there for Fernando Valenzuela’s 1990 perfect game as well…
“If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky!”
But quite possibly the most important call for Scully came on April 8, 1974 when Hank Aaron nailed his 715th career home run…
“What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly Hank Aaron.”
If you’ve never heard Vin Scully call a game then your only doing yourself the injustice, his words are like strokes of a paintbrush and it will be hard to replace greatness once he is gone but at least we won’t have to worry about that in the 2010 season.
