I'm Disappointed in You, Hank

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"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."

Hank Aaron

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Yesterday, I wrote about Hank Aaron's achievement, 40 years ago, when he passed Babe Ruth and became baseball's all–time home run king.

He remained the all–time home run king for the rest of the 20th century.

I watched, transfixed (thanks to my family's television), as he slugged home run #715. I was just a boy, of course, and there were many things I did not know or understand — but I did know about prejudice and racism. I knew there were racists who objected to a black man breaking a record that had been held for decades by not just a white man but perhaps the biggest idol the sport of baseball has ever had, and I regretted that. Still do.

It really wasn't a difficult conclusion to reach in 1974 — that nearly all of those who opposed Aaron were motivated by racism — but it was a different time. It wasn't far removed from the protests and riots in the streets or brutal attacks on blacks in the 1960s.

Even though I was quite young, I knew that there were people — most but not all (I have learned in my life that nothing is absolute) — who were opposed to Aaron because he was black. And I can understand why he would be bitter about that, even 40 years later. I've seen some of the letters that were sent to him — vile, disgusting.

I also know that we are all the products of our experiences, and his experience during the 1973–74 offseason was the kind of thing that no one should have to face. Again, I understand why he is bitter. I was glad then, and I am glad now, that the threats against his life were never carried out. He had my respect for the way he carried himself in the face of all that.

But he was wrong to assert, in an interview with USA Today, that little has changed. A lot has changed, particularly here in the South. Aaron is right. We do have work to do, but I hear kids talk of racism today in a way that tells me they really don't know what racism is.

That is one area where we need to do some hard work — educating our young people so they will be able to tell the difference between someone who is racist and someone who disagrees.

(I teach writing at the community college here, and I had a student last semester who accused me of racism when his final exam brought his grade down. He was expecting an A. He got a B. Why? Well, my final exam in this class — which is called developmental writing and is designed to make up for deficiencies in students' written language education — is to write what I call an essay — on a topic that I choose — so I can see if the students are applying what they have learned in the class to their writing. I mark off three points for every element that was covered in class but the student in question does not use in the essay, and I mark off one point for each word that is misspelled or should be there but isn't.

(This particular student left out three things that we discussed in class during the semester, and he had a grand total of 19 words that were either misspelled or left out completely. That made his grade on the exam 72.

(Without even seeing the marked–up essay, he accused me of making 10–point deductions — which I have never done — and, when I denied doing that, he accused me of racism.)

Aaron was wrong to suggest that Barack Obama's problems were due to racism. It's much more complicated than that.

Before anyone goes ballistic on me, yes, I know there are some people who are opposed to Obama because he is black. But I can't go along with blanket assertions of any kind. It is precisely that kind of mindset that is behind injustice of any kind — racial, sexual, religious, you name it.

I disagree with Obama on many things, but my dissension is not based on his skin color. It is based on the fact that I disagree with him. If Obama was white, I would still disagree with him on many things. (I agree with him on some things, but I disagree with him on far more.)

There are others who feel that way, too. Every president, even the popular ones, has had his detractors.

I am an American citizen, and I am entitled to disagree with Obama or anyone else — and that does not give anyone the right to dismiss my deeply held beliefs as invalid nor does it give anyone the right to falsely accuse me of anything.

My beliefs matter to me. Others are free to agree with me or disagree with me, but they have no right to belittle me if I don't agree with them.

Now if I cross that line and commit a violent act, that is a crime and should be dealt with as such, but it is not a crime for me to disagree.

At the time that Aaron was chasing the Babe, law enforcement in the South still often looked the other way when violent acts were committed against blacks. But that really has changed in the last 40 years.

Other things will change, too, as time passes.

Righting a Wrong

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Occasionally, presidents have the opportunity to right wrongs — and they usually act upon them.

Their motivations for doing so may be suspect, but, most of the time, the legitimacy of the need cannot be questioned.

Such was the case yesterday when President Obama greeted the 1985 Chicago Bears and honored them for their Super Bowl victory in January 1986.

Football fans know that it is traditional for a Super Bowl–winning team to pay a visit to the White House, and the Bears were supposed to visit President Reagan — but their trip to Washington was canceled in the wake of the national tragedy that was the space shuttle Challenger disaster.

As I have written here before, I am a Green Bay Packers fan. They've won four Super Bowls, and, while I was much too young to be aware of whether those first two Super Bowl–winning teams paid visits to the Johnson White House, I know the third one visited the Clinton White House and the one that beat Pittsburgh in February was honored by Obama in August.

The Packers have been recognized for their achievements. The NFL's championship trophy is named for the coach who led Green Bay to victory in those first two Super Bowls.

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But the Bears only have that single Super Bowl victory to their credit. True, they annoyed many football fans with their smugness and bravado — and their "Super Bowl Shuffle" — but, in the end, those fans had to admit that the Bears made good on their promise.

And they had earned the recognition that every other Super Bowl winner received.

Anyone who witnessed the Challenger explosion knows that event overshadowed everything for weeks, if not months. It grounded the space shuttle program for nearly three years. It forced Reagan to reschedule his State of the Union address.

It was a time for mourning, not celebrating.

Consequently, it isn't surprising that "Da Bears," as they were known, got lost in the (pardon the expression) shuffle.

And, even though I am a Packers fan, I am glad the Bears finally received the recognition they deserved. I'm just sorry, as I wrote earlier this year on the 25th anniversary of their victory, that Walter Payton did not get to share it with his teammates and coaches.

Payton, as I mentioned in January, toiled through many difficult seasons for the Bears. In the 1970s, he and Dick Butkus were the only stars on lackluster teams. Things got better in the 1980s as coach Mike Ditka assembled the team that would annihilate the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

When the Bears got to the Super Bowl, Payton put in his usual workmanlike effort. New England was focusing on him all day and held him to only 61 yards, but that was enough to lead Chicago in rushing.

Nevertheless, when given the opportunity to punch in a score from a single yard out, Ditka opted to give the ball to William "the Refrigerator" Perry, a defensive lineman who had been brought in a couple of times during the regular season when the Bears faced goal–line situations.

I felt it was a disgrace. Ask just about any pro football fan to identify the top five running backs in the history of the NFL, and nearly all will include Payton in that list. He deserved to score a touchdown in his only Super Bowl.

He also deserved to be recognized yesterday, and I am sure that Obama, a resident of Chicago in his adult years, would have welcomed him to the White House. But Payton died nearly 12 years ago.

For Payton, it is a wrong that can never be righted.

Presidential Pitch

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They played the major league baseball All–Star Game last night.

When I was growing up, it was a rare opportunity to see the best players that baseball had to offer. We didn't have televised games on numerous channels every night of the week because we didn't have cable. We got to see one game a week — two, on rare occasions — via the "Game of the Week" on Saturday afternoons.

It was special because, in those days, you just knew that the players you saw in the All–Star Game would end up in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., some day. Maybe it was because I was a young boy who avidly collected baseball cards and didn't have adult worries, like finding a job or a place to live or being able to put food on the table, but I knew the starting lineups of just about every major league club (there were fewer of them in those days).

Today I know the names of a handful of players in the majors, and the rest of them sound like minor leaguers to me, even though most of them probably aren't.

But, whether the players in the All–Star Game were truly worthy of ending up in Cooperstown or they were just being rewarded for a great season, one thing is certain in my memory. I remember the next–day reports on the game actually being about the game.

Not about whoever threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

That is not the case, apparently, in 2009.

Numerous blogs that I have seen today asserted that, based on his pitching form (and, presumably, the "mom jeans" he wore), Barack Obama "throws like a girl." You can judge for yourself, I guess. I have attached the video of his pitch to this post, but I can't really reach a conclusion from Fox's camera angle.

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The assertion that I would take issue with, though, is Carol Lee's claim at Politico.com that Obama "checked a signature presidential tradition off his list" with his pitch last night.

Throwing out the first pitch at an All–Star Game is hardly a "presidential tradition." Presidents seldom throw out the first pitch at the All–Star Game, as one of Lee's former employers, the New York Times, reported last weekend.

Before last night, Gerald Ford was the last president to throw out the first pitch at an All–Star Game back in 1976, the year of America's Bicentennial. Perhaps in honor of the occasion, Ford threw out two first pitches, one with each hand. Or perhaps it was a way to show how inclusive he believed himself to be. At the time, Ford was involved in a heated campaign for the GOP nomination with Ronald Reagan.

In fact, if there is anything resembling a "presidential tradition" of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game, it is at the season opener. Every president from William Howard Taft to George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a season–opening game. Obama did not do so this year because he was attending the G–8 summit in Europe. Vice President Joe Biden threw out the first pitch instead.

I suspect that, aside from the obvious political differences, much of the negative reaction to Obama's pitching form was more the result of a comparison to George W. Bush's first pitch at the World Series that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That pitch, most observers felt, was a strike.

Oh, and by the way — the American League beat the National League again, 4–3.