Um, you don't look at him as being gone.

He might be gone from us, but clearly never for gotten and obviously in a better place because of what a wonderful human being.

Hey, Waas.

Stephen A.

Smith is not sitting here today if it weren't the people like himself Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Jim Brown, Mohammed Ali and some of the great iconic African Americans who not only excel in the world of sports, but they extended their reach far beyond the field or the court of play for the betterment of us as a people.

And Cameron hit 755 career home runs.

And you know Tim Kurkjian, A great Tim Kurkjian highlighted all the superlatives, and it was wonderful seeing Ralph, Wily God rest his wonderful soul.

Ah, person that I truly idolized in this business.

And I had the pleasure of knowing a little bit before he passed away several years ago, and thio here the deference and the reverence with which they speak about Hank Aaron just brings chills to you because you hear about and you witness to some degree, whether through footage, letters, he saved etcetera what he had to endure.

And it's a reminder, particularly for people in today's generation.

When they picked Jackie Robinson, it wasn't just because of his exploits.

It's because off what he would have to endure, whether he had thio temperament to defend all of those things off and still perform while making sure he didn't engage in retribution or reciprocal behavior towards the heinous acts that were exacted against them.

With Hank Aaron.

He talked about what he talked about, had it what he had to endure.

You sort of pictures of 3000 hate letters, a day a day and death threats and what have you and you see that he was a civil rights activist.

You recognize that he was pushing for management.

We just had a conversation at the beginning of the show, y'all when we talked about African Americans being in head coaching positions.

How do we applaud the Washington football team because for the first time in 2021 a black man is the president of a football team in the National Football League, and another black man is about to be the general manager.

These are the kind of things that Hank Aaron was speaking about envisioning and hoping for in the seventies.

We just have protest a few months ago about what things have not been happening, what things have not been transpiring, and how Max so eloquently speaks to the systemic racism that continues to exist and ravaged.

This nation is a whole, and so for me, um, I'm sad that he's gone.

I'm incredibly happy that he's with God now in a better place.

Um and I just you know, I'm so thankful to him, because if it were not for people like him, it wouldn't be people like me.

There wouldn't be people like LeBron.

There wouldn't be people like Jordan.

There wouldn't have been a lot of other people if it were not for the sacrifices he made in the things he was willing to endure while still performing.

And an elite level with a true true icon with a true true role model.

Hey, will be he will be missed, but he will never be forgotten and talk about a life well lived, Max.

Um, we take it for granted.

I hope that if a black man or a black person were to accomplish something big, societally speaking, they had to go through a lot of hate from the white powers that be you even just brought up.

But how long it took to have a black president in the front office?

The American population did better.

Electing a ah black man president not long ago twice than these owners do in the NFL giving black men right?

In other words, the mawr entrenched in power, the white person.

Or so it seems the mawr black people are facing, right.

It gets worse, not better.

Um, so you can imagine what Hank Aaron had to go through in the fifties and sixties mainly is when he did this and the kind of hate and backlash that that they received that a black person trying to achieve a great thing received was you would think in proportion to the size of the accomplishment.

Just so people understand out there because the NFL in the n b a.

R.

Such big deals now Major League baseball in the 19 fifties and sixties was the NFL in the n b.

A combined time, something its economy was so much bigger.

Now it was the national pastime.

Nothing competed with baseball during Hank Aaron's career, and the home run record was the number one record more than the hits record.

But the lifetime home that Babe Ruth's record was the number one he broke by far the number one record in the history of American sports till that time, a record I believe he still holds because he and his forehead doesn't didn't suddenly triple in size and then his home run that that ratio double.

He was the same dude for a quarter century hit.

I'll tell you something else about Hank Aaron.

Hank Aaron was not just the greatest home run hitter life Hank Aaron was.

He led the league in hitting more than once in batting average, slugging percentage More than once.

He was a great right fielder, had more than one Gold Glove, so he was an excellent base stealer, stole 30 bases in a season better than 3 to 1 ratio with over 240 stolen bases in his career.

He was an all around great player while he's stat about this.

Number two guy in total bases stand usual one of the all time greats.

Really long career.

He had more than 12 miles, 90 ft to each base mawr total basis than the number two guys stand music.

He was an incredibly great all around baseball player and, as a black man, overcame the hate associate ID with claiming the number one prize in the history of American team.

Sports it throughout the fifties and on his way to do it in the early seventies through the fifties and the sixties.

That's an icon.