And, he said in an interview, In terms of baseball, I want to be remembered as playing the game the right way, he said.

Mawr important than that.

I hope that I was able to help mankind.

You've got to consider that that was his legacy as far as he was concerned, and our legacy toward him is he was an incredibly classy man, incredible, great player and an incredible guy who handled all the racial inequality and pressure that he had to go through and endure as he was going after the home run, Uh, a title of all time.

And he will always be my home run king.

You could talk about others, but he did it, and I think that he should be established as the greatest baseball home run hitter of all time.

Clinton Yates There's a couple of different things that come to mind when thinking about Henry Louis Aaron, number one is that he came from an era of baseball for black players that we just don't see that much anymore.

He played in the Negro leagues.

He's from a Town Mobile, Alabama, where there are 12345 baseball Hall of Famers from that town alone who were black folks.

Additionally to that, people think about the home runs all the time, hanker and is the major league leader in R B I S and Total Bases as well.

The baseball itself is incredible when you think about how he played overall, though, as he is in an American icon just in general.

He comes from the generation we call the scenes and things generation, and he represented himself so well doing all of that.

It's tough to think about a world in which Hank Aaron doesn't go through what he does go through in order for all of us to be able to do what we do around baseball.

But like what he said he was on the classiest people ever, and he reminds me of a generation that we just don't have anymore, because that's just not where we are with baseball in America today, Tim Cowlishaw.

You know, I think I think about the good stuff and the bad stuff.

I think of the good stuff in the sixties, when the National League was way ahead of the American League at getting past the color barrier, and and they would trot out for an All Star Game Maze, Aaron and Clemente in the outfield with a little Lou Brock.

You know, coming off the bench.

And they had a nice, long winning streak, those years to and then the bad stuff in 1974 when we were about 10 years past what we thought were, and they were big deals the Voting Rights Act, civil rights legislation and all that, and yet the death threats and everything he got because he was going to break Babe Ruth's record and because of the way it overlapped, finishing one year at 7 13.

It was an entire off season of that discussion with Aaron and for him, all those threats and just how pathetic that was.

But how magnificently he handled it all speed.

Yeah, I don't have the connection to baseball history that Clinton does, and I don't have the age to have watched him play.

So my connection to him is essentially being told throughout my lifetime, and being raised with an understanding of this person is not only one of the greatest athletes of all time.

But having done so much beyond that, and I think you guys mentioned the letters and the threats to imagine trying to achieve the greatest accomplishment of your life, at least in sports, while simultaneously fearing for your life because of the weakest and most evil among us.

That's an expectation that so few of us would be able to rise to the way he did and to Clinton's point, because I didn't watch him.

What happens is I hear about all these numbers and these accomplishments, and the one that I saw that maybe stood out the most is for all the home runs we talk about.

If you took away all of his home runs, he would still have over 3000 hits.

And there isn't anybody else in the 500 home run club who can claim that.

And he had 7 55.

You're taking away 7 55 and he has over 3000 hits its mark.

You ate something you'd like to add.

One of the classiest things he ever did was when Barry Bonds broke his record.

He pre recorded a message to tell him congratulations, even though it was controversial at the time in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, where the stadium is named after Hank Aaron, there is his childhood home, which is a museum.

If you ever get the chance, check it out.

You will see some of the most American American amazing American history that we have.

It is American history, and it's American present.

I want to read a quote.

Okay, this is a quote from Hank Aaron.

This is the 20th anniversary of him breaking the record.

So this was in the 19 nineties.

This is the Arthur C Road in The great, Arthur C.

Wrote in The New York Times, was in the Open today.

It really made me see for the first time a clear picture of what this country is about.

My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats.

I had to live like a pig in a slaughter camp.

They carved a piece of my heart away.

So when changing the game and changing the country, the country took the game away from Hank Aaron and that I said before his full story still wasn't told.

We always talk about the home runs It's always said he's a gentle giant, a classy man that's not fair to him.

It's really not.

We never knew what Hank Aaron could be without those incredible attacks and pressures placed upon him.

We just had Martin Luther King Day on Monday.

Alright, What happened?

Martin Luther King.

He was murdered.

His full potential was never reached.

How could we possibly know what Hank Aaron's full potential?

He started in the Negro Leagues.

Major league baseball.

Recognize the Negro Leagues weeks ago?

So when you talk about Hank Aaron, I mean, there is sadness in that.

And to be true to history and our present, we have to keep that conversation going on who he was.

It's the story of America.

Hank Aaron, American hero passing at age 86.