Hank Aaron compares Republicans and other Obama opponents to KKK

I am 54. Henry Aaron is the REASON I am a baseball fan. All of the excitement created by Hank Aaron’s pursuit of Ruth in 1973 (remember that he fell one short at the end of 1973) made me love baseball, a love that I still have (although, dear Lord, the people who own AND play the game have really tested the love over the years). I rooted for him. I remember Willie Mays’ last year. I rooted for ballplayers for their great skills. I remember Dwight Gooden’s wicked curve ball, Mariano Rivera’s cutter. Ozzie Smithl’s wizardry at shortstop, Roberto Clemente’s cannon (otherwise known as his right arm). Rickey Henderson on the basepaths, Ichiro Suzuki’s bat control. I am a middle age white guy, and many of my baseball heroes have been non-white. Derek Jeeter, Bernie Williams, I loved a punch hitting centerfielder named Elliot Maddox when I was kid. Aaron always stood for class, but he clearly doesn’t have a clue about what he is talking about here. There are racists in all walks of life, but his anti-Obama take is WAY out of line. I detest Obama because everything does is diametrically opposed to everything I believe in. I would feel the same if he was my twin brother. Someone has put bitter thoughts into the mind of a great 80 year old American. Sad.

It is ABSOLUTELY true. Before [Ruth's] home run hitting became a phenomenon nobody was even keeping count of HRs. They weren’t counted in box scores and weren’t being reported in any meaningful way. They were simply lost to history. He hit MANY that were not accounted for, and the number is easily in the range of 800.

I'm sorry, but that's absolutely untrue.

Baseball has always been a meticulous record-keeper...and has gotten moreso. Project Scoresheet is in the process of reviewing scoresheets and news accounts of every major league game ever played, attempting to fill in what few holes there were in the statistics. For example, while most of today's stats have been in place since WW II, caught stealing and sac flies weren't recorded until the late thirties and late forties, respectively.

But they ALWAYS kept track of HRs.

You may be conflating Ruth's "missing HRs" with rule changes as to what constituted a HR. Nowadays, a fly ball that curls around the foul pole -- clearing the fence in fair territory, yet landing in foul territory -- is considered a HR. But, in Ruth's day, it was not. There was no foul pole -- and where the ball landed determined whether it was fair or foul.

It is thought that Ruth may have hit at least 80 such balls -- ones that would be HRs today, but were foul in his time. That would get you to around the 800 number you're citing.

However, there is a flip side to the story. What we now consider to be a "ground-rule double", a ball that bounces into the stands, was recorded as a HR in Ruth's day. And, near as can be determined, something like 70-80 of his HR were of this variety.

Accordingly, those 714 home runs next to George Herman Ruth's name in the record book is a precise count of the HR he actually hit -- under the scoring rules then in force.

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