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When Gaston’s playing career was over, before he won his two World Series in Toronto, Aaron offered him a job in the Atlanta organization, working with Aaron, never for him as Cito said. That’s the way it was with Aaron. He didn’t talk at you, he talked to you. Everything he did and everything he said seemed to deeply matter for a baseball man like Gaston, who has grown up in segregated Texas, faced his own racism daily, his own personal challenges.
When Aaron retired as the home run champion, having lived through the horrible personal racist attacks of his life in baseball and of his chase of Ruth’s record, he led all of baseball in not just home runs, but RBIs, total bases, games played, at bats. Just about everything you could lead in for a quiet man of such dignity and supreme talent.
There are only a few true icons of the sports world: Muhammad Ali was one. Jackie Robinson was one. The Babe was one. Michael Jordan was one. Henry Aaron was one. And he was a cherished friend with Cito Gaston, for life, right to the end.
THIS AND THAT
Mike Babcock’s next job should be university professor: He could teach revisionist history. Babcock peddled a bunch of truths and half-truths to TSN’s Pierre Lebrun in an exclusive interview the other day. If this was written as a book, it would have to be termed fiction instead of non-fiction. And, really, Babcock has to give up on the ‘I’m a mental health advocate’ platform when there would be a long list of former players who would gladly disagree with that claim. The Marner family was so upset about Babcock’s treatment of Mitch — and aren’t happy with Babcock peddling the all-is-well mantra — that, if you go back, Marner’s father refused to go on the dad’s trip one season with the Leafs. The reason: He didn’t want a thing to do with the coach. And that kind of behaviour is pretty rare … Babcock begins with NBC on Sunday, who also added former Leaf Dominic Moore to their panel for this NHL season. When Moore played for Babcock, or better yet, didn’t play for Babcock, he had little use for the coach. Now they’re teammates on NBC … Speaking of NBC, this is the last season for NBCSN, which is the American network that dominates NHL coverage in the U.S. And does it extraordinarily well. Now, it’s disappearing and the NHL broadcast contract is up in the States. The NHL needs to find a way to get back on ESPN, not just for games but to get more notice on the largest sporting platform in the world.
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2021-01-24 00:05:00Z
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