ATLANTA (AP) -Hank Aaron might talk to Barry Bonds about the new home run record.
“Eventually, if I happen to see him somewhere, I’d probably say something to him,” Aaron was quoted as saying on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Web site Thursday night. “To be honest, I’m as happy for him as anybody.”
Aaron was asleep at his home in Atlanta when Bonds hit his 756th home run Tuesday night to break Aaron’s mark.
“It was 1 o’clock in the morning,” Aaron told the newspaper. “Heck, I’m not going to sit up and watch a baseball game. It’s just like I wasn’t going to be able to travel all over the world to watch. It wasn’t being disrespectful or anything. It’s just a matter of, hey, the body needed to go to sleep.”
T Park in San Francisco.
“I’ve gotten a lot of calls saying that was the right thing to do, and these were from people who know a little bit more about this situation than just the average person,” Aaron said.
He heard from many people suggesting what he should do.
“It really got to the point where a lot of people started wanting to give you advice about what you should do, and they didn’t know what the hell the situation was,” Aaron was quoted as saying. “I mean, these were people that you had been knowing for a long time, but they couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t getting involved in this thing. Then they would come forward and say things like, ‘Well, you need to do this. You need to do that.’ They wanted to give you all of this advice, and they didn’t know what was all involved in it, really.
“That’s the thing that really bothers you. Friends that you’ve had a long time are all of a sudden coming forth and telling you things like, ‘Well, I don’t understand why you aren’t making comments, or why aren’t you doing blah, blah, blah?’ Well, you know what? You’re not supposed to understand any of it, because you’re not in it.”
The 73-year-old Hall of Famer avoided ballparks during Bonds’ run to the record.
“I thought things were pretty normal for me at one point after going through what I did,” Aaron told the paper. “Then, all of a sudden, it crops up again with all these questions, and to be honest, I still don’t know how I managed to get thrown into this Bonds thing.
“Oh, I feel tremendously relieved. I’m so glad this is done with, and now I can just go my own way,” Aaron said.
Add A Comment