Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and have celebrated this historic achievement, we can now move on to the business at hand. The business at hand is a country that still wrestles with old demons that haunt and destroy the progress that we have made here in the land of the free, as a country and as a people. For every man that truly took issue with Barry Bonds surpassing the Babe because he thought Barry had an unfair advantage, I have no issues with you.

My issue is only with the man who couldn’t live with a Black hero overtaking his White hero and him using the steroid accusations to cover his true feelings. I hope that this is a small group and I pray that even this group learns to look beyond race and gender and look to the man and the accomplishment. We have such a great country and there is still a lot of work to be done in race relations, and learning to respect and celebrate our diversity. However, let’s not use baseball as a negative platform to further divide a country that is in the middle of a mid-life crisis. We need to use the game as a bridge of harmony and tolerance. Baseball itself is already a great successful melting pot on the field. Let the game influence society and teach it how to prosper and win as a diverse team. All other issues not related to the game itself should be worked out in other venues. The game represents domestic tranquility. Fields of dreams. Summer romances. Graduations and proms. Ice cream and soda. Hot dogs and popcorn. Pennant drives and World Champions.

Barry, we salute you. Well done. Hank Aaron will now receive the respect and honor he earned and America was not ready to give at the time.

The Babe should have never been the issue. He’s not the home run champ. We do owe Babe for all he did to make the game what it is today. Home Run King? That honor belongs to Hank. What was all the fuss about?