Aaron deserves every accolade, but he also deserves the truth.
A few innings before Major League Baseball honored Henry Aaron at the 2025 All-Star Game I was randomly thinking about who would be on my Mt. Rushmore of baseball players. Jackie Robinson, of course. Babe Ruth. Duh. Henry Aaron. Obviously. And then I had a dilemma. I felt short on pitchers and I love Roberto Clemente more than I can put into words.
Maybe I should have two Mt. Rushmores of baseball. One for hitters and one for pitchers.
I sort of tabled that dilemma in my head as I watched the Midsummer Classic unfold. And what a Midsummer Classic it was. There were great tributes to all parts of Atlanta. There was great baseball. Kyle Tucker flashed some leather and stole one from Pete Crow-Armstrong, for fun. Pete Crow-Armstrong went all philosophical and wise and I truly was just so overjoyed he plays for my favorite team. The game ended in a tie, and former Cub Kyle Schwarber emerged as the MVP and hero going three for three in the home run swing-off, a Schwarbino feat for the ages.
And then the league launched into a tribute to one of the men on my baseball Mt. Rushmore [VIDEO].
Social media fired up their greatest Ooohs and Aaaaahs. It’s a stunning production. The choreography and the technology was outstanding. The multiple mediums used on a dark ball field was cool on TV, but seemed to really hit in person. It was a master class in understanding the resources that you have available and trying to make the most of all of it. It had the production value of a summer blockbuster.
And it obscured an edit that was so egregious and unnecessary we have to talk about it. The legacy of Henry Aaron demands we talk about it. This is the full, historic call from Vin Scully:
To be clear, I think this is Vin Scully’s greatest call. One of my favorite things about this particular moment is that it’s one of the best moments in the long history of baseball. It turned out better than anything that could possibly be scripted. One of baseball’s greatest hitters, as called by baseball’s Poet Laureate, amidst America’s most painful history will deliver the most perfect possible moment:
“What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world,” Scully called.
“A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron, who was met at home plate, not only by every member of the Braves, but by his father and mother.”
Aaron faced vile racism and explicit threats as he got closer to hitting his 715th home run.
For reasons I could guess at but will never truly understand that most perfect moment wound up on the cutting room floor of a technologically awesome tribute that could not have tried harder to be perfect.
We live in a time where artificial intelligence can do everything faster than us, and we’re encouraged to cut corners and get more done. We live in a time of unprecedented information if we’re willing to shortcut our way to it and constant, streaming virality designed to push nuance out of our daily habits.
When Aaron passed away in 2021, MLB Now published this, and I strongly recommend you watch the full 14:43 second video at the top and then compare it to the video tribute the league just sanctioned in Atlanta:
Hank Aaron kept the letters — hundreds of thousands of letters — that he received when chasing Babe Ruth’s home run record and beyond. They were vile letters, angry letters, threatening letters. Letters that revealed, in no uncertain terms, the dirty underbelly of a nation that has left its most fundamental issues of race and equality unresolved.
Aaron, who died Friday at the age of 86, kept those letters to remind himself — and everybody else — that the United States has only progressed to a point, that we still have so far to go.
And yet, even in chronicling the worst of us, Aaron always tried to see the best in us.
Aaron always tried to see the best in us, despite experiencing the worst in us. When we make tributes to him we owe it to him to tell the full history that we know, see and acknowledge, even as we fail to truly understand.
Baseball’s tribute to Henry Aaron on Tuesday night while stunning was misguided at best. It dressed the sordid history he fought his way to baseball immorality through up in the glitziest of lights. It erased the acknowledgement of racism and the pain it caused. We owe Aaron truth in our tributes to him. Don’t be blinded by the lights, be in awe of real greatness.