John Schuerholz on Hank Aaron: “There’s no questions about how he hit his home runs”

Ken Davidoff of the New York Post conducted an interesting Q & A earlier this week with former Braves general manager John Schuerholz. After leading the club to their incredible run of dominance in the National League East from 1991-2005, he was promoted to team president following the 2007 season. And he relishes that role.

..I call myself Obi-Wan Kenobi. When they named me president, I said, “Look, I’ll be over here in the corner, in my office, and if you need some wisdom, come see the old guy and I’ll tell you what I know and what I feel.” And they laugh about that. And we have a great communication system in our organization.

That’s a fun visual. I really hope he wears a brown hooked cloak to the office. Anyway, the real juicy stuff from the chat was when Davidoff questioned Schuerholz about the team’s insistence to refer to Hank Aaron as the “true home run king” even though Barry Bonds passed him on the all-time list.

JS : Listen. If you were in Atlanta and you worked for our organization, you would feel the same way. He’s without dispute, people in baseball would look at him as the guy they say is the quote-unquote real home run champion. There’s no questions about how he hit his home runs.

KD : But he admitted to using amphetamines. He used illegal PEDs, just like Bonds did.

JS : I’m not going to make a big deal out of this. He is for us the real home run champion. It’s our view. He’s our home run king. It’s our opinion. And we honor him for that. And I’m not going to stop saying it about him.

Well, as a Mets fan, it’s my opinion that Rey Ordonez is the true home run king, but I suppose we can agree to disagree there.