Aaron, who is black ...

From an AP story on Jason Heyward:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jFrnprozA7DmwJvKsK6EAHhSHzJgD9GTGOAG0

Is there anyone in America who doesn't know that Hank Aaron is black? And if AP style insists on the clarification, can't you think of a less-clunky way to include that information?

Something like: "Heyward's breakthrough reminds Aaron of the 1950s, when he and other young black stars began to dominate the game."

But in this case, the writer was just lazy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

 

Yes, there are undoubtedly people who don't realize he is black. And there is nothing wrong or lazy with that AP story's sentence construction.

 

Your version is most certainly better.

But Aaron is hoping for something that isn't going to happen. Baseball is too much like soccer in America: whereas it's a poor man's game in every other country, it's a rich man's game here. Unless you've got the thousands of dollars a summer to spend on travel ball, one-on-one instruction and elite camps (which is where all the college scouts are anyway), you've got little chance of making it.

If Ken Griffey Jr. couldn't start a resurgence of black talent in Major League Baseball, Jason Heyward isn't going to do it either. And I say that as an unabashed Braves fanboi.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1066682/2/index.htm

On a recent episode of Jeopardy, the quiz show on which contestants must supply the questions to answers, the category was Jews in Sports, and the answer was "This pitcher was the youngest player ever voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame." The contestant's response was, "Who was Hank Aaron?"

Wrong. As host Alex Trebek pointed out, "I'm sorry, but Hank Aaron was not a pitcher."

 

So THAT'S what Jeopardy is about! Now the Weird Al song makes sense!

 

Given the story's premise, and how late this sentence appears in it, it seems a perfectly reasonable identifier.

 

So if we need many, many more Jason Heywards, which players do we need much less of?

 

David Eckstein.

 

Oh boy, disagree. Snabler was spot-on.

 

You're taught not to assume that EVERYONE knows what you are writing about. I don't have a problem with it, per se.

 

I would have used a little more indirect qualifier: "Aaron, one of the first black superstars in the National League ..."

 

reminds me of that legendary AP cutline ... the Pope who got shot was photographed years later forgiving the man who shot him, and the AP shot showed the Pope standing there with this broken man cowering on his knees next to him ... "Pope John Paul II, left, meets Ali Mehtma Agca...."

left?

some things we just don't need to say

including Henry Aaron is Black