Henry Louis Aaron took his bat and swung at the sensibilities of the legion of racists who piled on Sherman after the Seattle Seahawks’ All-Pro cornerback’s “aggressive” and emotional post-game interview following his defensive play that helped the Hawks defeat the San Francisco Giants and send them to the Super Bowl. The video of his interview immediately went viral and spawned a cacophony of loud, hateful rhetoric calling for Sherman’s destruction.
Aaron, one of the greatest and classiest baseball athletes of all time, did much to counter the irrational calls to have Sherman muzzled like a dangerous animal with this vote of support:
.@RSherman_25 – hang in there & keep playing as well as you did Sunday. Excellent job – you have my support.
— Hank Aaron (@HenryLouisAaron) January 21, 2014
Sherman, who was taken aback by the vicious backlash for that Sunday post-game tirade of an interview with Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews, was also surprised by the vote of confidence and support from a man like Aaron, who rarely uses Twitter or rarely speaks in public.
@HenryLouisAaron Thank you very much for your support it is greatly appreciated and very humbling
— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) January 21, 2014
Even ESPN’s Rich Eisen was touched by the gesture from Aaron, a universally respected elder statesman of sports:
So cool RT @HenryLouisAaron: .@RSherman_25 – hang in there & keep playing as well as you did Sunday. Excellent job – you have my support.
— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) January 21, 2014
