With time ticking down before the start of the NFL season, Colin Kaepernick received one of his biggest co-signs on Wednesday, August 23. TV One journalist Roland Martin happened to get a quick sit down with Hank Aaron, and he wasted no time in getting the baseball great's thoughts on the predicament many believe Kaepernick been blackballed into. “I think he’s getting a raw deal," Aaron said.

He reflected on how impressed he's always been about the 29-year-old's raw ability on the field, and couldn't help but wonder aloud about what could be stopping teams from picking him up. He, like the rest of the sporting world, has watched as team-after-team who went into free agency in search for a QB, have passed up on Kaepernick. Ultimately, Aaron doesn't blame the general managers or head coaches for the fact that he remains stranded.

Aaron is one who can shed plenty of light on what it's like to have the weight of racism bearing down on him. He played during a time when teams were still reserving different hotels for black players than they were for white players, out of fear and respect for the ways of some southern towns that were still resonating with Jim Crow laws. And when Aaron was on the bounds of breaking Babe Ruth's home run record, it is well documented that he was the recipient of thousands of death threats. Back then such constraints threatened to stop a black man everywhere he turned. Regarding Kaepernick's blackballing in 2017, that is an issue that is at this point on the hands of team owners Aaron says. And the way he sees it, it wouldn't do anything but help, for players around the league to have his back.

“I’d love to see some other players stand with him. I would love that. I think it would give him some incentive. I think it would help him," Aaron told Martin. "I think the thing that bothers me about this whole situation is the fact that he has gone to all these camps, I suppose, and nobody seems to think he stands a chance of being No. 1. Here’s a man, a young player that almost carried a team to a championship – to the Super Bowl. I remember that.”

Source: ftw.usatoday.com