As someone who has always looked first at the sports page each morning, 44 is not a new number to respect. 44 was Hank Aaron, who, in my opinion, faced a lot more difficulty and pressure in his quest to break Babe Ruth's record, than Barack Obama faced in his two year quest for the White House. The media served up softballs for candidate Obama, which was certainly not Aaron's experience when he came to bat. Obama has had more good fortune politically than any one politician deserves, starting with the collapse of his opponents in his US Senate race in 2004. But I give Obama credit for taking advantage of the opportunity afforded him the last two years- a billion dollars to campaign with, a fawning media, a huge desire for change in the electorate, and a financial crisis that hit seven weeks before the election. He ran a campaign that was disciplined, and stayed on message, and effectively used the paid staff and volunteers who worked for him in key states. Now the hard part starts. The stock market, which bets on futures, is not buying what Obama is so far selling. Today the market is down over 5%, and cratering into the close. . It is down over 10% since Obama's election on November 4th. There is another run on the big banks- this time Bank of America and Citicorp. To use an analogy of another 44, hall of famer Willie McCovey, to believe that Obama can accomplish a large fraction of what he laid out in his Inaugural Address today, would be a stretch.