When Yankees’ Judge Is at Bat, History Awaits in the Bleachers

As the Yankees stagger through the dog days of August, their early season excellence melting like a scoop of ice cream toppled onto the hot pavement, the story is becoming not how many wins they will garner but how many dingers Aaron Judge will swat. The outsized outfielder — few ballplayers ever have outsripped his 6-foot-7, 280-pound frame — is enjoying a season for the ages, accruing statistics that put him in pursuit of the most accomplished ghosts of seasons past. As of Wednesday, Mr. Judge, who declined a seven-year, $213.5 million pact with the Bronx Bombers before the season began in the hopes of securing even more gelt this winter, has crushed 44 long balls, placing him 10 ahead of the no. 2 masher in the major leagues, Kyle Schwarber of the Philadelphia Phillies.Mr. Judge’s slugging this season has been broad as well as deep, as he leads the sport in runs scored, runs batted in, total bases, and the more esoteric metrics of on-base plus slugging and wins above replacement. It is the home runs, however, that are making his every at bat into appointment television.Those 44 bombs, each one generated with a quiet, seeimingly effortless glide of the bat, have been tallied through 107 games. According to mlb.com, that puts Mr. Judge on pace to hit 64 by season’s end, a total never before matched in Yankee history. Yankee annals have seen home run history before. George Herman “Babe” Ruth broke his own records repeatedly, and his mark of 60 in 1927 would stand for 34 years, until another Yankee, Roger Maris, bested it in 1961, albeit with the benefit of a season elongated by eight games.Maris’s son, Kevin, told TMZ Sports that he had misgivings about Mr. Judge surpassing his father, saying, “I don’t know if anybody likes their record broken at the end of the day.” Mr. Maris did go on to say that he wished Mr. Judge “the best” and acknowledged: “Records are made to be broken at some point.” Roger Maris, a good player and humble man, was no Ruth, and suffered the stress of surpassing a hallowed record and beloved icon. Images from the stretch run of that season show his hair falling out. When Henry “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron, a Black man, pulled abreast of the Babe’s career record over the 1973 and 1974 seasons, he faced torrents of abuse.Mr. Judge is ahead of the paces of both Maris and Ruth, but trails that of the current record holder, Barry Bonds, who in 2001 struck an almost unimaginable 73. Mr. Bonds broke the mark of 70 set by Mark McGwire three years earlier. Also living in that statistical stratosphere is Sammy Sosa, who toward the end of the last century hit reams of long balls for the Chicago Cubs. Aside from Mr. Judge, Maris, and Ruth, all the names in the previous paragraph have been rendered persona non grata in baseball circles. Their numbers are still on the books, but you won’t see them hobnobbing with the game’s grandees or enshrined in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. The achievements of Messrs. Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, and numerous others who strode across the diamond like so many colossi have been tainted by association with steroids, which coursed through the game, inflating biceps and sending balls screaming into the farthest reaches of stadiums. Mr. Judge has not been tarred by that brush. His achievement is as yet pure, his chase of history aided only by his own grit and skill. If he keeps it up, more of the nation will be swiveling its attention to the Bronx. Pitchers will grow more cautious around him, fatigue bolder in its impositions. He will have to do the incredible, regularly. One watcher of Mr. Judge’s prowess will no doubt be baseball’s richest owner, Steven Cohen, who happens to own the crosstown Mets. We wonder whether Mr. Cohen will give a thought to how Mr. Judge would look not in pinstripes, but in blue and orange, dispatching baseballs into the Flushing night.

When Yankees’ Judge Is at Bat, History Awaits in the Bleachers

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