Maybe he’s done it by now.
But even if he hasn’t, there is no reason to think he won’t do it.
By the time you read this, Aaron Judge may have broken the all time major league home run record.
But even if he hasn’t, he will.
Judge is on the brink of breaking Roger Maris’ single-season home run mark of 61, established 61 years ago.
Wait a minute, you might say.
What about Barry Bonds, who hit 73 homers in 2001?
How about Mark McGwire’s 70 in 1998?
We’re not done.
Sammy Sosa, not only belted 66 round-trippers that same year, but hit 64 the year Bonds presumably set the all-time mark.
Sosa also slammed 63 homers in 1999.
Let’s get back to McGwire, who had 65, also in ‘99.
You may be getting the idea by now.
Look at those guys who obliterated Maris’s 61 homers, and look at the years they did it.
1998-2001.
For folks who are late to the party, that was in baseball’s steroid era.
Performance enhancing drugs.
It all looks so impressive.
But it’s empty.
That’s why the season Aaron Judge is having is so much more legitimate and rewarding. Not only is he more than 20 homers ahead of the man in second place, he is also on the verge of winning the Triple Crown.
Those are the three big batting categories.
Batting average, home runs, and runs batted in.
In 2012, Detroit Tigers All-Star Miguel Cabrera won the American League Triple Crown, the first to accomplish that feat in either league in 45 years.
Prior to that, the last to do it was Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox in 1967.
The Orioles’ Frank Robinson led in all three batting categories the year before.
So Aaron Judge has been more than merely a home run hitter.
Still, the attention is focused on that record since there has been so much magic attached to it.
Babe Ruth set the standard with 60 home runs in 1927, and that stood till Roger Maris topped it with his 61 in 1961.
The Babe’s mark lasted 34 years. Roger’s record has gone nearly double the time.
It’s almost humorous the way the fans and media have been waiting around for Judge to finally smash the all-time record. As if the baseball world has been a bit impatient waiting for the moment to happen.
Easy for us to wait and watch.
Not so easy for the player to hit one out of the park.
The closer he’s gotten, the tougher it’s been.
Don’t think, for one minute, there hasn’t been pressure building.
For one thing, his wife and parents have been on hand, every game, doing what we all have been doing.
Then there is the matter of the pitcher who is trying to get him out.
I really believe there is no intent by opposing pitchers to simply walk Aaron Judge, let him take his base, and avoid throwing becoming the hurler everyone will remember for throwing that one pitch.
But not giving him good pitches to hit is exactly what they have been doing.
Judge has been hitting in the lead-off position for the Yankees so he’s been getting more at-bats.
Normally, he would be in the heart of the lineup. Batting 3rd or 4th.
Fortunately, for the Yankees, they are no longer under the same tension they were when a 15 1/2 game lead dwindled dramatically to 3 1/2 games.
The Yanks steadied the ship and are headed for the AL East crown.
I remember living through the ‘61 season when Roger Maris was challenging the great Babe Ruth.
That year, both Maris, and legendary Mickey Mantle were head-to-head in the home run chase.
Yankee fans were pulling for Mantle, the fair-haired, home grown star to set the record over Maris, who had been acquired in a trade with Kansas City the year before and was showing the stress of the day-to-day build-up.
Maris hit 3d in the lineup, and Mantle 4th, in the cleanup spot.
Thus, with the great #7 in the on-deck-circle, pitchers were reluctant to walk Roger, and put him on base with Mantle striding to the plate.
In other words, Maris got better pitches to hit.
Mantle wound up with 54 homers. They knocked it out of the park in the same game 14 times, and on 10 occasions, Maris and Mantle hit back-to-back home runs.
They were called the M&M boys and every game became the headline of the day.
I believe it was tougher then on Roger Maris than it’s been for Aaron Judge today.
I know there is so much more media these days, including the social kind. (What a misnomer that is!)
Add to that the flux of television and radio sports talk shows and there is so much more attention.
But I feel this way. Maris had to face 30 or more writers every single day who fired the same questions at him. There was no escape.
There weren’t any planned news briefings with space between a podium and the masses. The reporters were in the clubhouse, in the dugout, before and after games and Maris, from the upper Midwest, was not accustomed to the intense spotlight of playing for the Yankees in the city of New York.
Aaron Judge is from Northern California, and I feel today’s athlete grows up faster than those 60 years ago, and are better prepared to deal with the culture we see now.
It still isn’t easy, and to Aaron Judge’s credit, he is a mature, solid individual who is foremost a team player. He is not a showboat, doesn’t act like the star of the team, and would rather not talk about himself.
He is 30 years old, stands 6’7’’ and appears to be a model player and person.
His contract is up after the season, and the Yankees know they will have to pay an incredible amount to keep him.
Judge has given no indication he wants to play elsewhere, so I believe he will remain with the Yankees.
Aaron Judge is not the only great baseball performer with impeccable character to be saluted this week.
The other, is Albert Pujols who hit the 700th home run of his marvelous 22-year career, joining an exclusive club now numbering only four, Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth.
Pujols struck his 699th and 700th in consecutive innings for the Cardinals against the Dodgers in LA.
It’s the second tour of duty with the Redbirds for Pujols who played the first 11-years of his career in St.Louis.
Instead of recounting his greatness as a major leaguer, which our readers can look up, I’d prefer to discuss Albert Pujols, the man.
Barry Weinberg, was the head athletic trainer for all of Pujols’ seasons with the Cardinals.
A team’s trainer gets to see a player behind the scenes.
He sees him away from the batting cage and the dugout.
Weinberg described Albert Pujols as a one-off-a-kind talent who used it to help make others better.
He would not be satisfied if he went 4-4 in a game and the Cardinals lost.
And while he might still not be satisfied going hitless in a game, if the team won, he was pleased.
He would stand on the top step of the dugout to congratulate a teammate for something, rather than sit at the end of the bench waiting for his next time at the plate.
He would arrange trips to his native Dominican Republic with Physicians to aid his fellow countrymen.
He would be the first to encourage a slumping teammate with private talks.
He is a superstar who has cared.
When Pujols hit his 697th home run in Pittsburgh, the couple, Matt and Samantha Brown, who caught the baseball tried to return it to him after the game.
Samantha Brown told Pujols that her father had passed away exactly a year ago.
Pujols told the couple to keep the ball and signed two more on top of it.
Albert Pujols will retire after the season ends.
Aaron Judge has a lot more baseball in him.
They have, at least, two things in common.
They are record-breaking home run hitters.
And they are both men of character.