Aaron Judge 60 Homeruns!

Aaron Judge becomes only the 9th Yankee to hit 60 homeruns in a season!

Noah Amor, Reporter|October 7, 2022

YES Network, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Yankees player Aaron Judge speaking at a press conference

Arturo Pardavila III from Hoboken, NJ, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons — Judge taking batting practice before the All Star Game begun

Last Tuesday, September 20th, Aaron Judge tied legendary Babe Ruth with 60 homeruns in a single season.

The previous MVP is making his case strong for another award by leading the league in multiple categories. 18 homeruns ahead of the second place homerun leader, Judge also leads the league in RBI’s (128) and average (.316.) Looking to make even more history, if he keeps up his performance, Judge could earn himself the Triple Crown Award, an accolade that only 14 people in the entire MLB history have received. There’s also potential that Judge can set a new Yankee record for homeruns in a single season, held by Roger Maris (61.)

The big question surrounding Aaron Judge is his future with the Yankees. This year is his final year on contract with New York, as he’ll enter free agency in 2023. It seems Aaron has chosen to have the best year of his career at the best time! Because of the year he’s having, tensions have risen throughout the league. The question is how large of a contract the slugger will be offered by teams all around, although, the most pressure is being put on the Yankees. Rumors, (some created by Judge himself) have been spreading that he might not want to return to the Bronx come next season.

All-Pro Reels from District of Columbia, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons — Number 99 plays a solid centerfield and recorded many outs this year

UPDATE: Aaron Judge hit his 62nd homerun and set the new single season homerun record for the American League, passing Roger Maris who previously held it at 61. Tuesday, October 4th, Judge hit a towering slam against the Texas Rangers, giving the Yankees an extra boost of offense. Roger Maris’ son Roger E. Maris Jr. said himself that if Judge hits his 62nd then he should be crowned the Homerun King of All Time.

Many names come to mind when people think of homeruns, whether that be Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, or Barry Bonds, but one thing that all those people have in common is that they all used steroids. Because of this, people don’t classify them or their awards as legitimate because they used performance enhancing drugs to do a lot of what they did. It’s not certain that Aaron hasn’t used any type of PED’s, seeing that Fernando Tatis got caught earlier in the year for that exact thing. Tatis was up there with Judge on biggest names/best sellers in the league, but because he was exposed, he has now quickly gone from one of the most loved to the most hated. This is the same situation with the names listed previously, and because Judge has been proven to be clean thus far, his performance is that much more impressive.

Keith Allison from Hanover, MD, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons — Baserunners know better than to run on Judge

How good has Aaron Judge been this year? Here are a few noteworthy stats:

Second fastest player to reach 150 homeruns, the third most homeruns through 60 games in Yankees history, and only the third Yankee with multiple 50 homerun seasons.

All of this makes him worthy to be a Yankee for life, but after this year and how highly he’s valued after this incredible year, it will be a very interesting off season for baseball.