When Babe Ruth managed the impossible and the incredible, hitting 60 home runs for the first time in history, almost 100 years ago, the closest rival on the home run list was his teammate, the great Lou Gehrig, who ended up finishing with 47.
When Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961, in that pressure-packed season which is now best represented in movie greatness by the film ‘61, he finished seven home runs ahead of his beloved teammate Mickey Mantle.
Aaron Judge had a 23 home run lead over everyone else in baseball heading into games on Thursday night. Beginning Friday, there are 13 games left to play. There are no Yankees pushing him the way Ruth was pushed, the Maris was pushed: When you think home runs and baseball and you remove the stench of the steroid era, we are left with only Yankees.
Babe Ruth. Roger Maris. And now the eventual champion without a championship belt – the unofficial official home run leader of all time when Judge gets to 62, almost poetically this weekend in Boston. The leader in this era without performance-enhancing drugs. This has been a solo show for an up-and-down Yankees team that has led the American League East just about every day of the season and Judge has led in home runs, basically from start to finish.
Watching Vladimir Guerrero Jr. just about every day of last season, I thought it was the single greatest offensive performance I’ve seen from any Blue Jays player. I thought, in a way, we were all witnessing a kind of history and a new beginning. But here is Judge, in the outfield every night, leading the American League in home runs and runs scored and RBI and walks.
He has 60 home runs heading to Boston, 12 more than Guerrero hit last year. He has 128 RBI, 17 more than Guerrero. He has a higher batting average, more walks, a higher on-base percentage, larger numbers in slugging and OPS, and just about every other fancy offensive statistic you want to consider.
And now, with two weeks left in the season, there is something else to consider. The Triple Crown. That didn’t seem to be much of a factor a few weeks ago. And in today’s world, the Triple Crown may not mean as much as it once did, but for someone my age, who grew up with Frank Robinson winning in 1966 and Carl Yastrzemski winning one year later, and nobody after that for 45 years, the Triple Crown meant everything to this kid.
It means something extra special if Judge can get through the next two weeks and wind up ahead of Xander Bogaerts and Luis Arraez in hitting. That would be the fourth Triple Crown of my life, the last one belonging to Miguel Cabrera.
Cabrera hit 44 home runs in 2012. It was special the way all these accomplishments are special: it just didn’t feel like this feels with Judge. Like we’re witnessing something we’ve never seen before. Like O.J. Simpson rushing for 2,000 yards before he became a criminal. Like Wayne Gretzky scoring 92 goals.
Like Wilt Chamberlain averaging 50.4 points a game in the NBA, which I never saw: I was five years old at the time.
I was fortunate in 1998 to be assigned to the final weekend in St. Louis when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were in different ballparks chasing home run records against each other in a season later spoiled by circumstance.
“You don’t dream 70,’’ McGwire said, somewhat numbed by the accomplishment then, the rest of us ignorant or naive about what it took to reach that number. “I amaze myself, yeah. I am absolutely exhausted. I stayed in that tunnel (concentrating) for so long. I kept the focus.
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“After I hit 62, everybody said, ‘Shoot for 70.’ I never thought about it. I never dreamt about it. Hitting 70? I don’t even know what to say.’’
We know what to say now: The six largest home run seasons in big league history are all tainted by steroids. Sosa hit 63, 64, and 66 in a four-year period. He barely gets Hall of Fame mention these days. Barry Bonds hit 73 in the largest offensive season in history, if you don’t care that his hat size grew exponentially in his big league years. McGwire hit 70 and followed it up with 65 before later admitting to what he consuming.
Maybe we’re still ignorant or naive or both but there is no evidence of any drug usage here. Judge came to the big leagues late, a giant of a man at 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds, who hit 52 home runs in his first full big league season at the age of 25. He’s been nowhere near that number again until now, with too many injuries and too many games lost in recent years. This season, he’s played 121 games in the outfield, 21 at DH, out there contributing just about every day.
And the record will be his no matter what the fake numbers say. He will be the home run champion without a syringe. Tied with Roger Maris heading to Thursday night. On his way to a place he’s never known before, a place we’ve never seen before.
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