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What no one could have sensed at the moment, least of all Judge, was that the 2022 Bombers had already played their best baseball. The Yanks’ high-water mark was achieved on July 8 in Boston, when Josh Donaldson and Matt Carpenter homered to power a 12–5 victory, an old-fashioned, molasses-paced Fenway Park slugfest.
“The first half of the season, they were phenomenal,” said Hal Steinbrenner. “We had starting pitching, bullpen, offense, leading the league in numerous categories. What I saw in that first half, we just had a really good, well-rounded team—and it was a team. This was a team that never thought they could lose a game. It didn’t matter if they were down ten runs. I saw that in this team, more so than any in a while. That’s a powerful thing, when they believe that.”
The Yankees’ lead in the American League East swelled to 15 ½ games with that July 8 win, which prompted manager Aaron Boone to proudly proclaim that his team seemed “better in every way” than the vanquished squad that entered its winter of discontent 275 days earlier. That night, having lost a Wild Card game in Fenway’s ancient red-brick corridors, Boone had said in a pindrop-silent visiting clubhouse that the league had “closed the gap” on them.
There was little concern when the Yankees split a four-game series with the Red Sox, though it did seem curious when the last-place Cincinnati Reds took two of three games at Yankee Stadium. In the moment, though, it was viewed as little more than a blip. Baseball games aren’t played on paper, but if they were, that would’ve been a series you’d pencil in as a win for the home team—the mighty Yankees against an unremarkable Reds club, which was already preparing to trade away its best pitcher in ace right-hander Luis Castillo. By any measure, Castillo aced his Bronx audition, holding the potent Yanks to a run and two hits over seven innings—an outing that made the Bombers, and their fans, salivate over what could be.
Said Judge of Castillo: “When you’ve got 100 [mph] and you’re painting the corners, it’s going to make for a tough day.” General manager Brian Cashman frequently called starting pitching the “key to the kingdom,” and he knew his club could use help, especially on a day when Luis Severino landed on the injured list with a right lat strain.
It was no easy sale to convince Severino to submit to an MRI examination; Severino experienced extreme claustrophobia and detested visits to that confined tube, but his subconscious interest in self-preservation had been telling him to hold back with his fastball. He’d been able to talk his way out of the machine before; not this time. To his chagrin, Severino wouldn’t pitch again in the majors until September.
“I was not happy,” said Severino. “I was not expecting that. But if that’s the plan they have for me to come back healthy, you have to just follow that plan and work hard to come back.”
HOMER #31: July 14 vs. Cincinnati Reds’ Jeff Hoffman (8th inning, solo)
Exit velocity: 112.0 mph. Distance: 435 feet. Launch angle: 23 degrees. HR in 28 of 30 MLB parks.
The Yankees trailed by three runs as Judge came to the plate in the series finale against the Reds, facing Jeff Hoffman, a twenty-nine-year-old from upstate Latham, New York. A veteran of seven big-league seasons with the Colorado Rockies and Cincinnati, Hoffman was certainly a more welcome sight than the electric Castillo, whose talents would fuel a prospect-rich bidding war in just a few weeks.
Facing Hoffman, who liked to mix changeups and sliders with a fastball that clocked in the low-to-mid 90s, Judge saw two balls and a strike before the righty pumped a dead-red heater over the plate. Judge crushed it, pelting a red Toyota advertisement that overlooked the Yanks’ bullpen in right field. The drive sparked a three-run inning as the Yanks tied the game, only to have late relief struggles spell their fall in ten innings; just their fourth series defeat of the season.
As Judge met the media in the clubhouse, a classic Bob Marley track blasted over the stereo system. Normally, the clubhouse was kept silent after a loss, limited to hushed mumbling and the occasional clink of forks against plates. This time, Marley’s 1977 hit “Three Little Birds” seemingly had a message for the players: “Don’t worry about a thing / ’Cause every little thing is gonna be all right.”
“I liked our chances going into extra innings, especially with how our team handles big situations like that,” Judge said. “We had an opportunity to win the game, but we just fell a little short. The Reds battled their butts off this whole series. We went back and forth, but couldn’t pull that one out.”
Marley’s comforting reggaeton was only a momentary salve. There would be more frustration on deck; the Yanks flushed a winnable series opener against the Red Sox, in which Boone was again ejected after arguing pitches out of the strike zone called on Judge. As he exited, Boone whipped his gum toward the grass, a sidearm motion borrowed from his days patrolling third base. His players soon experienced similar anguish when Xander Bogaerts dashed home on a Michael King wild pitch.
Now the sound system was silenced, except for Trevino striking a glass-half-full note, opining: “A little adversity never hurts anybody. I think we’ll be fine.”
HOMER #32: July 16 vs. Boston Red Sox’s Nick Pivetta (5th inning, solo)
Exit velocity: 102.6 mph. Distance: 401 feet. Launch angle: 26 degrees. HR in 30 of 30 MLB parks.
HOMER #33: July 16 vs. Boston Red Sox’s Kaleb Ort (6th inning, two-run)
Exit velocity: 108.5 mph. Distance: 444 feet. Launch angle: 26 degrees. HR in 30 of 30 MLB parks.
At least the Carpenter and Judge show continued to roll. After Boston took the series opener, New York scored three first-inning runs off left-hander Chris Sale, who exited after a line drive fractured the pinkie finger of his pitching hand. Cole said that the Yankees “felt really bad about” Sale’s injury, noting the former ace’s efforts to return after missing most of the last two seasons due to Tommy John surgery. With the Red Sox tossing an unexpected bullpen game, the Yanks erupted for eight runs in the fourth inning, sending twelve men to the plate.
Carpenter received an emotional curtain call after clearing the right-field wall with a three-run homer off Nick Pivetta, then another three-run shot in the fifth off Darwinzon Hernandez. Already a cult hero in the Bronx who could find his mustachioed likeness on T-shirts—the best was one that depicted him and Cortes as Yankees versions of Nintendo’s Mario and Luigi, the “Super ’Stache Bros.”—Carpenter had belted thirteen long balls since the day he volunteered to help load bags on the team plane. Judge said that he was not surprised.
“Once I saw the way he worked, the way he prepared, I knew he was going to do something special with us,” Judge said. “From his presence to the way he talks to younger guys, the way he just fit in from Day 1, there was no awkward period. He bought into our process.”
Judge’s mindset remained simple—to hunt strikes, and hit them hard. He teed off on a Nick Pivetta slider in the fifth inning, prompting the righty to drop to a knee on the mound as the ball sailed toward the left-field seats. Kaleb Ort tried almost the same pitch in the sixth against Judge, and the result was nearly identical; Ort stood with his hands by his hips, tracking the drive as it rattled into the Boston bullpen.
“I threw a first pitch slider to try to get ahead,” Ort said. “I threw it right down the middle and he hit it over 400 feet. He’s clearly locked in.”
Three Red Sox sat nearby; not one moved as the ball struck an advertisement for Lotte Hotels, falling near the warm-up mounds. Only one Yankee had ever hit 33 homers before an All-Star break: Roger Maris, in 1961. Now there were two.
“There’s some guys you watch where it’s like, ‘Man, this guy is just on it right now,’ ” said Clay Holmes. “Toward the midway point of the year, we were starting to look at the pace he was on, and it was like, ‘Yeah, [62] is definitely attainable.’ ”
It was around this time that hitting coach Dillon Lawson sidled up to Judge near the bat rack; Lawson can’t pinpoint the exact date or opponent, but he said the Yankees were winning big at home, which makes this 14–1 rout of Boston a solid educated guess. “I was just thinking about my kids, telling him, ‘I’ll be gone, my kids will be gone, and if they have kids—their kids will know you and talk about you like people talk about Maris and Mantle and DiMaggio and Ruth and Gehrig. It’s crazy and amazing to think about.’ ”
Lawson described walking through the hallways underneath Yankee Stadium, where black-and-white photos appear primed to return to life, like the scene of a cigar-chomping Babe Ruth exiting a boy’s closet in The Sandlot. In return, Judge had offered a sheepish, humble smile.
“You know how he is,” Lawson said. “It was a very short remark back. But he’s thankful, and he appreciates that. He’s not ever going to tell you if he agrees with that. I think he goes there, definitely, behind closed doors.”
Boone planned to spend the break vacationing with his family in the Hamptons, mentioning several times how he looked forward to holding a spatula and donning board shorts. His club was not off duty yet. A 13–2 rout of the Red Sox sealed the Yankees’ sixty-fourth victory, establishing a new club record for victories before the Midsummer Classic. Yet that alone was no guarantee of greater things. Since baseball integrated in 1947, six big-league teams had won 64 of their first 92 games, with the 2022 Yankees joining the 1954 Indians (64-28), 1969 Orioles (64-28), 1970 Reds (64-28), 1998 Yankees (68-24), and 2001 Mariners (66-26). Only one of those clubs—the ’98 Yanks—hoisted the World Series trophy at the year’s end.
“It’s pretty big; it’s pretty cool,” Cole said, “but we have bigger goals. We have a lot more baseball to play, so we’re trying to keep it in perspective, in that regard.”
As ESPN prepared to air the first installment of Derek Jeter’s The Captain, a seven-part documentary offering a behind-the-scenes look at the Hall of Famer’s career, a chartered jet delivered Judge and his teammates across the country to Los Angeles. Somewhere over a flyover state, Judge predicted to his fellow passengers that Stanton would “definitely” hit a home run in the All-Star Game. They were spectators for a winning Home Run Derby performance by wunderkind Juan Soto—then of the Washington Nationals, but not for much longer.
Soto had recently rejected a monstrous fifteen-year, $440 million extension from Washington, and the Nats were weeks away from trading the twenty-two-year-old outfielder to the San Diego Padres. Judge had a few nuggets of advice for Soto, telling him to “focus on the game” and allow his agents to handle the big-money decisions to “help set up his family, grandkids, future kids down the road.” His remarks to Soto represented a rare in-season window into Judge’s considerations and process, with his own yet-to-be-negotiated contract percolating on the back burner.
Judge was more interested in discussing Soto’s on-field talent. He could appreciate the slugger’s efforts in besting Julio Rodriguez, the impressive Seattle Mariners outfielder and the eventual Rookie of the Year. Judge’s 2017 Derby performance at Miami’s Marlins Park was not easily forgotten; it had been so memorable, Judge insisted that he was probably a one-and-done in the home run hitting competition.
With his Derby calendar thus clear, Judge exuded Golden State cool as he walked a red carpet at the L.A. Live entertainment complex downtown, Major League Baseball’s chosen venue to lean into Hollywood glitz and glamour. Clutching his wife Samantha’s right hand and sporting black sunglasses, Judge offered photographers two fingers for a peace sign, outfitted in a tan double-breasted blazer over a white T-shirt with white pants and white sneakers. The shutterbugs clamored as Judge received the full movie star treatment. He was having fun, but he also felt as though he hadn’t achieved anything yet.
“The minute I’m satisfied, or the minute I sit back and reflect on how far I’ve come, that’s when you get complacent,” Judge said. “I certainly don’t want that to happen. There’s a long way to go. I don’t sit around in a comfortable chair thinking about the 33 home runs I’ve hit so far. You really have to stay focused on the immediate future, and that’s what I’m doing.”
* * *
It was a sunbaked eighty-seven degrees at three o’clock in the afternoon as Judge and Giancarlo Stanton advanced toward the batting cage, representing the first Yankees outfield duo to start an All-Star Game since Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield in 1988.
By coincidence, Winfield was on the infield grass observing the festivities, and Judge told him with a wink: “We had our own little Home Run Derby during batting practice.”
The Hall of Fame outfielder asked who had won. Now Judge offered that megawatt grin.
“Stanton,” he said. “He did what he’s been doing the whole season, just hitting clutch home runs.”
It was a precursor of what was to come later that day. The All-Star Game represented a homecoming for Stanton, who grew up in the Tujunga area of Los Angeles, a three-sport athlete at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California. His living room hadn’t been far from Dodger Stadium—though, as Stanton recalled with a chuckle, “I’m like 30 minutes with no traffic, but we all know L.A. That’s two hours.”
He’d once dreamed of wearing Dodger blue, envisioning himself plying his trade in front of one of the sport’s most picturesque backdrops, the palm trees and assorted flora of the Elysian Hills and San Gabriel Mountains overlooking decades of standout performances. A young Stanton counted Raul Mondesi, Mike Piazza, and Hideo Nomo among his favorite players, and he’d once called the ballpark “the place that made me love baseball.”
The legendary Vin Scully voiced much of Stanton’s summer soundtrack, and he’d frequently try to come to games when Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and other great sluggers were in town—players that Stanton referred to as the “big bops.” Sometimes, Stanton would wait in the parking lot until a few innings had been played, scoring discounts from scalpers so he could see the stars’ last two at-bats.
Around age ten, Stanton had spent a particularly busy batting-practice session chasing those big bops’ deep drives into the gold and blue bleachers when he told his father, Mike, “I’m going to hit one completely out of this stadium.” Stanton had hit about four over-the-fence home runs in Little League to that point, and Dad laughed, replying, “Now that would be something.”
“Kids say some wild things,” Stanton said, “but I was dead serious. I thought about it every time I’d go there after that.”
Only three players had slugged homers completely out of Dodger Stadium; the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Willie Stargell in 1965, Piazza in 1997, and McGwire in 1999. Stanton would become the fourth, though it didn’t happen quite as he’d intended.
George Genovese, a legendary Southern California–area scout, invited Stanton to show off his still-developing power in a predraft workout at Dodger Stadium. Genovese pushed hard for Stanton, urging Los Angeles to select him in the 2007 draft. The Dodgers passed on Stanton twice, using their first picks on pitchers Chris Withrow and James Adkins—neither of whom made much of an impact. Stanton, taken seventy-sixth overall by the Marlins, made his mark.
In 2015, a few months after committing to the thirteen-year, $325 million contract that was expected to keep him wearing the orange, black, blue, and red of the Miami Marlins forever, Stanton made good on his promise. Facing the Dodgers’ Mike Bolsinger, Stanton tattooed a ball over the left-field pavilion and into the Chavez Ravine parking lot—a blast so prodigious that left fielder Scott Van Slyke didn’t bother to turn around.
“Where was I going to go, try and catch it?” Van Slyke asked.
Childhood fantasies rushed back every time Stanton set foot in Dodger Stadium, especially while he patrolled left field as an All-Star Game starter.
“This brings back so many memories,” Stanton said. “I just keep looking into the stands, and I see fathers sitting there with their sons. That brings me all the way back to when I was sitting out there with my dad. Being on the field today, it’s all in reverse.”
* * *
Judge, Stanton, and Cole had all experienced multiple All-Star Games, and the decorated trio relished seeing Cortes, Holmes, and Trevino savor their first trips to the Midsummer Classic.
A hidden camera installed on Boone’s desk had captured the players’ reactions as they were summoned, one by one, to the manager’s office at Fenway Park a week prior. Boone relished each of those faux interviews, but took special delight in relaying the news of Cortes’s All-Star selection. That spring, a conversation occurred between Boone and Cortes in the clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field, where Cortes asked for a temperature check on his chances of heading north with the club. Boone was caught off guard.
“Nestor,” the manager said, “you’re in the All-Star Game this year.”
Cortes had chuckled, but he didn’t believe it. Boone’s prediction seemed more attainable when the mustachioed throwback delivered dollar-store ERAs early in the season: 1.50 through ten starts, 1.94 through twelve, and 2.74 as he sank into the well-worn leather couch parked underneath a vintage Fenway photo, dressed in an NBA-style sweatsuit with an interlocking “NY” over the left breast.
“Do you remember the conversation we had at your locker in spring training?” Boone asked.
Cortes nodded, a grin leaking across his face. He knew what this chat was about.
“You said,” Cortes replied, “that I would be an All-Star this year.”
Now Boone was nodding, leaning back in a leather recliner.
“Well, you’ve got to let all of Hialeah know,” Boone said. “They’ve got to go to L.A. The legend of Nestor Cortes moves on to Hollywood. We’ve got bigger fish to fry, brother, but it’s time to go celebrate what you deserve and earned.”
It had been only a few months since Cortes had reached out to pitching coach Matt Blake, asking about his place on the roster by saying, “Am I on the inside looking out? Or am I on the outside looking in?” Blake had laughed, then realized that Cortes was serious. Despite holding opponents to a 2.90 ERA across ninety-three innings in 2021, it would perpetually be 2018 in the lefty’s mind, when Cortes had made his big-league debut with four appearances for the cellar-dwelling Baltimore Orioles.
