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“I recognize how good of a hitter he is,” Scherzer said. “He can hit me. I’m not going to sit here and act like I’m better than him. He can definitely take me deep. I also believe I have the stuff to get him out.”
Scherzer started Judge with a fastball that sailed low and away for a ball, backhanded by catcher James McCann. Scherzer went into his deep windup again, hands over his head as his left leg pumped high, dotting the bottom of the zone with another heater for a called strike. Now Judge’s mind was racing, trying to stay ahead of Scherzer and McCann. Scherzer had a slider, changeup, cutter, and curveball in his arsenal, making it impossible to be confident in a guess. Judge decided to stay geared for the fastball, and Scherzer grooved one right over the plate.
Judge powered it to right field, and as Starling Marte charged toward the wall, Scherzer stood at the front of the mound with his hands on his hips. The odds had all been in Scherzer’s favor; Judge was 2-for-11 with seven strikeouts against Scherzer lifetime, and battling a 4-for-32 slump, not having homered in nine games. But there was no way the stadium would hold this one, the ball landing about five rows in front of the Judge’s Chambers.
“That’s one of the reasons why I love this game, that little chess match you get to play,” Judge said after the Yanks’ 4–2 win. “To have a future Hall of Famer that you get to do that with, it’s electric. You’ve got the crowd on your feet for every pitch right along with you. It’s fun. I’ll look back on moments like that.”
HOMER #48: August 23 vs. New York Mets’ Taijuan Walker (4th inning, solo)
Exit velocity: 115.9 mph. Distance: 453 feet. Launch angle: 26 degrees. HR in 30 of 30 MLB parks.
Judge’s second homer in as many games sparked the attack against Taijuan Walker, who once again landed on the wrong side of a showdown between players who favored uniform No. 99. Working the count full, Judge pounced on a 94.7 mph sinker and drove it deep to the back of Yankee Stadium’s left-field bleachers, rounding the bases with a skyward point as an air-raid siren played over the speakers. The Yanks held on for a 4–2 win and a Subway sweep, riding a bullpen high-wire act with Clarke Schmidt pushed to a season-high sixty pitches before Wandy Peralta extinguished a bases-loaded jam by inducing a Francisco Lindor flyout.
“That,” Judge said, “was as close to a playoff atmosphere as you’re going to get.”
Indeed, it did seem like they might have reached a turning point, providing a pleasant journey back to the West Coast, especially when Giancarlo Stanton returned from the injured list to help the Yankees paste the Athletics by a 13–4 count the next night. Stanton’s MVP performance in the All-Star Game had come at a price, aggravating an Achilles’ strain. The crumbling Coliseum was easily the worst of all thirty big-league parks, yet Judge always felt comfortable there; maybe it was because of that first workout day in 2013, when he’d played catch before the game with Brett Gardner and been invited to chat over lunch with CC Sabathia.
But the national media had descended on the Judge chase—ESPN was tagging along until he hit 50, then would rejoin if and when he got closer to 61. More and more reporters angled for one-on-one interviews with Judge: just fifteen or twenty minutes of your time, please? The numerous extra bodies filling Oakland’s outdated visiting clubhouse spurred Judge to spend more time than usual in the trainers’ room before first pitch, seeking solitude away from prying eyes (the exact move that Maris had leaned on sixty-one years prior, when he had ten to fifteen reporters crowding his locker each day).
Said Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News: “It was exhausting, for him and everyone around it. I mean, it kind of shows you really how hard it is to do, because those last two or three weeks—that march to 62 was just excruciating. It was so intense.”
When Judge did emerge to speak, he leaned on one of his interview trademarks—a thoughtful pause of one or two seconds preceding a response.
“It does get tough day after day standing up there, good days and bad days,” Judge said. “It’s a lot. One way that I handled it is, I try to take my time up there. I try to really think about what I’m going to say. If you just get up there and start rambling or saying this and that, you’re like, ‘What did I even just say?’ I always try to pause, think about it, and come up with a genuine answer. You’ve got to be honest with these guys, because they can see through it when you’re giving them a made-up answer or something fake. Just be honest with people.”
As Clarke Schmidt said: “When you watch his interviews or anything he’s doing, you’re like, ‘Is this fake? Is he really like this in person?’ The way he carries himself, it’s so consistent.”
HOMER #49: August 26 vs. Oakland Athletics’ JP Sears (5th inning, three-run)
Exit velocity: 109 mph. Distance: 427 feet. Launch angle: 31 degrees. HR in 28 of 30 MLB parks.
The Yankees were happy to see JP Sears once again. A slight twenty-six-year-old lefty, he’d provided the Yankees with seven sharp outings, including two spot starts, before being packaged to the Athletics in the Frankie Montas trade. Now Sears was wearing green and gold, and more surprisingly, he was still clean-cut: one of the few ex-Yankees not to immediately grow a beard. In fact, Sears seemed to be settling in nicely, having won two of his three starts since joining Oakland.
Like the trip to Pittsburgh in early July, when Manny Bañuelos found himself on the wrong end of Judge’s historic march, Judge wasn’t about to show mercy to a former teammate.
It was clear that Sears wanted to work carefully; he walked Judge on seven pitches in the first inning, then put him aboard intentionally in the third, setting up a Stanton double play. But there was no room for error in the fifth, as rookie Oswaldo Cabrera and DJ LeMahieu opened the frame with sharp singles. At the far end of the visiting dugout, Anthony Rizzo nudged Nestor Cortes, who was standing with his hands in the pocket of a hooded sweatshirt.
“Nestor, he’s about to hit a home run,” Rizzo said. “When he hits the home run, just drop your head like you’re pissed.”
Sears exhaled, coming set as he eyed Cabrera dancing from second base. The pitch, a slider, came out of his left hand. It hung, and Sears immediately knew he was about to watch a souvenir. Judge’s drive sent center fielder Cal Stevenson racing back, back, back—the ball struck about halfway up the batter’s eye, bounding back onto the playing field.
“I hadn’t seen the slider yet,” Judge said. “He showed me the fastball, he showed me the changeup… I was talking with a couple of guys and was like, ‘I might see a slider here first pitch, let’s see what happens.’ ”
As instructed, Cortes dropped his gaze toward the concrete floor, while Rizzo covered his eyes with his right hand, as though he was experiencing a sudden migraine.
“On the replay, you get the side angles, and the side camera picked us up,” Rizzo said. “So he hits the home run, everyone’s cheering, and you just see Nestor and I like, ‘All right.’ Those are the little fun games you interact with throughout the year; just the little kid jokes that help you make it through the 162 [game] grind.”
Judge laughed when he saw the replay. He called No. 49 “just another number,” but the blast thrilled a personal cheering section for Judge, a gathering of friends and supporters from St. Andrews Lutheran Church in Stockton, California, about twelve miles from his hometown of Linden.
“The stadium in Oakland, a third of it had Judge [apparel] on. It was incredible,” said Jordan Ribera, a former Fresno State teammate who attended the series as a fan. “You start seeing what he means to the game and the fan appreciation; he is doing something special. To do it in New York, I can only imagine the daily temptations or invites.”
Though Gerrit Cole starred on his side, striking out eleven in the Yanks’ 3–2 win, he seemed most impressed by his slugging teammate. “I get to have the best seat in the house every night for The Aaron Judge Show,” Cole said, “which is one-of-a-kind right now.”
With Judge on the precipice of joining Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle as the only Yankees to hit 50 or more homers in two or more separate seasons, the YES Network approached Patty Judge to gauge her interest in wearing a microphone for the last two games of the A’s series.
“She said, ‘No, I don’t want the camera on me right now. You can start filming me when he hits 60,’ ” said Troy Benjamin, a producer at the YES Network. “She knew he was going to do it.”
HOMER #50: August 29 vs. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim’s Ryan Tepera (8th inning, solo)
Exit velocity: 111.1 mph. Distance: 434 feet. Launch angle: 34 degrees. HR in 30 of 30 MLB parks.
The bats had gone ice-cold again: a five-game winning streak snapped by consecutive poor showings against Adam Oller and Adrián Martínez, a pair of Oakland starters with bloated ERAs over 6.00. Judge said that “this is the time of year when it’s kind of a grind,” challenging his teammates to “step up and respond” as they moved down the California coast to Anaheim for a new series with Shohei Ohtani and the Angels.
This was also the portion of the schedule where the AL MVP debate had gone into full swing, with little more than a month remaining for Judge and Ohtani to state their respective cases. Judge’s offensive numbers were better, holding an advantage in the triple-slash line categories of batting average, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage, along with the edge in stolen bases and runs batted in.
But Judge did not pitch, and that added value seemed to provide pause. At the time, Ohtani owned a 2.67 ERA with 176 strikeouts over 128 innings. Ohtani was a unicorn; there would be a case for him to win the MVP every year, since no one did what he could. Tyler Wade, who played sixty-seven games with the Angels that season, said that he loved having Ohtani as a teammate but believed Judge’s season deserved the MVP award.
“I’m not trying to be biased,” Wade said, “but when you’re breaking records like that and leading the team to a division title, and he was chasing the Triple Crown for a little bit, too—I don’t think we’re going to see a year like that for quite some time. I think the writers got it right in the end. [Judge is] more deserving of it than anybody, on and off the field.”
Voters on each side of the aisle had new ammunition to support the argument as the superstars traded homers in a Monday-evening showdown. Ohtani struck first, belting a two-run shot in the fifth inning off Montas, who had raised some eyebrows earlier that afternoon by having alterations performed on a new lime green suit in a reception area outside the visiting clubhouse. Surely, there must have been a better time to schedule a tailor. He now owned a 7.01 ERA through five starts with New York—hardly the difference-maker Cashman and his staff envisioned. Montas would later acknowledge that his shoulder “wasn’t fully 100 percent” at the time of the trade, saying he “was trying to pitch through it. I got traded to a new team and wanted to show what I could do.”
Judge was walked intentionally in two of his first three plate appearances, prompting more than forty-four thousand voices to fill the air, booing lustily. They made no secret about what had drawn them across Interstate 5’s congested lanes on a picture-perfect SoCal evening: history.
With the bases empty and one out, interim Angels manager Phil Nevin gave reliever Ryan Tepera the green light to face Judge, who clobbered a slider off the rock waterfall beyond center field. “It’s hard to wrap your mind around just how incredible of a season he’s had to this point,” Boone said. “The one time they pitch to him, he hits it off the rocks.” Judge’s 50th homer trimmed the Yankees’ deficit to a run, but the comeback stalled there, with the visitors accepting a 4–3 loss.
“You couldn’t get a fastball by him, and if you hung anything, you’re not getting it back,” said reliever Lou Trivino. “It was a fun experience for me to witness something like that firsthand. Everyone talks about how Barry Bonds would get one pitch to hit. I feel like I saw that with Judge. If I’m pitching, I don’t want to give him anything to hit—I probably go in, in, in, and see if it gets him to chase. He made sure that he put the barrel on it.”
The West Coast trip delivered hints of the media fuss dramatized by Billy Crystal’s 61*, including a brief skirmish between a writer and a television camera operator, who elbowed for position in front of Judge’s locker in the Angel Stadium visiting clubhouse. Judge watched that scene develop, an expression of confusion and annoyance spilling across his gaze. As he navigated the scrum, he made it clear that homers in losing efforts offered no joy, even if they were nice round statistical milestones.
“I’m not downplaying it, but I just don’t like talking numbers,” Judge said. “It doesn’t mean anything because we lost. We can talk about numbers and all that kind of stuff when the season’s over with; we can review it. But for right now, the most important thing for me is getting some wins.”
’61 FLASHBACK: THE M&M BOYS
The biggest obstacle keeping the Yankees from reaching the World Series in 1961—their version of the Houston Astros, if you will—had been the Detroit Tigers. The Motown team was stacked, led by Al Kaline, Norm Cash, Rocky Colavito, and Jim Bunning. Despite an incredible August, in which the Yankees won twenty-two of thirty-one games, they had yet to shake Detroit in the race.
As September dawned, Maris had benefited from a lengthy chat with hitting coach Wally Moses, transpiring in a most unlikely place as the Yankees rode the rails down to Washington, D.C. “I ran into Roger in the men’s room on the train, and we started talking,” Moses said. “I know it’s hard to believe, but we spent four hours in the men’s room talking hitting. Roger was worried about losing his confidence and didn’t want to fall off down the stretch, like he had in 1960.”
Maris had a mental block about hitting in Griffith Stadium, the Washington Senators’ home park. Moses helped unlock it; Maris homered in all four games the Yanks played in D.C., then hit 3 homers in his next two games against the White Sox. Maris entered September with 51 homers, while Mantle had 45.
“I just hope,” manager Ralph Houk said, “both of my guys do it.”
Detroit arrived at Yankee Stadium on September 1, beginning a three-game set. New York swept them, swelling their league lead from 1 ½ games to 4 ½. The Yankees were off and rolling, rattling off a thirteen-game winning streak as Detroit lost eight straight. The pennant race was effectively over, but the series came at a price. Mantle strained a muscle in his left forearm on a checked swing, yet still homered twice in the finale to reach 50.
All of the focus was now squarely upon Maris and Mantle, who received ovations just for taking batting practice. In an era when fans could exit via the playing field, security guards had to hold ropes at the final out just so Mantle and Maris could reach the dugout without incident. In the clubhouse, teammates witnessed the chase’s strain. Mantle had spent years in the spotlight; he was used to having every movement or syllable parsed. He’d also had a big home run year previously, slugging 52 homers to lead the majors during his Triple Crown season of 1956. Maris’s career high was 39 homers in 1960, a number he’d topped by July 1961.
“Roger smoked a lot of cigarettes, unfortunately, before the game and after the game,” said Tony Kubek. “But once he got through batting practice and his work, getting into the clubhouse, he’d just think about the game on that particular date and the pitcher. That’s what Roger Maris was all about. He was a baseball player, not born to be a hero, but he became that. I don’t know how many guys could have handled it, with all the duress he was under.”
The M&M Boys were neck and neck through a September 10 doubleheader against the Cleveland Indians, with Maris at 56 homers and Mantle at 53. Mantle was ill, suffering from a heavy head cold, respiratory infection, and eye infection. The symptoms lingered through a road trip to Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore. Mel Allen, the Yankees’ broadcaster, mentioned that he knew a doctor who could fix everything.
Dr. Max Jacobson (“Miracle Max,” as Allen called him) was known as a Dr. Feelgood for the jet set, having treated the likes of President John F. Kennedy, Eddie Fisher, Johnny Mathis, and Tennessee Williams with concoctions of amphetamines and vitamins. Mantle visited Jacobson in New York on September 25, a team off day. The doctor filled a syringe with smoky liquid, then plunged the needle into Mantle’s hip.
The shot missed the mark; Mantle described the feeling “as though he’d stuck a red-hot poker into me.” Mantle arrived at Lenox Hill Hospital days later, suffering from a 104-degree fever. The wound was infected; in some retellings, the resulting abscess in Mantle’s hip was large enough to fit a fist; others say a golf ball. All agree that it was not conducive to playing baseball at its highest level. Mantle would return to hit one more homer and played sparingly in the World Series, but for the most part, it was now Maris vs. Ruth.
“I thought I had a chance at the record in ’61,” Mantle said. “I had been there in ’56 when I hit 52. Roger was having a great year, I was having a great year. What everybody forgets is that Ruth hit seventeen in September. So you’re ahead of the pace in July and you’re still ahead of it in August, and all of a sudden, it seems like you’ve got to hit one about every day because that’s what Ruth did.”
The press contingent thickened; Bobby Richardson recalled seeing fifty to seventy writers covering a game. Whether or not Maris homered, they kept prodding, seemingly asking the same questions on a loop. Even though he’d heard some variation dozens of times before, Maris sat quietly in his locker, sucking on a beer and waiting for the inquiries to end.
“There were so many games when Roger would say, ‘Why don’t you guys talk to Ellie Howard? He’s hitting .350,’ ” said pitcher Bob Turley. “Talk to Whitey; he’s won twenty games. Talk to Luis Arroyo. Talk to Bobby Richardson; he never plays a bad game.”
