Aaron Judge Hits 62nd Home Run, Passing Roger Maris’s American League Record

As somebody who was the youngest in a family of much older brothers, I spent my childhood convinced that all the exciting things that were ever going to happen in the world had already happened before I was born. This sentiment was never more powerful than when it came to baseball. As a Yankees fan coming of age in the 1980s — in the midst of one of the longest championship droughts in franchise history — no number seemed more majestic than the number 61. During that era, a player who could consistently hit 20 home runs a season was considered a power hitter, and Sports Illustrated declared, “50 is the new Everest of baseball.” At the time, even a Yankees playoff appearance seemed out of reach, let alone a title. So the tale of Roger Maris swatting 61 dingers for the 1961 World Series–winning Yankees may as well have been set in a fantasy universe with wizards and dragons.

By my college years, the Yankees had returned to their former glory, and Roger Maris’s record was left in the ash heap of history, with Mark McGwire first hitting an impossible 70 homers in 1998, Barry Bonds surpassing him with 73 in 2001, and Sammy Sosa, who trailed, nonetheless also ahead of Maris each of those seasons.

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Philip Klein

Philip Klein is the editor of National Review Online.

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As somebody who was the youngest in a family of much older brothers, I spent my childhood convinced that all the exciting things that were ever going to happen in the world had already happened before I was born. This sentiment was never more powerful than when it came to baseball. As a Yankees fan coming of age in the 1980s — in the midst of one of the longest championship droughts in franchise history — no number seemed more majestic than the number 61. During that era, a player who could consistently hit 20 home runs a season was considered a power hitter, and Sports Illustrated declared, “50 is the new Everest of baseball.” At the time, even a Yankees playoff appearance seemed out of reach, let alone a title. So the tale of Roger Maris swatting 61 dingers for the 1961 World Series–winning Yankees may as well have been set in a fantasy universe with wizards and dragons.

By my college years, the Yankees had returned to their former glory, and Roger Maris’s record was left in the ash heap of history, with Mark McGwire first hitting an impossible 70 homers in 1998, Barry Bonds surpassing him with 73 in 2001, and Sammy Sosa, who trailed, nonetheless also ahead of Maris each of those seasons.