Aaron Judge, Home Run King

A s 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. 

As incredible as all of these records were, each of them was shrouded in controversy. When Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927, the baseball season was 154 games. As Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were making a run at the record in 1961 (by which time the league had extended the season to 162 games), Commissioner Ford Frick, an old friend of Ruth, announced that there would be two sets of home-run records in the league’s record books, one for the shorter season, and one for the longer season. For decades, Ruth boosters lamented that it took Maris 159 games to tie Ruth.  

The achievements of Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa, meanwhile, have been divisive ever since they emerged as key figures in the steroid scandal that rocked baseball, denying them places in the Hall of Fame and also bringing into question the legitimacy of their records. Late in his career, as evidence pointed toward his use of performance-enhancing drugs, Bonds would be taunted with signs reminding him: “Ruth did it on hot dogs and beer.” 

This year, however, a new home-run leader has entered the chat. Aaron Judge, a towering figure and model baseball citizen, has pulled off one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time, which has been capped off by surpassing the Maris total of 61. While the official record books may still show Bonds as the single-season leader, there is a strong case that Judge is the king. 

Not only did Judge surpass Maris, but while it took Ruth all 154 games to get to 60 home runs, Judge got there in 147 games. While it took Judge 671 plate appearances to get to 61, Ruth didn’t make it there in 1927 with 691 plate appearances.  

Judge is also subjected to regular drug testing, and there is no hint that his freakish power is anything but natural, a consequence of hard work, athleticism, and a massive, six-foot-seven-inch, 282-pound frame. 

There is, at this point, little serious doubt that Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa used performance-enhancing drugs. McGwire admitted to using them, on and off for about a decade, including during the season when he hit 70 home runs. As part of a trial for perjury and obstruction, Bonds, through a lawyer, admitted using steroids, but tried to claim that he was misled by his personal trainer into thinking he was actually taking flaxseed and cream for arthritis. For a high-level athlete who can be expected to carefully monitor what is going inside his body, this defense was laughable, particularly as fans marveled that Bonds entered the league as a 185-pound string bean and yet late in his career had become a hulking 228 pounds, with his weight gain substantially muscle. Sosa has been evasive (claiming he never tested positive), though the New York Times, citing lawyers with knowledge of MLB drug testing, listed him among players who had tested positive in 2003. 

Most defenders of this trio of players do not deny that they used steroids, but they advance different arguments — they note the widespread use of the drugs (including among pitchers) at the time they played and question the advantage that performance-enhancing drugs actually provided. None of these arguments are particularly compelling when placed against what Judge has just accomplished. 

To start, steroids obviously are never going to turn some mediocre minor-league player into a home-run champion. McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds would have been great hitters with or without steroids. Bonds, had he never taken steroids, would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. With that said, it’s absurd on its face to believe that players would have taken steroids if they provided no advantages. At a minimum, taking the drugs allowed players to remain on the field longer, making quicker recoveries from injury, as well as withstanding normal wear and tear of training for, and participating in, a marathon 162-game season. But it also enabled them to build muscle, making it more likely that, when they made strong contact, the ball would go over the fence rather than die in the warning track. 

The numbers also provide strong circumstantial evidence. In roughly 100 years of the “live ball era” (i.e., when home runs became a regular part of the game rather than just a novelty), there had been eight seasons of 60 or more home runs before Judge. Six occurred in just three seasons (1998, 1999, and 2001) during the peak of the steroid era. When McGwire broke the record with 70 in 1998, Sosa was four behind, with 66. When Bonds had 73 in 2001, Sosa had 64. Several other players had home-run totals in the 50s. Once MLB cracked down on steroid use, home-run numbers tumbled. 

PHOTOS: Aaron Judge Hits Historic Home Run

To those who argue that everybody should be judged against what they did relative to their rivals at the time, it should be noted that in 2022, at the time he attained his 60th home run, Judge was a staggering 20 home runs ahead of the next-closest hitter, Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies. 

As for the claim that pitchers got to use steroids as well, even aside from the question of whether steroids provided as much of an edge to pitchers as they did to hitters, there’s the reality that we’re living through one of the most dominant eras for pitchers in the history of baseball. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, pitchers who could hit 100 miles per hour on the radar gun were still relatively scarce, and while relief pitching was firmly established, starters were given a much longer leash and pitching changes weren’t as frequent. In 2022, the league batting average is .243, which is among the lowest in history, whereas between 1998 and 2001 it ranged from .264 to .271. The bottom line is that Aaron Judge faces fresher and faster arms more frequently than did the batters of decades ago. 

While it is less relevant to the home-run debate (indeed, his on-field performance speaks for itself), it is worth noting how well Judge has handled his stardom. A devout Christian, he hasn’t had the whiff of scandal through five years in the New York media spotlight. He has always been gracious in giving credit to teammates and keeping the focus on winning even as all eyes were on him in the home stretch of the season. He is calm and composed, even at times to a fault, given his reluctance to argue balls and strikes with umpires despite their failure to establish a consistent strike zone for his massive presence in the batter’s box. While it’s routine for outfielders to keep warm between innings by throwing the ball to each other, Judge has made a habit of doing so with kids seated over the outfield fence. It’s just a small thing that an athlete can do — toss a baseball back and forth a few times — but he recognizes that it will provide a lifetime memory for a kid who can always say he got to play catch with a modern legend. 

All Hail the new Home Run King, Aaron Judge.