After the way he was treated this past season by fans and by Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, no one would have blamed Aaron Judge if he left New York to play in San Francisco for his childhood team.

Judge was previously offered a seven-year, $213.5 million contract extension during the previous off-season which he famously rejected — going on to have the best season of his career in 2022 topped off by breaking the American League single-season home-run record. In April, Cashman revealed the details of that deal publicly, something Judge wasn’t too happy about.

Additionally, after all he did to hoist the floundering Yankees lineup through the latter half of the season, Judge was treated to an embarrassing display of entitlement from the home crowd in the postseason. As he (and the rest of the Bronx offense) struggled to get the bats going against the Guardians and then the Astros, the New York fans began to boo their top player.

Finally, yesterday morning, Time ran a piece naming Judge as their “Athlete of the Year” (a well-deserved honor) and one quote in particular gained a lot of traction online:

In fact his wife, high school sweetheart Samantha Bracksieck, reminded him of a prediction he made in 2010, his senior year at Linden High School. “I said, in 10 years, I’ll be married to Sam,” says Judge, “and playing for the San Francisco Giants.”

This ominous indicator (complete with the rumor that the Giants were in with a deal close to $360 million themselves) coupled with the ways in which Judge may have felt unappreciated in New York made many Yankees fans quite pessimistic about their chances of seeing the towering 6′ 7″ slugger back in pinstripes.

Despite all this, the news broke this morning that Judge has agreed to a deal with the Yankees worth $360 million over nine years.

While some might worry that the Yankees may have overpaid to retain their star player, this deal likely cements his place in Yankees lore alongside the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, and Derek Jeter. At a time when baseball players are becoming increasingly showy — creating elaborate bat flip routines and trash talking opposing players in key situations — Judge remains a class act. He refuses to puff up his own chest or make a show of his accomplishments. A professing Christian, Judge quietly prays on the field before each game and is the type of presence in the clubhouse that inspires others to be better men and ballplayers themselves.

Aaron Judge is not the hero we deserve, but the hero New York needs.