Aaron Judge at the bat is must-see TV, as the New York Yankees star outfielder is looking to break the American League home-run record of 61, set by Roger Maris in 1961.
On Tuesday, Judge hit his 60th home run of the season, tying Babe Ruth’s home-run total from 1927 as the home crowd in the Bronx stood for each of Judge’s plate appearances, eager to witness history.
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The Yankees slugger drove a 3-1 pitch from Pittsburgh’s Wil Crowe 430 feet to the left-field seats leading off the ninth inning. Judge’s third home run in two games, and ninth in the month of September, thrilled the Yankee Stadium crowd of 40,157.
On Wednesday night, again playing the Pirates in the Bronx, Judge went 2-for-4 with a pair of doubles but failed to knock one out of the park in a 14-2 victory. Attendance was 46,175.
In Ruth’s historic season, there were 154-games in the season, while Maris’s had 162-games. The Maris family has attended each game recently in hopes to be there for the record-breaking performance.
The only players in history who have hit more than 61 home runs in a single season played in the National League and have been linked to steroid use.
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Judge, 30, is, with his .316 batting average and 128 runs batted in through Tuesday night, one of baseball’s brightest stars and on the inside track to be named the American League’s MVP for 2022, according to odds from DraftKings DKNG, -3.85% Sportsbook. But despite Judge’s stellar career and standout 2022 season — he’s led the Yankees to the second best record in the league and baseball’s sixth best and has a very realistic shot at winning baseball’s first triple crown since Miguel Cabrera’s in 2012 (which, in turn, was the first since those of Carl Yastrzemski and Frank Robinson in the mid-1960s) — he has not yet truly cashed in.
In his seven seasons as a big leaguer, Judge has racked up just $36 million in contract earnings, according to Spotrac, for a career average annual salary of $5.14 million, not appreciably higher than the game’s current average of $4.4 million. One reason is that Judge debuted with the Yankees in 2017 at a more advanced age, 25, than the typical rookie, pushing back the age at which Judge would first qualify for free agency. Judge is the 57th highest paid player this season at $19 million.
Judge, with his career .284 batting average and 218 career home runs (an average of 49 per 162 games), is set to capitalize on his accomplishments after this season, when he will be an unrestricted free agent and able to sign with any team for any amount of money that he and his agent can negotiate. Judge turned down a seven-year, $213.5 million extension before this season, according to Yankees President Brian Cashman, in hopes of earning more in free agency.
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Judge should be poised to earn hundreds of millions of dollars on a new contract, whether it’s from the Yankees or another team, in the offseason.
But if Judge arguably has been underpaid, he did have the largest number of endorsements in baseball last season, according to sports and entertainment data platform SponsorUnited. Judge has endorsement deals with T-Mobile TMUS, -2.01%, Disney’s DIS, -2.60% Hulu, Pepsi PEP, -0.05%, Adidas ADS, -1.87% ADDYY, -3.89%, Oakley and JBL.
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The Yankees next play on Friday night against the Boston Red Sox, and the game can only be viewed on the Apple TV+ subscription service.
