Yankees Mag: Modern Folklore

On a warm August morning at Yankee Stadium last season, some of the most legendary players in Yankees history were back in the Bronx. The home dugout was teeming with all-time greats, many of whom helped carry the Yankees to their 27th championship in 2009. A few already have plaques in Cooperstown; others are immortalized in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park.

The event was a celebration of the past, but that couldn’t stop the former American League MVPs, Cy Young Award winners and World Series heroes from focusing on the present. Of particular note was Aaron Judge’s otherworldly summer, one that would end with the outfielder becoming the first Yankee to be unanimously voted American League MVP since Mickey Mantle’s Triple Crown season in 1956. Judge, who took home his first MVP in 2022, became the seventh Yankee to win the award multiple times.

Judge was on a historic run for the second time in three seasons, and the pantheon of pinstriped royalty was duly impressed by what they were witnessing.

“He’s having a season like Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds,” Derek Jeter said. “I don’t know why they keep pitching to him, but it’s pretty fun to watch. I personally can’t relate to it. It’s amazing. It seems like he just continues to get better and better. He has carried the legacy and tradition of the Yankees organization for superstar players really well. More importantly, he’s a great representative of this organization.”

For Alex Rodriguez — an extraordinary slugger in his own right who finished his career with 696 home runs — the larger-than-life, modern-day Yankees captain is as rare as it gets.

“Aaron is a unicorn,” A-Rod said. “I’ve never seen a player quite like him. He looks like an NFL tight end. He’s 6-foot-7, 280 pounds, with less than 10 percent body fat. The guy is a specimen. He makes me look small; he makes all of us look small. He also has a unique element that Derek Jeter had: No matter how big the stage is, he stays focused on the main thing, on the task at hand. He does it with so much class and dignity. His character is off the charts. For the Yankees, to go from Jeter to Judge, it doesn’t get much better than that.”

CC Sabathia, the most recent Yankee to earn enshrinement in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, has followed Judge’s career closely. No different from when the two shared the same clubhouse, Sabathia remains in awe of Judge’s ability and consistency.

“When you’re watching somebody who’s got 50 home runs before September, it feels like he’s hitting a home run every day,” Sabathia said. “It’s hard to believe that he’s also hitting for such a high average. I think he’s evolving and becoming a better hitter. There’s really no limit to what he can do because of how strong he is. Even when he doesn’t get all of the ball, he can still hit it out. He’s done that a few times this season.”

The regular-season performance that so many Yankees legends were marveling about in August came to a close after the Yankees clinched the AL East title in late September, and it was indeed one for the ages. During a season in which Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani became baseball’s first 50/50 man and then-Yankees outfielder Juan Soto put up career-highs with 41 home runs and 128 runs scored, Judge’s final statistics were on a different level.

He batted .322 and led the Majors with 58 home runs, 144 RBIs, 133 walks, a .458 on-base percentage and a 1.159 OPS. According to ESPN Research, Judge’s 223 OPS+ was the highest among right-handed hitters since 1900, and he became the third player to post an adjusted OPS of 200 or more with at least 50 home runs, joining the two generational talents that came to Jeter’s mind when speaking about his successor as Yankees captain: Ruth and Bonds.

“It’s unbelievable,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said from Yankee Stadium. “Watching Shohei Ohtani, or even Juan Soto, it’s hard to wrap your brain around someone having a better offensive season. Now you look at Aaron, and he was more than 100 points higher than those guys in OPS. I just couldn’t imagine better day-in and day-out at-bats than what Juan Soto did, and look at what Aaron did above and beyond that. It was an all-time great season.”

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The idea that Judge could put together an even more productive season than he did in 2022, when he set an American League home run record with 62 blasts, also seemed unimaginable. But the slugger, who started 119 games in center field during the 2024 regular season and postseason combined, actually improved in almost every significant offensive category besides home runs. In 2024, Judge’s career-best batting average was 11 points higher than his 2022 mark of .311, and he collected more walks and RBIs, while also posting a higher OBP and OPS.

“I think 2024 was a tick better, which is hard to fathom,” Boone said. “That’s a testament to him evolving as a hitter and as a complete player, not necessarily being satisfied with what he had done previously. There are always things to work on and get better at, and he has taken that mindset.”

Judge’s .322 batting average in 2024 ranked third in the Majors, a remarkable feat considering how offensive production has evolved in recent years. While a .300 average has always been a standard for great hitting, fewer batters do it in today’s game, and certainly fewer sluggers. The Major League batting average in 2024 stood at .243, meaning that Judge eclipsed that mark by 79 points. By comparison, the league average in the late 1990s fluctuated between .266 and .271, gradually diminishing over the last two decades with an increased emphasis on power at the plate and, as a counter, dominant relievers pitching more innings.

“His offensive profile is arguably second to none,” said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. “His power numbers stand out, and he’s got a baked-in higher average than you would think for a big power/slug guy. He also brings a ton of walks, which keeps the traffic moving. His whole game is about runs scored. Aaron Judge is arguably the best player on the planet at providing offense and not giving up those precious outs easily.

“Every time he’s at the plate, it’s a threat. When he’s standing in the on-deck circle, the opposing pitcher’s blood pressure is rising. They feel more pressure to get the guy in front of him out. They can’t have people on base when Aaron is coming up. They have to be very careful because he can beat them with the longball, with doubles in the gaps or with a single.”

Judge enters the 2025 season with 315 career home runs. When he reached 300 in 2024, he did so in fewer games (955) than any player in history. Part of his ability to mash at such a historic rate is that he refuses to let opponents’ strategic decisions derail his mental approach.

“I have to do whatever the game is telling me when I’m at the plate,” the six-time All-Star said in January. “I have to take whatever the game is giving me. If it’s giving me a walk, I’ll take it. If it’s giving me a single or a sacrifice fly to get the runner in, you have to do that. It would be great to go up to the plate and try to hit a homer every time, but there are going to be certain games, certain moments and certain months when you’re not going to get a pitch to hit. You can go a few weeks where opposing teams are going to try to pitch around you and make you swing at some bad pitches.

“It’s really about not trying to do too much. That just simplified everything. I never felt like I had to hit a home run. I was just trying to take it one pitch at a time and put the ball in play. I was able to keep it simple, and I was able to do that because of the guys I had around me.”

From a career perspective, the 32-year-old California native, who was selected in the first round of the 2013 Draft, put himself in several elite statistical categories with the numbers he produced in 2024. When he got to 50 home runs at the end of August, Judge became just the fifth player in history to reach that plateau in three separate seasons, joining Ruth, Rodriguez and former sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Along with Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mantle, Judge became the fourth Yankees player in history to lead the AL in home runs three times.

“He’s not in a league of his own, but he occupies very rarefied air,” Cashman said. “What he’s able to produce and accomplish, very few people can be included in that territory. But Aaron is not done. He’s got a lot more stories to write in his career. He has far exceeded anything we ever expected. We knew that he was talented, but he has been so much more than anyone could have ever expected. Essentially, what he’s doing is superhuman. Babe Ruth has become almost folklore, even though it really happened. Aaron Judge is now a walking, talking, living and breathing Babe Ruth. We never thought that we would see that again.”

The humble Judge can’t pretend he doesn’t hear the comparisons made between his own career to date and the players who represent the upper crust of legends enshrined in Cooperstown.

“Any time you are in the same sentence, category or breath as Ruth, Gehrig or Mantle, you are doing something special,” Judge said. “It’s an incredible honor that I can hopefully look back on in 15 or 20 years and realize that it was pretty cool.”

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Judge’s 2024 campaign came on the heels of a few unique chapters in his career. Following his 62–home run season in ’22, Judge signed a nine-year contract with the Yankees and was subsequently named captain by Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner.

“He got a historic contract, and it didn’t affect him at all,” Steinbrenner said over the winter from Tampa, Florida. “Some players in the past with different teams, you can look at them and say their contract had a negative effect on their effort. But Aaron hasn’t taken his foot off the gas. He loves being a Yankee, and we love having him here. All of those things are the reasons why the captaincy was a no-brainer for me right out of the gate in this contract.”

The newly minted captain was making a strong case for a second consecutive MVP Award in 2023 when he crashed into the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium in pursuit of a fly ball during a late-June game. Judge tore a toe ligament (and broke the wall) and missed almost two months. Although he returned to form by the season’s conclusion, finishing with 37 home runs, the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

Judge was quick to turn the page. Now making his offseason home in Tampa, where the team’s Spring Training headquarters are located and where several of Judge’s teammates work out, he led a concerted effort toward redemption. Boone noted that Judge’s presence had an impact on all his teammates throughout the offseason.

“With Aaron, it’s always all about team,” Boone said. “A good percentage of guys were on the field day-in and day-out, even before January. That is certainly a testament to the commitment of all our players going into last season and to all of the resources that are made available to them, but it also had a lot to do with Aaron’s leadership.”

Despite the work that Judge put in during the offseason, his 2024 campaign did not start off in ideal fashion. On May 2, following three straight hitless games, Judge’s batting average stood at .197, and he had hit just six home runs in the first 33 games.

Through his early season struggles, the nine-year veteran leaned on past experiences to keep things in perspective.

“It’s a long season,” he said. “There have been times when I’ve had a bad month in the middle of the season, but when you throw those numbers into the 400 at-bats you’ve already had, it doesn’t do much to your average. This situation was the same, it just was happening before I could build up a good foundation. I just tried to stay focused on what I could control and remember that everyone goes through a slump, regardless of how good you are. You just have to recognize that you have work to do. I think what helped me the most was that we were winning a lot of ballgames in April, and that made it easy for me to stay positive.”

As a former player, Boone was impressed with Judge’s demeanor and mental toughness during the rough stretch. When things started to turn around, the manager was not the least bit surprised.

“He’s so built for that,” Boone said. “It starts with a foundation of confidence and just knowing how good of a player you are. Over time, he knew it was going to play itself out. He had to just keep punching the clock to get there. So, there’s that foundation, and more than most other players, he has a real good understanding of how much of a grind and how difficult the season can be.

“As a hitter, that’s such a separator. There are a lot of talented people who fall by the wayside during a 162-game season because failing takes a toll on them. But the good ones are able to continually move forward and turn the page. Especially in New York, where the noise is louder. The worst thing you can do is chase results and think, ‘I’ve got to get a hit today.’ You have to trust your plan, your work and your preparation. You have to believe that if you repeat those things consistently, the results will be there in time. That embodies what Aaron was all about during that time.”

Starting on May 3, Judge collected 10 hits (including three home runs) over the next six games.

“He got to that next level of hitting really quickly,” Boone said. “That’s the fine line between failure and success as a hitter, even for the best of them. If you’re a tick off, you’re not going to hit the ball hard; that’s why guys don’t hit .400. In his case, it took him a minute to get there, but all of a sudden, he was consistently on time.”

From that point forward, Judge put together the most productive four-month span of his career, and in doing so, built an MVP campaign. He earned AL Player of the Month honors in May, June and August, and by the start of September, he had increased his batting average to .330 with 51 home runs.

“In today’s game, to go up to .330 with the power and massive walk total on top of it, that was historic,” Boone said. “It was a generational season. Every generation is different in terms of what numbers mean, but Aaron’s performance over that time will stand up as one of the all-time great seasons. It was that good, and it will last the test of time.”

***

Judge didn’t just hit more home runs than anyone in the sport, he also came through in so many crucial moments. Of his 58 regular-season home runs, 23 gave the Yankees a lead, and for a team that was neck-and-neck with the Baltimore Orioles for AL East supremacy before pulling away in late September, that statistic spoke volumes about Judge’s peerless value.

That import, though, goes way beyond the numbers. As a leader, Judge’s impact on the team’s run to the World Series surpassed anything he did in the batter’s box.

“He understands what it is to be a Yankee,” Steinbrenner said. “He has understood that since the day we drafted him, and he has carried himself in that manner throughout the time he was in the Minor Leagues. That didn’t change when he got to the Majors. Like Derek Jeter, he’s a leader by example. His work ethic is impeccable. Anyone who comes here, via trade or free agency, recognizes that immediately. It has a great impact, which is why some players who were not successful or happy with other clubs have fit right in here. They know what is expected of them just by looking at Aaron Judge and how he conducts his business. Aaron is also not afraid to pull someone aside and let them know that he is not doing something the right way. I have seen him do that numerous times, including on more than one occasion in 2024. He’s the total package; a true leader by example.”

Even in a postseason that ended in disappointing fashion, Judge’s ability to author iconic moments was evident in the team’s American League Championship Series triumph over Cleveland. Against a daunting Guardians relief corps that had received much acclaim, Judge led an attack that proved Cleveland’s top-flight arms were not untouchable. His home runs against Hunter Gaddis in Game 2 and against Emmanuel Clase in Game 3 sent a clear message to everyone in both dugouts.

“We knew all about the Guardians’ bullpen and what a tall task was in front of us,” Boone said. “Ultimately, we got to the World Series because we had success against that entire bullpen at different points. A blow like Aaron’s against Clase to tie the game definitely gave our side a psychological belief that they couldn’t beat us. After that home run, we just felt like whatever they roll out, as great as they are, we can do it. It probably dinged them a little bit too.”

It is hard to argue with Boone’s assessment, especially considering that the ALCS was decided on Soto’s 10th-inning home run off Gaddis in Game 5.

Judge and the Yankees didn’t finish the season as they had hoped, losing to the Dodgers in the Fall Classic. In the five-game Series, Judge was held to just four hits, but he was an irreplaceable part of the team’s journey to the American League pennant.

“We don’t get to the World Series without his heroics,” his manager said. “I’m not talking about the regular season; I’m talking just playoffs. What he did, especially in those first two series in center field and with some big at-bats, was crucial. He wasn’t in that hot Aaron Judge mode offensively, but that happens sometimes in baseball. He’s going to have one of those defining postseasons; there’s no doubt in my mind about that.”

***

Judge knows that greatness is measured differently in the Bronx. Not every player who was back at Yankee Stadium for Old-Timers’ Day hit 50 homers in their career, let alone a single season. Around here, the legends that live forever -- the ones who make up the fraternity that returns to town every summer -- are the guys who won championships together.

Boone is confident that Judge will put together the type of postseason that offers a storybook ending to a season and a ticket to immortality. As for Judge, the lingering pain of unfinished business in 2024 will continue to fuel him for the future.

“We finally got over the hump and got into the World Series,” Judge said. “Now we all want to get back there and finish the deal. The thing I take from playing in the World Series is that we are hungrier than ever. We want to go out there and do it again.”

As Judge leads the chase for the Yankees’ 28th championship, he will add to a legacy that is unlike almost any other that baseball fans have seen. He is indeed “a unicorn,” a player whose name is already being mentioned in the same breath as Ruth, Jeter and Mantle.

“In a lot of ways, he is already a Hall of Famer,” Boone said. “I think we can all understand that he will be going there, and that is without a lot of the cumulative numbers. But we are watching an all-time great eight-year stretch. However we end up looking back on his career, he will be the face of this generation.”

Alfred Santasiere III is the editor-in-chief of?Yankees Magazine.?This story appears in the Spring 2025 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to?Yankees Magazine?at www.yankees.com/publications.