Baby Bombers Page 16

Judge’s plate appearances quickly became the ones that no one wanted to miss, easing traffic at the concession stands and the stadium lavatories. Judge tied a major league record by hitting 10 home runs in April, and the top spot in the books would have been his alone if not for an April 16 drive against the Cardinals that was inexplicably ruled to be a fan-interference triple after video review.

  “Last year was kind of like a practice test,” Judge said. “I saw the league a little bit, got a chance to face some pitchers. Now I’m seeing some familiar faces and just getting used to the league, going out there and trying to compete and just keep continuing to have quality at-bats.”

  Hitting them high, far, and often, Judge quickly won a fan in Matt Holliday. After Judge homered twice in a 14–11 slugfest victory over the Orioles, the fourteen-year veteran gushed that he thought Judge was “probably the most gifted baseball player I think I’ve ever been around.” That was no small compliment, considering Holliday had shared a clubhouse with Albert Pujols for four seasons in St. Louis.

  “You just look at the guy in batting practice and he hits the ball 550 feet,” Holliday said of Judge. “He can run and he can throw at six-foot-seven, 280 pounds. You just don’t see it. I haven’t seen anything like it. It’s fun to watch. He’s fun to watch. I think the whole stadium stops when he comes up to bat. That doesn’t happen all the time.”

  When Nick Swisher stopped by Yankee Stadium in a new role as an analyst for FOX Sports, Judge’s former minor league teammate and Waffle House dining companion marveled at how far the slugger had come in such a short period of time.

  “He’s a whole different player now than he was at Triple-A,” Swisher said. “He’s got a new stance, he’s got a new swing. Everything has changed. He went home in the offseason and I think what really got him was when he missed those last few weeks of being up here in the big leagues. When he left here, I know that man went home and busted his tail to get ready for this year. He knew that once this season came around, this was his shot.”

  Exit velocity was the new buzzword for hitters around Major League Baseball, and the Yankees had started displaying those miles per hour readings in the top right corner of the center-field scoreboard, as they would for a pitcher’s velocity. It did not take long for Swisher and any other observer with eyes and ears to realize that Judge’s thirty-five-inch, thirty-three-ounce Chandler bat was impacting the ball with more thunder than any other in the league.

  “I’ve never seen anybody hit a baseball like that,” Swisher said. “He’s the red circle in the lineup now. Guys don’t want him to beat them, but this man hits pop-ups for home runs.”

  Judge’s mighty strokes were incredible to watch from a safe distance, while unnerving for those who had the misfortune of standing sixty feet and six inches away. Pitching for the Rays, reliever Jumbo Diaz surrendered a game-tying single on April 12 that rocketed off Judge’s bat at 116.5 mph, whistling past the hurler’s right ear into center field.

  “It was very close. I felt the wind go by my head,” Diaz said. “When I got back, I received a message from my wife. She was a little scared, a little jolted by it. She was just grateful I was OK.”

  Judge celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday on April 26 at Fenway Park, where he had captured the Yankees’ attention a few years earlier with that memorable batting practice session in a Cape Cod League showcase. The party started quickly, as Judge mashed the first pitch he saw from Rick Porcello over the wall in right-center field for his seventh homer of the season.

  He then showed off his fearless defense an inning later, approaching the stands before flipping over a short wall and into an empty red seat to snare an Xander Bogaerts pop fly in the webbing of his glove. Watching from the mound, Luis Severino doffed his cap. Judge found a way to thank a teammate for his daring catch; after the game, Judge mentioned that former Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury had walked him through some of Fenway’s intricacies.

  “He won two World Series here and knows this outfield pretty well,” Judge said. “He helped me with positioning a little bit, where to start, where to move over on certain guys. Having that advice and giving me a couple of extra steps to the foul line really helped me out.”

  The disregard for self-preservation reminded Brett Gardner of Jeter’s bloody tumble into the third-base seats, an oft-replayed highlight from a July 1, 2004 game against Boston at the old Yankee Stadium. Gardner chuckled when he imagined what the fans sitting in Fenway’s front row must have thought, seeing Judge rumbling toward them at full speed.

  “That’s a big boy to be piled up on the nachos and peanuts in the front row,” Gardner said.

  Girardi’s first inclination was to hold his breath, recalling a similar 2014 play at Tropicana Field that sent Carlos Beltran into an MRI tube. There were no such tests for Judge that night, but later in the season, Judge was frequently seen wearing a heavy ice pack on his left shoulder during his postgame interviews. He’d travel to Los Angeles to have arthroscopic surgery a month after the season, removing loose bodies and cleaning up cartilage, and it was speculated that the discomfort could have started with that tumble into the Fenway box seats.

  “I can’t really pinpoint what it is,” Judge said in late August. “There have been quite a few falls that I’ve had. It’s just part of the season. Everybody goes through this.”

  Through the season’s first month, the Yankees spent a fair deal of time being fascinated by the contrast between the six-foot-eight Judge and five-foot-seven Ronald Torreyes, an unlikely sparkplug from Venezuela who had won a place on the roster in the spring of 2016 by consistently barreling baseballs. Torreyes’ versatility was a valuable asset, permitting Girardi to plug him in at second base, shortstop, and third base, as well as the outfield. Had the Yankees required an emergency third catcher, those tasks would also have been delegated to Torreyes.

  At this time, the Yankees needed his services at shortstop, where Torreyes opened the season as the starter after Gregorius injured his right shoulder while playing in a World Baseball Classic exhibition. Torreyes’ solid play helped patch over the absence of a key star, while also providing some valuable levity. In a celebratory act that never failed to crack up the bench, Judge would raise his hand as high as possible, forcing Torreyes to take a running start in order to high-five his towering teammate. On one occasion, Gregorius literally picked Torreyes up as though he were a child, and Judge needed only a tiny bunny hop to slap Torreyes’ hand.

  “I feel super happy about that, just having the guys give me so much support,” Torreyes said through an interpreter. “It’s really nice, you know? But the feeling is mutual. I really like my teammates as well. I come in here and try to do my work. That’s what I like to do.”

  Ronald Torreyes was an extremely popular figure among the Yankees’ players for his diminutive size, his defensive versatility, and a surprising ability to barrel baseballs consistently. (© Fredrik Bouw/Phrake Photography)

  As a teenager in Venezuela, Torreyes’ father Alcides urged him to hit more, run more, and outhustle the more physically blessed competition at many of the academies run by pro organizations in the country. Scouts found it difficult to envision Torreyes’ slight frame on a pro diamond, but the Reds took a flyer in 2010, signing him as a non-drafted free agent.

  Stints in the Cubs, Astros, Blue Jays, Dodgers, and Angels organizations followed until Torreyes finally seemed to find a home with the Yanks at age twenty-four. Gregorius played with Torreyes in Cincinnati’s system and delighted in telling anyone who would listen that Torreyes would be a good big-league player—and didn’t let them forget it when Torreyes did something to back up that boast. Most of the Yankees, including Judge, considered Torreyes to be among their favorite teammates.

  “He’s doing an amazing job,” Judge said. “That’s the great thing about ‘Toe,’ you can put him anywhere and he’s going to produce.”

  Judge’s production carried the Yankees early, as he became the youngest player in major league h
istory to hit at least 13 homers through his team’s first 26 games of the season. The only other right-handed-hitting outfielder of any age to accomplish that feat had been Hall of Famer Willie Mays, who did it for the Giants in 1964.

  It was during this time that Judge received a call from Mike Batesole, his baseball coach at Fresno State. Having once been a high school teammate of Lenny Dykstra and a scout league teammate of Darryl Strawberry, Batesole told ESPN that he wanted to make sure that the temptations of New York City weren’t having a negative impact on Judge.

  “On his first day off this year, I said, ‘Look, dude. Bars across America are full of guys who had one good month,’” Batesole said. “‘You haven’t done anything except piss the rest of the league’s pitchers off and now they all want you extra bad. You’re better off shutting your phone off. Get some alone time, call Mom, give thanks. I don’t want to hear that you had dinner with Jay-Z and Beyoncé on your first day off. Make sure you’re keeping your feet on the ground and taking care of business.’ His response, as it always is, was, ‘Yes, coach.’”

  The national media enthusiastically embraced the storyline of a hulking Yankees superhero with an aw-shucks demeanor. A May 15–22, 2017, double issue of Sports Illustrated featured Judge on the cover, depicting his pinstriped cut behind the words, “All Rise! The Yankees’ Youth Movement Is in Session. The Powerful Aaron Judge Presiding.” Stephanie Apstein’s accompanying article traced Judge’s roots, painting him as a shy rookie from a small California town whose career happened to be off to the most prolific start ever.

  The next week, NBC’s The Tonight Show aired a hilarious segment in which Judge tested his acting chops with a Clark Kent impression, donning a blazer and glasses behind a desk in New York’s Bryant Park to quiz Yankees fans about…Aaron Judge.

  After asking one fan how much he thought the rookie might be able to bench press, Judge nonchalantly replied, “400? You’re right.” One fan referred to the prospect as “Adam Judge,” and another passerby wearing a Yankees jersey figured out the gag when Judge held up his SI cover, offering a double take before taking note of Judge’s toothy smile.

  “It was the gap,” he said. “There’s only two gaps in New York, you and [Michael] Strahan, man.”

  The Yankees were visiting Kansas City the day after that segment aired, and Judge said that his phone had been overwhelmed with text messages and voice mails. Judge had tipped off his parents to the upcoming bit, asking them to set their DVRs, but the late-night appearance had come as a surprise to most of Judge’s friends and family.

  “I’m not really a comedian at all, but I think it turned out great,” Judge said. “I was nervous the whole time. When I was going through it, I didn’t think I was doing well at all. They did a lot of editing and it really turned into something great.”

  When several groups of fans began attending games in black robes and white powder wigs, waving signs that included variations of “All Rise,” the Yankees responded by unveiling the project that they had discussed during the spring. When the Yankees took the field for batting practice on May 22, The Judge’s Chambers appeared at the rear of Section 104 in right field, eighteen seats boxed in by wood to create the appearance of a courtroom jury box.

  All Rise! “The Judge’s Chambers” became one of the most coveted seating locations at Yankee Stadium during the 2017 season. (© Arturo Pardavilla III)

  New York versus Kansas City was first on the docket. It would only be Judge’s sixty-sixth major league game, but Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ director of media relations, said that the Judge’s Chambers had simply continued the momentum that the fans established on their own.

  “It’s all part of a shift toward making the experience more interactive,” Zillo said. “It’s a different era. It’s a different group of fans. Fans are looking for things in their trip to a stadium that fans weren’t looking for ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago.”

  The seats became a wildly popular attraction, with fans lining up early for the opportunity to snap selfies in the area. Fans flooded the team’s ticket office with inquiries about the section and were told that they could not buy their way into the Judge’s Chambers; instead, Yankees employees roamed the concourses prior to first pitch, looking for fans who were wearing Judge paraphernalia and offering them the opportunity to upgrade their seat location.

  Upon entry, fans were issued black robes with the Yankees logo on the front and Judge’s No. 99 on the back, as well as foam gavels. The gavels (also sold in stadium gift shops) were theirs to keep, but the robes were washed and re-issued for the next home game. On one occasion, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor spent a few innings in the Chambers, cheering along with her fellow Yankees fans.

  “It’s pretty unreal,” Judge said. “I never would have thought [this could happen] so soon. But the fans like it, so I’m glad they’re having fun.”

  Named the American League’s Rookie of the Month in both April and May, Judge was the first Yankee to ever win the award twice in a season and the first Yankee since Don Mattingly in 1985 to win any monthly award in consecutive months. Holliday had made an exceptionally comfortable living by pounding pitching for more than a decade, and even he had to admire what Judge was doing at the game’s highest level.

  “I think we’ve all come to realize that he hits the ball harder than anybody else,” Holliday said. “I think all the stats prove it. It feels like he’s hitting a ball every day where I’m like, ‘Whoa.’ He’s not swinging at many bad pitches, and when he gets his pitch, he doesn’t miss it.”

  Taking a lesson from his days at Fresno State, where players had to place a dollar in a shoebox every time they used the words “me,” “mine,” or “myself” in a boastful manner, Judge struck a humble note. He had never been fined for self-centered talk in three college seasons, and so that wasn’t going to happen at Yankee Stadium. Offering a knowing smirk, Judge would pause for a few extra beats before answering a question that invited him to thump his chest, then credit his teammates for getting on base so pitchers were forced to throw him hittable pitches.

  “It’s been a fun first half so far,” Judge said on July 8, having hit his thirtieth homer to shatter Joe DiMaggio’s record for the most blasts by a Yankees rookie, a mark that had stood since 1936. “I’m blessed to be in this position with my teammates around me, always putting me in the right spot and helping me do my best and helping me succeed.”

  Judge’s polish with the media came as no surprise to Zillo, who organizes a seminar with the Yankees’ younger players each spring, attempting to prepare them to represent a franchise that arguably receives as much media coverage as any in the country. In one exercise, players assume the role of reporters and attempt to bait their teammates into losing their temper or saying something controversial. Zillo listed politics, gun laws, religion, and gay teammates as topics that were covered at one point or another; Judge aced them all, as Zillo had been pleased to tell Brian Cashman.

  “Clearly, he has a wonderful upbringing, starting with his family and his parents. It takes a village,” Zillo said. “Cash and I have a lot of dialogue. He wants to know what I’m picking up on the young guys that I’m interacting with every day and we’re putting them through the media training program at a young age. I told him, ‘Aaron Judge, on my end, is locked and loaded.’ I think he understood at a very young age what it meant to be a professional baseball player and what it could mean to be a New York Yankee.”

  Whenever the stadium lights blinked off and Judge hailed his nightly Uber to Times Square, he enjoyed the convenience of that junior hotel suite overlooking the Crossroads of the World, savoring the ability to satisfy a sweet tooth craving at any hour. After games, he’d walk outside in search of frozen yogurt or ice cream, thrilled that such pleasures were readily available. But Judge had also been living out of the same tired pair of suitcases for two months, and so with Gardner’s family out of town for the week, Gardner urged Judge to cras
h in his guest room and see what life was like in suburban Armonk, New York.

  “He was tired of living in the hotel, so he stayed with me for a week or so,” Gardner said. “I remembered that Dave Robertson stayed with Johnny Damon for a while when we were rookies; same kind of deal. He was really good. He has proper etiquette: puts his dishes in the dishwasher and cleans up after himself. He took the trash out. I put him to work while he was there.”

  Secluded from midtown’s perpetual barrage of horns, sirens, and shouts, Judge savored the change of scenery. Gardner said that he and Judge didn’t do much during their time as housemates: they’d sleep, get lunch, and maybe talk a little hitting on the ride to the Stadium. That was the point.

  “He just wanted me to check out what was outside of New York City,” Judge said. “He said, ‘New York isn’t all tall buildings and flashing lights.’ I loved it up there. I felt like I was in a cabin up in the woods, but I had all of my stuff in New York, so I eventually had to go back. I liked them both.”

  The only black mark on Judge’s visit to Casa de Brett was that he had helped himself to some leftover Easter candy, much to the dismay of Gardner’s young sons, Hunter and Miller.

  “He hasn’t invited me back over,” Judge said. “His boys weren’t too happy about that.”

  Whether he was in the suburbs or the city, Judge kept slugging. He reached base safely in every June game and earned his first AL Player of the Month honors, batting .324 with 10 homers, 25 RBIs, and 30 walks in 28 games. After watching Judge hit on television, Cubs manager Joe Maddon remarked, “He’s Frank Howard all over again.” It was an astute observation, ripped from baseball’s history books. Howard represented perhaps the best old-school comparison to what big league pitchers were now trying to handle in Judge.

  It is believed that Judge was the eleventh position player in major league history to have stood six-foot-seven or taller, and only four of the previous ten played in at least 200 big league games. The best of them was Howard, who was six-foot-seven and hit 382 homers with the Dodgers, Senators, Rangers, and Tigers from 1960–1973. Other more recent notables included Tony Clark and Richie Sexson, a pair of power-hitting first basemen.