Baby Bombers Page 17

  “It was going to be risk, but maybe high, high reward,” said Yankees special assistant Jim Hendry, who had been dispatched to a handful of Judge’s games at Fresno State in 2013. “But if it clicks, then you’ve got something. You always dream. You say, ‘It took Richie Sexson a while, when he was struggling, then he took off.’ If you told me by the end of the season that Judge was hitting .250 in the big leagues with 30 homers, we’d have been thrilled.”

  Though Judge seemed to be exceptionally grounded, the Yankees had concerns about the budding star’s time being spread too thin. Judge wisely began to limit his availability at his clubhouse locker, relying on Zillo to filter hundreds of media requests from local and national outlets. Judge also told agent Page Odle that he was not ready to begin sorting the dozens of endorsement offers that corporate America had started to drop on his doorstep. Shortly after the season, Judge picked his first, locking in as the newest pitchman for Pepsi.

  “You worry about him being pulled in a lot of different directions and how you handle that,” Girardi said. “Because when you get off to starts like this and you’re new and the types of home runs that he’s hitting, people are going to want his attention. It’s important that he stays focused on what his job is and he doesn’t get pulled in too many directions.”

  Unlike Jeter, who was criticized by George Steinbrenner for his club-hopping bachelor lifestyle in the early 2000s, Judge preferred to save his energy. Despite a growing profile that promised to open any of Manhattan’s hottest doors, Judge seemed to have little interest in experiencing the late-night party scene.

  “I’d rather spend a night at home,” Judge said. “If my teammates want to come over and hang out at home or go to a nice dinner and hang out, I’ll do that. But I don’t like to burn the midnight oil going out. It’s going to take away from what I’ve got to do at the field.”

  On one occasion, Judge’s parents traveled to New York hoping to view some of the city’s tourist attractions. Judge said that he took them to breakfast at a diner, but begged off the sightseeing excursion, opting to take his morning easy and then get to the stadium early for the game.

  “I think he’s been extremely professional in how he’s gone about his business, the focus being on baseball,” Cashman said. “One thing Judge has always had is high leadership qualities throughout our minor leagues that were very similar to Derek Jeter’s qualities. Clearly different players, and you never want to compare anybody to a first ballot Hall of Famer, but makeup side there’s a lot of similarities there.”

  Judge’s off-field weakness, if you could call it one, was a propensity to get caught up in marathon video game sessions. Judge had a love affair with his PlayStation 4 and was able to name all of the Pokémon characters, which prompted CC Sabathia’s young son, Carter, to name Judge as his second favorite Yankee. Judge’s gaming obsession stretched into the team’s charter flights, where a Nintendo Switch proved to be as indispensable a travel item as neck pillows and comfortable clothing.

  “Yeah, he’s a big nerd when it comes to video games. Big nerd,” Tyler Wade said. “He loves video games. He plays Destiny, Mario Kart, all of it. I’ll go back to my room, hang out for a little bit, talk to my parents, and go up to his room and play video games. That’s every night.”

  The adventures in those digital universes were fun, but they were no competition for what Judge was doing in the real world. On June 11, Judge hit the longest home run that the majors would see in 2017, punishing a flat slider from the Orioles’ Logan Verrett for a mammoth 495-foot blast that landed in the back of the left-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium.

  When Judge returned to the dugout, his teammates jokingly gave him the silent treatment, pretending they hadn’t noticed the homer. Two weeks later, when his Blue Jays visited New York, first baseman Justin Smoak said that he stared at that back row of the left-field bleachers and attempted to make sense of what kind of human could reach that part of the stadium.

  “I was just standing at home plate during BP and I’m like, ‘I could hit a ball twice and hit it that far,’” Smoak said. “He’s a big, strong man. When he gets on first base, honestly, I try to get in my crouch position. I feel like I’m a big guy, but he makes me feel like a little guy. He’s got a short swing for a big guy. It’s hard to do that.”

  Reggie Jackson once said that “fans don’t boo nobodies,” and Judge’s rising profile made him a target for the leather-lunged. The jeers were particularly loud during a June 29 game at Chicago’s unfortunately-named Guaranteed Rate Field, as a group of well-lubricated White Sox followers in right field taunted Judge through the first five innings.

  In the sixth, Judge crushed his major league-leading twenty-seventh homer off reliever Jake Petricka, then shot an extended glance toward his would-be tormentors after rounding first base. Some of them applauded when Judge returned to right field for the bottom half of the inning; others seemed to have vanished altogether, shrinking into the darkness.

  “I like having some fun with the fans,” Judge said. “They were heckling me pretty good out there. I’m not going to say anything to them, I gave them a little peek when I was rounding the bases. Just having some fun with them."

  Judge said that he had learned a long time ago to let his actions speak for themselves, recognizing that if he had turned around and said anything to the hecklers, the verbal abuse would have increased. Judge had shut them up in the best possible way, and it was a focused intensity that Mike Batesole had seen before on the Fresno State ballfields.

  “That sweet kid, that big beautiful smile that you see, don’t get fooled by that,” Batesole said. “This kid will blow you up in a second. This kid’s got a mean streak. To play in the 150-game area with the travel they go through, and still get my 100 swings in after the game, and still get my lift in, you’ve got to have a little bit of a mean streak to get through those times, especially late in the season. And he’s got that. You think about a guy who’s got his teammates’ back. At some point, there’s going to be something that happens with the Red Sox or somebody else. Don’t get in my boy’s way. He’ll be right in the middle of it.”

  The fans only saw the side of Judge who created indelible memories by playing catch with young glove-toting fans in the front row, both at home and on the road, and who tried to take time every day to dole out handshakes and signatures before the first pitches of games.

  Autograph seekers had been a constant outside the Yankees’ hotels in the “Core Four” era, but in the years since Jeter’s retirement, their early-morning check-ins were sometimes witnessed only by the employee working at the front desk. In July, the Yankees were greeted by an enthusiastic group while unloading their bags at the Grand Hotel in Minneapolis, despite arriving close to four o’clock in the morning. Sleep or say hello to Aaron Judge? For those fans, it was an easy choice.

  Judge didn’t necessarily mind, as he’d been practicing his signature in notebooks since grade school, but his celebrity now seemed irreversible. Rob Refsnyder recalled one midsummer evening in Toronto when he, Brett Gardner, Chase Headley, Matt Holliday, and Judge attempted to go out to dinner. The players’ meal was continually interrupted by visitors seeking some time with Judge, who smiled and exchanged pleasantries with all. Still, the next time Refsnyder and Judge broke bread, they did so in the privacy of Judge’s hotel room.

  “He’s charismatic. Fans are really drawn to him,” Refsnyder said. “There’s something about Aaron. I feel like whenever we go out and try to get something to eat, he can’t really mix into the crowd. That dinner wasn’t very quiet, but he’s really gracious. I think he’s always going to have to deal with that, being the biggest guy in the room.”

  Everyone seemed to want a piece of Judge, and the deep-pocketed crowd was especially willing to pony up for the privilege. In July, a rare 2013 Bowman rookie card autographed by Judge sold for $14,655 on eBay ($350 less than the sticker price to drive a 2017 Ford Fiesta off the lot). Weeks later, the jersey that Judge used
in his first major league game on August 13, 2016, sold at auction for an astounding $157,366, making it the most expensive game-worn jersey from any major U.S. sport over the past fifteen years.

  By the time Judge homered in three straight games from July 4 through 7, the craze was officially in full swing. He garnered 4,448,702 All-Star votes, becoming the first Yankee since Jeter in 2009 to lead the American League, and at age twenty-five was the youngest player to lead the AL in voting since a twenty-four-year-old Ken Griffey Jr. did so in 1994.

  The reward came in the form of a trip to Miami for the All-Star Game, where Judge was joined by four of his teammates: Dellin Betances, Starlin Castro, Gary Sanchez, and Luis Severino, all of whom were selected to the Midsummer Classic via the player ballot.

  “It’s incredible,” Judge said. “I get a chance to play in front of the best fans every night at Yankee Stadium. Having their support through these first couple of months has been incredible. They’ve really motivated our team and they’ve helped this team a lot. They’re always supporting us, so I’ve got to thank them.”

  Arguably the game’s biggest home run hitting attraction by this point, Judge paced the majors with thirty bombs, and his stunning batting practice displays made him a natural fit to participate in the Home Run Derby. Major League Baseball had invited Judge and Sanchez to take part weeks earlier, but both held off on confirming their attendance. They’d later say that they were waiting to make sure that they were actually selected to the All-Star team, though that was largely a formality in Judge’s case.

  When Indians bench coach Brad Mills announced the AL’s lineup for the All-Star Game, filling in while manager Terry Francona recovered from a heart procedure, Mills called Judge “one of the best stories in Major League Baseball” and said that he had no choice but to hit Judge third in the exhibition. Mills, like the audience at home, wanted to see Judge bat in the first inning.

  The real draw, of course, was Judge’s participation in the Derby, which preceded the Midsummer Classic by a day. The events that would take place at Marlins Park on the unforgettable evening of July 11, 2017, cemented Judge’s starring role on the national stage, prompting Commissioner Rob Manfred to wonder if his sport was watching a young Yankee on the verge of greatness.

  “Aaron Judge has been absolutely phenomenal,” Manfred said, speaking during a day-after luncheon with the members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. “There is no other word to describe it. He is a tremendous talent on the field. A really appealing off-the-field personality. The kind of player that can become the face of the game.”

  CHAPTER 10.

  Miami Heat

  Aaron Judge was starting to perspire as he anchored his size seventeen cleats into the artificial turf of a batting cage, concealed from view under the field-level seats of Marlins Park, steps away from the visiting clubhouse. As he swung his bat with lethal force, mashing ball after ball into the protective netting surrounding him, the rhythmic practice hacks were interrupted by waves of thunderous applause that leaked through the ceiling and walls.

  Judge moved his eyes toward a mounted television screen, and for an instant, he wondered if the in-house ESPN feed had become stuck on a looped replay of the same drive. The on-screen graphic that charted Justin Bour’s growing tally in the Home Run Derby said otherwise, and Judge allowed himself a brief chuckle.

  “This is going to be tough,” he told himself, “but we’ll see what happens.”

  An annual highlight of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game celebration, the Home Run Derby matches eight of the game’s top power hitters in a single-elimination, three-round bracket format. Each player is given four minutes to hit as many home runs as possible, with thirty bonus seconds awarded if a homer is hit farther than 440 feet.

  The buzz leading into the 2017 event had been an anticipated final-round showdown between Judge and the Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton, a pair of hulking power hitters who seemed as though they had been crafted out of the same machine. Each featured a physique that appeared more appropriate for professional football or basketball than for baseball: Judge stood six-foot-seven and 282 pounds, while Stanton was listed at six-foot-six and 245 pounds.

  In fact, as he prepared to defend a Derby title that he’d earned during the 2016 festivities in San Diego, Stanton had remarked that Judge was “like the twin you’ve never met.”

  “The resemblance is insane,” Stanton said. “Everyone wants us to hate each other, but we’re so similar.”

  Bour, a twenty-nine-year-old first baseman for the hometown Marlins, had seemed to be an afterthought in the lead-up to the Derby. When the contest’s roster of sluggers lined up on a stage prior to the event, four wearing blue American League tops and four dressed in orange for the National League, Bour and Judge had literally rubbed elbows. Photographers directed Judge and Stanton to serve as towering bookends around Bour, the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger, the Rockies’ Charlie Blackmon, the Twins’ Miguel Sano, the Royals’ Mike Moustakas, and Gary Sanchez of the Yankees, who stood directly to Stanton’s right. Most eyes in the room seemed to be focused on Judge and Stanton, including those belonging to the six other contestants.

  “It’s going to be awesome for all of us, but I’m excited to see Giancarlo and Judge,” Moustakas said.

  To the chagrin of a pro-Marlins crowd that wildly cheered every mention of their players while booing all others, Sanchez defeated Stanton with a stunning first-round upset. The eighth-seeded Sanchez slugged seventeen homers, one of which measured 483 feet. Stanton fell one shy of matching the Yankees catcher, popping up on his final swing in the bonus round.

  For Judge, who had hit back-to-back with Sanchez in the Yankees’ minor league lineups for multiple seasons, the power display that knocked Stanton out early came as no shock.

  “I was over on the sidelines,” Judge said. “Watching him kind of hit one after another after another, it was impressive. I’ve seen Gary do that for years now, so I wasn’t too surprised. Seeing him do it there on the big stage was even better.”

  Judge said that he had not given much thought to facing Stanton, insisting that his focus was on “trying to get out of the first round.” Stanton mentioned some of the difficulties that came along with serving as an All-Star ambassador after his 5:00 a.m. arrival from San Francisco, where his Marlins had wrapped up the season’s first half with a win over the Giants.

  Stanton may have had some legitimate gripes, but it wasn’t as though Judge and Sanchez had been sipping piña coladas on South Beach. New York headed into the break with a 45-41 record, dropping a 5–3 decision to the Brewers before their players scattered to the winds. Five were headed to Miami, the team’s largest All-Star contingent since eight Bombers were selected in 2011.

  Along with Dellin Betances and Luis Severino, plus infielder Starlin Castro, the Yankees travel party touched down in Miami the night before the Derby—right around the time that rapper Pitbull was thumping a blend of hip-hop and reggaeton across Biscayne Bay from the stage of a posh, sweaty All-Star Gala at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Judge said that he made no effort to explore the Magic City, choosing to get as much rest as possible.

  “I was thinking about a lot of things, trying to prepare,” Judge said. “I’m big into preparing. I don’t like being unprepared for things, so in my mind I went through all the different scenarios, what’s going on for tomorrow and the next day.”

  He hadn’t rehearsed for a situation in which Bour stole center stage, but here the lefty swinger was, crushing ball after ball over the lime green walls. A six-foot-three, 265-pound block of a man, Bour had joked that he’d need “about 100” homers to defeat Judge, and he was making a hell of a run at that round number.

  As Judge watched on a high-definition TV screen, Bour paused to chomp on a donut that Stanton had procured as a mid-round snack. Maybe the sugar rush helped Bour complete his assault, which culminated in a commanding twenty-two home run lead.

  Judge wiped another lathe
r of perspiration from his brow and took a deep breath before striding toward home plate. Ascending the dugout steps, Judge reminded himself that this was supposed to be fun, and the experience already had been; he had gushed like a nervous teenager earlier in the afternoon during a chance interaction in the stadium tunnel with Giants catcher Buster Posey.

  “I grew up a Giants fan in California. I’ve watched him for years,” Judge said. “I was coming out of the bathroom and he was walking into the clubhouse. I had to stop him and say, ‘Buster, I’m a huge fan.’ I’ve had fun watching what he’s doing, the way he plays on the field, the way he acts off the field. He’s the true definition of a professional. He said, ‘It’s been fun to watch.’”

  Posey was correct. Judge’s thirty homers at the All-Star break were three more than the Astros’ George Springer, and four more than Stanton and the Reds’ Joey Votto. He’d already shattered Joe DiMaggio’s record for home runs by a Yankee rookie, with DiMaggio having hit twenty-nine in 1936. Posey’s parting words to Judge had been a friendly push to keep it going. As Judge rolled his bat along his right shoulder, the twenty-five-year-old took a moment to appreciate the unfamiliar surroundings.

  An abstract stucco, steel, aluminum, and glass monument placed on the site of the old Orange Bowl, Marlins Park would feel out of place in any other big league city, but somehow the mix of Miami-Deco features connect with the surrounding Little Havana neighborhood. An aquarium lined with bulletproof glass resided immediately behind home plate, its tropical tenants oblivious to the madness taking place a few feet away.

  With the retractable roof and left-field windows both closed, the humid summer air was blocked off in favor of a climate-controlled seventy-two degree atmosphere, providing prime conditions to launch baseballs—some flying so far, observers would wonder if they had been stitched differently than the ones used in regulation play. The left-field foul pole sat 344 feet away, the right-field foul pole measured 335 feet from home plate, with center field residing at a distance of 407 feet.