There are people from high school, from undergrad, from my first attempt at a career, from grad school, from a personal life that frankly can often be dysfunctional (and my fault), that I used to see every day. Classes together, drinks together, groggy mornings after together. Many of those people I’ve not spoken to in quite some time, even more of them I’ve never thought about. This wasn’t out of malice or malevolent behaviour, drifting apart and having separate lives is just a part of this whole silly game we’re in.
But I used to see Aaron Judge every day, and I finally get to again. Indeed, part of his 2022-and-ongoing peak, part of the reason he’s become the most talented right handed hitter in the history of baseball, is because he kicked the oft-injured reputation he had in the late 2010s. That stupid slab of concrete at Dodger Stadium and one bad rib this year are the only things keeping him from perhaps being the favorite to win a fifth-straight AL MVP. I miss getting to say “Holy shit, did you see what Judge did last night?” and I didn’t realize how much I missed that until I saw the Yankees announce those roster changes.
I’ve long said the best and worst thing about baseball is that it’s played every day. You cannot exult in a victory or lament a defeat, because at best you have 20 hours until you’re facing a new pitcher or a fresh lineup. But that everyday routine is what sinks us in, it’s why a local broadcast booth is so much more important in this sport than the 17 weeks that make up an NFL season. We spend 120 days in five months with Michael, David, and Paul, or Gary, Ron, and Keith, or Dan and Joe. We spend that time with Aaron and Cody and Jazz and Ben and Cam and Gerrit too, and it wasn’t until I didn’t get that time with Judge that it sunk in how much I was going to miss him.
Tonight, he will probably go 1-for-4 with a solid single to right, nothing to write home about, because that’s how baseball works. It will be my favorite base hit in 100 days.
The Yankees are in a dogfight, chasing down a team that can seemingly do no wrong while fighting off multiple threats within their own division. At his best—and his best is just about as good as anyone, ever—Judge will contribute a win, maybe a tick better, to that effort. That alone will not be enough to catch Tampa Bay, and it may not even be enough to hold off Boston. But it may be enough to make up for a summer of doldrums, of boredom, of hoping a starter and three relievers can be just enough to make up for a lineup that has let us down again and again. Someday Aaron Judge will let me down. I don’t imagine today is that day.
He is Paul Bunyan and John Henry and Roy Hobbs all rolled into one. Only in America, only in standing 60 feet from his adversary with 32 ounces of maple, is his story possible. He will do things that force your eyes and ears and nose and tongue and hands to conclude could not be done, and yet here they were. His entire adult life has been spent chasing ghosts, men who, like him, carved their names into immortality. He was on the injured list for 99 days because of course he was.
I have spilled more ink in his praise, his defense, his anointment, than I have any lover or friend. He is, perhaps, the only baseball player I feel confident calling myself an authority on. Most of all, he makes me feel like I’m 9 years old again, before the world was messy and complicated and dark and hard. He is Aaron Judge, and while someday he may let me down, that day is not today.
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