Aaron Judge Chases 61 HRs and MLB History* (Kind Of)

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For 37 years, Roger Maris’ single-season home run record of 61 stood alone as possibly the greatest single-season achievement in baseball. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa broke the record in 1998, and so did Barry Bonds three years later. But those achievements came at the height of the steroid era, and in the more than two decades since, no player has topped Maris’ mark. But this season, the Yankees’ Aaron Judge is on pace to comfortably surpass Maris. Jeff Passan joins us to explain what Judge topping Maris would mean for Major League Baseball, and whether fans might come to regard Judge as the true single-season home run king. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	About 20 years ago when I started covering baseball, I thought the notion that the ball
0:12.5	sounds different off the bat with some guys was just really a trite thought.
0:18.9	Jeff Passen covers Major League Baseball for ESPN.
0:23.0	And then I'm down on the field for batting practice and I'm talking with somebody, my
0:28.0	back to the field and the BP's almost like ambient noise.
0:35.6	Until a hitter like Aaron Judge steps in.
0:41.2	It does sound different.
0:42.8	When he really barrels one, it's such a satisfying noise like this fully formed realization
0:50.0	of two moving objects meeting in one in this case the bat dominating the other.
0:56.3	Trilky Telefield, there it goes!
1:00.9	See ya!
1:03.1	There's his walkoff on run and the Yankees have come back to win it!
1:07.7	Six to five!
1:09.2	Oh man, oh man!
1:12.2	What a blast by Judge!
1:16.0	When I think a ball is hit well, I don't look at the ball.
1:21.2	I look at the outfielder.
1:22.8	The outfielder's reaction tells me everything I need to know about how far the ball is
1:26.8	going to travel.
1:28.4	When Aaron Judge, who is 6 foot 7 and 282, very chisel pounds, a true specimen, one of
1:35.2	one squares up a ball, the outfielder runs backward for a few steps and then just stops.
1:41.9	And he's not trying to show up his pitcher.
	...

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