Thank you, Aaron Judge. You brought me back to the New York Yankees and even baseball itself after so many years away. Let me explain how that happened.
I spent my first two years on the planet living with my mother and father in the Bronx, in an apartment on Sheridan Ave., less than half a mile from Yankee Stadium. My Poppa took me, then age 8, to see my first game in 1960.
The next year, through this newspaper, I followed Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle chasing Babe Ruth for the single-season home run record. He and I watched the fourth game of the 1964 World Series between the Yanks and the St. Louis Cardinals from the upper deck in left field.
I went through my boyhood with baseball on the brain. My friends and I played stickball all spring and summer with a broom handle and a fuzzy tennis ball, pitching against a strike zone painted on the wall of our elementary school. I practiced for hours in front of a mirror in my suburban bedroom with a bat in my hand trying to mimic Mantle’s mighty swing in slow motion.
But then, as I entered my 20s, something surprising happened: I grew up a little. And in my newfound maturity, so-called, I grew away from baseball. I stopped watching games and poring over box scores on the sports pages and even rooting for the Yankees.
Oh, once in a while a special occasion gave me cause to briefly cheer again. Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played. Derek Jeter diving into the stands face-first to catch a foul ball and coming away with his head bruised and bleeding. Don Mattingly just being Don Mattingly.
But all in all, I had defected from the American pastime. Too many players showboated on and off the field for my taste. The music at games played too loud and the hot dogs cost too much. The players expected too much money and the leagues went on strike. George Steinbrenner was a jerk and Alex Rodriguez was worse.
The game had lost its innocence, and so had I.
Then came the Judge. He had me hooked in his rookie season. He appeared carved from marble, Samson and Hercules rolled into one. He put on a show in the home run derby at the All-Star game and went on to bash a rookie-record 52 homers.
He struggled off and on over the next four seasons. Injuries forced him to miss games and turn in below-par performances. We all had to wonder what was in store. Was his rookie season a fluke? Would he ever fulfill his promise as the next-generation star in the mythic Yankees heritage?
This season erased all doubts and suspicions. But I admire more than his numbers. More than his .313 batting average, his 130 runs batted in and his 61 home runs. More than his probable Triple Crown and Most Valuable Player award.
More, too, than watching him leverage his 285 pounds to generate enough torque to rocket a baseball into the next solar system. More than how he rebounded from disappointment after four years and evolved into a complete player, now as much hitter as slugger, playing right field as if he owns it, even stealing bases.
No, here’s what gets me most about Judge: how he carries himself with dignity and goes about his business like a professional. How he hands his equipment to the bat boy after an at-bat rather than let him pick it up. How reluctantly he comes out of the dugout for a home-run curtain call. How you can see his bashfulness in his eyes. How he puts his team first, always primed to shine the spotlight on someone else, and cares more about winning than racking up fancy stats. How he’s ever-loyal to his adoptive mother and father (“I’m nothing without my family,” he told a press conference the other day).
No, no flamboyant flip of his bat at home plate after belting a homer. No stopping to admire the velocity and trajectory of his latest blast into immortality. No fist pumps as he rounds the bases. No hint of theatrics or gloating, just the utmost aw-shucks humility.
I happen to be a big-time pushover for people who wear spectacular success lightly.
If humanity is to have any hope at all, we’re going to have to have some heroes around. It could be Neil Armstrong or Nelson Mandela or Pope Francis or Albert Pujols. Kids and adults alike have to root for someone who makes us aspire to be better than ourselves.
That’s what Aaron Judge does. So thank you, Mr. Judge, for your championship spirit. You’ve brought baseball back home for me, restored how I felt playing and watching it as a boy. If Judge is smart, he’ll stay a Yankee for life. And if the Yankees are smart, they’ll make sure he does.
Brody, a consultant and essayist in Italy, is author of the memoir “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.”
()
