Getty/Heavy on MLB
The New York Yankees have been around for 121 years, and in that time, the most successful franchise in the history of North American pro sports has had only 16 captains.
Aaron Judge is the most recent.
The face of the Yankees and one of the most popular players in Major League Baseball, Judge has quickly established himself as one of the great home-run hitters in baseball history. He hit a rookie record 55 long-balls in 2017 and five years later became the American League single-season home run king.
Judge is now a veteran and American League champion with the 2024 Yankees. Though his career is far from finished, he is on the fast-track to the Hall of Fame and has enough historic moments to make him one of those players you tell your grandkids about.
Here are the 10 greatest moments of Aaron Judge’s career…so far.
10. 3/31/18: Aaron Judge Becomes the Tallest to Ever Do It
GettyAaron Judge in the outfield.
With the oft-injured Jacoby Ellsbury starting the season on the shelf, the Yankees used three different starting centerfielders in their first three games. On the third day, Judge got the nod, sliding over from his usual right field spot. The start made Judge the tallest and heaviest centerfielder in baseball history, coming in at 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds at the time.
While most of Judge’s history-making has come at the plate, fans often forget that he’s also an outstanding athlete, as he has shown now with more than 200 career games at the position.
9. 8/14/24: The Fastest to 300
GettyAaron Judge hits his 300th home run.
Though every Judge home run seems to make him the youngest or fastest player to reach a particular milestone, this was a big one. The Yankee captain took White Sox pitcher Chad Kuhl deep in the 8th inning of New York’s 10-2 win, giving him 300 career homers in 955 games and 3,431 at-bats. The previous records for fastest to 300 were in 1,087 career games (Ralph Kiner) and 3,831 at bats (Babe Ruth).
8. 8/12/21: Judge’s Field of Dreams
GettyAaron Judge before the 2021 Field of Dreams game.
Major League Baseball has gone all-in on playing regular season games in unusual locations. This was one of the first — a matchup between the Yankees and White Sox in a park adjacent to the famed Field of Dreams ballpark from the 1989 movie. Though the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the game by a year, Judge made it worth the wait. He homered twice, including a two-run homer in the ninth inning that turned a 7-4 deficit into a 7-6 game, setting up Giancarlo Stanton’s go-ahead home run two batters later. The only reason this moment isn’t higher on the list is because the Yankees eventually lost the game on a Tim Anderson walk-off home run in the bottom of the inning.
7. 10/8/17: Aaron Judge Robs Francisco Lindor
GettyAaron Judge robs Francisco Lindor of a home run.
With the memorable 2017 ALCS and eventual controversial Houston Astros World Series title, that year’s Division Series between the Yankees and Cleveland Indians often goes under-appreciated. The Yankees became only the second team to ever win two best-of-five Division Series after trailing 0-2.
One of the most dramatic moments in the tightly contested five-game battle came in the top of the 6th inning when Judge robbed slugger Francisco Lindor of a two-run home run to preserve a scoreless game. The Yankees eventually won, 1-0, on a 7th-inning solo home run from Greg Bird, to keep their season alive.
6. 4/28/17: Statcast Records Start to Fall
GettyAaron Judge after a home run
Judge vs. Statcast is one of the great unheralded rivalries in baseball, and the Yankee rookie fired the opening salvo on the day of his first multi-home run game. With only 11 career homers to his name, Judge hit two against the Baltimore Orioles, including one with an exit velocity of 119.4 mph, breaking a Statcast record at the time.
He later broke his own record, hitting 121.1 in June. That mark stood until Stanton surpassed it the next August (121.7 mph).
5. 8/13/16: Welcome to the Big Leagues, Aaron Judge
GettyAaron Judge hits his first career home run.
The 2016 Yankees season didn’t go quite how the team expected it, so come mid-August, the franchise was ready to look toward the future. They called up Judge and fellow rookie Tyler Austin to make their first career starts, and both announced their arrivals in towering fashion.
On the same day the Yankees celebrated the 20th anniversary of their 1996 World Series, they ushered in the Judge Era. In the bottom of the second inning, right after Austin homered in his first Major League at bat, Judge went yard in his first as well. They became the first-ever set of teammates to homer in their first MLB at bat in the same game — and they did it in consecutive at bats. Judge hit three more that summer until an injury cut his cup of coffee short.
4. 12/21/22: The Captain Is Crowned
GettyAaron Judge is named captain of the New York Yankees.
After a hotly contested free agency race between the Yankees, Padres, Giants, and others, Judge ultimately decided to return to the Yankees (though reports originally indicated “Arson” Judge was headed to San Francisco). His deal with the Bombers was worth nine years and $360 million, guaranteeing the slugger $40 million per year. And, proving there was no animosity between the two sides after negotiations, Hal Steinbrenner named Judge the 16th captain in Yankees history and the first since Derek Jeter held the title from 2003 to 2014.
3. 7/10/17: The Derby’s Revival
GettyAaron Judge after winning the 2017 Home Run Derby
The Home Run Derby has long been a staple of MLB All-Star week, but much like the Slam Dunk Contest in the NBA, the whole act seemed to have gotten old. Then Judge stepped to the plate and electrified the crowd in Miami. Though he was originally booed when he stepped up to the plate, Judge mashed 23 in the first round to slip by the host Marlins’ Justin Bour. He wasn’t done there, beating all three of his opponents by one home run, topping Cody Bellinger 13-12, and Miguel Sano 11-10.
With Bryce Harper winning the next year and Pete Alonso going back-to-back after that, Judge made the Home Run Derby fun again. Alonso has since taken the mantle, eagerly participating each season he’s invited. Judge, meanwhile, says he’ll return to the Home Run Derby once the All-Star Game returns to New York.
2. 9/28/22: Judge Ties Maris
GettyAaron Judge hits his 61st home run.
There was no asterisk on this 61. Judge tied ex-Yankee Roger Maris’ single-season American League home run record, blasting his 61st of the year off of current Yankee Tim Mayza in a 9-3 New York win in Toronto. Fittingly, at 117.4 mph, Judge’s 61st was also his hardest hit home run of the season.
“It’s an incredible honor to get a chance to be associated with one of the Yankee greats, one of the baseball greats,” Judge said at the time, per MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. “To be enshrined with them forever, words can’t describe it. That’s one thing that’s so special about the Yankee organization, all the guys that came before us and paved the way, played the game the right way.”
Similar to how the Maris family followed previous sluggers chasing Roger’s record, they were on-hand in Toronto that night. So was Judge’s mother, Patty, who went home with the historic baseball.
1. 10/4/22: The New AL Home Run King
GettyAaron Judge hits his 62nd home run.
It came down to the penultimate game of the regular season, but Judge finally did it. It took the slugger seven games to get from home run 60 to 61, then six more to get to 62. After finally breaking the AL home run record, he admitted the chase was starting to wear on him.
“I can’t lie, the past couple of games, I looked up in the seventh inning and I’m like, ‘Dang, I’ve only got one more at-bat,” he said, per Hoch. “We’d better figure this out.’”
When he did figure it out, his family was there again by his side, along with more than 38,000 Rangers fans who joined the Yankees in giving him a warm ovation.
In the aftermath, everyone from the former captain, Jeter, to President Joe Biden called Judge to congratulate him on doing what no American League player had ever done before.
Judge flirted with breaking his own record in 2024, but a late-season homer slump capped him at “only” 58.
Which ones did we miss? Share your top Aaron Judge moments in the comments section below!
Comments
Aaron Judge’s Top 10 MLB Moments