Rant #2,976: Here Comes the Judge

Good morning.
 
It is Friday, and it is time to get up from slumber.
 
I don’t know what is going on, but lately, my slumber has been pretty good.
 
I have literally slept the night away.
 
But my allergies are terrible today, with my nose running like a faucet.
 
I wonder if gods—or those who we classify as gods—have the same problems normal people do.
 
One of those gods is Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees—does he not get a good sleep from time to time, and does he have allergies like I do?
 
What I do know that he has is 57 home runs this year—20 more than any other player this season—123 runs batted in, and a .310 batting average.
 
He is almost a sure bet to be named American League Most Valuable Player, as he has led the Yankees to a first-place, six-and-a-half game lead in the American League’s East Division.
 
And no, this newlywed doesn’t have to worry about the price of cereal like I do, because if he wanted to, he could buy 10 boxes of cereal at $5.99 a piece without even breaking a sweat on his six foot seven, 280 pound frame.
 
And after this season, when he goes into free agency, he will be able to buy 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 boxes of cereal in one fell swoop, as he will be signed to a contract with either the Yankees or some other team that will pay him more than $40 million a year for 10 years or so.
 
Judge is the current face of baseball, with his likeable personality, and his talent and abilities, on full display this season.
 
He has a chance to further cement himself into baseball history if he can reach—and surpass—Roger Maris’s cherished 61 homers in a season during the Yankees’ final regular season games, which would not only break the American League record for homers in a season, but is felt by purists to be the de facto major league single season homerun record, as the actual record—73—was recorded by Barry Bonds during the steroid era.
 
Anyway, whatever happens, Judge is the true face of the national pastime, the true face of the sport in 2022 terms.
 
He is the All-American boy without the typical All-American boy's background.
 
Judge was born of mixed race and adopted at birth by his parents, who are white, and who also adopted his brother, who is a missionary.
 
He has no idea who his biological parents are, and the last I heard, he doesn’t want to know who they are. He considers his adopted parents his parents, and that is that.
 
Judge, at 30 years old, is sort of like The Rock of baseball, a tall, good-looking guy who delivers the goods for the most famous team on the planet.
 
Dwayne Johnson is also of mixed parentage—black and Samoan—and he had a pretty rough upbringing, but both Johnson and Judge have overcome whatever challenges they faced as kids to really rule their respective haunts, Johnson our top movie star and Judge our top baseball player.
 
And yes, both make a lot of money for their efforts,
 
Men like them, women like them, and most importantly, kids absolutely adore them. They are both real, true, larger-than-life figures, almost real-life super heroes.
 
When my family and were on vacation in July, we took in a Yankees game at Camden Yards against the Baltimore Orioles.
 
We had field level seats—second row from the field—and as the Yankees won the game 6-0, Judge, as usual, made a large contribution to the effort, hitting a home run during the game.
 
We were sitting just off being parallel to third base, and as he took his home run trot and passed third base, I finally saw how huge this guy was.
 
You see him on TV, and yes, he is taller than most any other player, but when you see him in person, you really see how huge this guy is—
 
And more importantly, how graceful he is, whether he is at the plate or in the field.
 
He is not all arms and legs, as so many taller players are—this guy is solid as, well, The Rock.
 
I just hope he stays where he is, remains a Yankee for the rest of his career, and that he can join Derek Jeter as among the greatest of their recent players and greatest Yankees of all-time.
 
Although Judge grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is as much a part of New York as Jeter was, and he is sort of like a larger-than-life facsimile of Jeter, in the way he plays and handles himself.
 
Money is money, but I hope that Judge realizes that he is nowhere better off than as a Yankee in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx in New York, and doesn’t think he can do better elsewhere.

The money may be better on the other side, but the grass isn't always greener there.
 
Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.