Yankees’ Aaron Judge Hits 60th Home Run of Season

Sixty is a big, fat round number.

In baseball’s long history, only five players had hit that many home runs in a season. Whether or not they were aided by performance enhancers, they are among the greatest hitters of all time: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Maris and Babe Ruth. On Monday, for the first time in over two decades, a new name joined that list.

With a 430-foot blast to lead off the ninth inning of Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge hit his 60th of the year, adding yet another memorable moment to one of the greatest offensive seasons ever. His home run also started a rally — four batters later, Giancarlo Stanton delivered a walk-off grand slam, giving the Yankees a 9-8 win.

And with 15 games left in the Yankees’ regular season after the conclusion of Tuesday’s game, Judge still has plenty of time to threaten Maris’s American League record of 61 home runs in a season, set in 1961 and considered by some to be the clean home run record. Bonds holds the major-league record, with 73 home runs in 2001, but, like Sosa and McGwire, he has been tied to performance-enhancing drug use during an era before steroid testing began.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/sports/baseball/aaron-judge-60-homers.html