Aaron Judge of Yankees Reacts to Hitting 61st Home Run

To Maris, Judge is the only one worthy of standing alongside his father in the record book.

“I think it means a lot for a lot of people that he’s clean,” said Maris, who was at Rogers Centre for the game. “He’s a Yankee, he plays the game the right way and I think he gives people a chance to look at somebody who should be revered for hitting 62 home runs and not just as a guy who did it in the American League.”

Maris has been at all of the Yankees games since Judge reached 59 home runs, and he was sitting with Judge’s mother, Patty, at Wednesday’s game. For all the time that he had been following the team, he had not met Judge until Wednesday night, after the 61st home run. It was a plan Maris devised to avoid causing a distraction for Judge. They met and hugged outside the visiting team’s clubhouse after the game.

“I asked him why he waited so long and made me travel around the country,” Maris joked after the game, which the Yankees won, 8-3. “The ironic thing was, it’s the ninth day I’ve been here. He wears 99, my dad wore 9. It’s just kind of weird the way it all went together. So now I’m thinking, ‘OK, we’re going to go to Yankee Stadium, and he’ll probably hit 62 on October the first, when Dad hit his 61st. Just a lot of weird similarities.”

During the three-game series, Toronto fans tried to thread a partisan needle by simultaneously rooting for their team to win and for Judge to get his fair share of swings. Whenever he walked, seven times in all, the fans booed their team’s pitchers.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/sports/baseball/aaron-judge-home-run-toronto.html