62

An inside look at Yankees slugger Aaron Judge’s incredible, unparalleled run to break Roger Maris’s home run record and the franchise both men called home. Babe Ruth. Roger Maris. Aaron Judge. Three historic figures across generations of Major League Baseball, all swinging for the fences and calling Yankee Stadium home. After an epic home run chase in which the sport’s biggest present-day star chased a pair of beloved legends down to the wire, their names will forever be linked in the lore of the most storied franchise in professional sports. Judge, the hulking superman who carried an easy aw-shucks demeanor from small-town California to stardom in the Big Apple, had long established his place as one of the game’s most intimidating power hitters. Baseballs frequently rocketed off his bat like cannon fire, dispatching heat-seeking missiles toward the “Judge’s Chambers” seating area in right field, sending delirious fans scattering for souvenirs. But even in a high-tech universe where computers measure each swing to the nth degree, Maris’s American League mark of sixty-one home runs seemed largely out of reach. It had been more than a decade since baseball wiped clean the stains of its performance-enhanced era, in which cartoonish sluggers Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds made a mockery of the record book. Given a more level playing field against pitchers sporting hellacious arsenals unlike anything Ruth or Maris could have imagined, only an exceptional talent could even consider making a run at sixty-one homers. Judge, who placed the bet of his life by turning down a $213.5 million extension on the eve of the regular season, promised to rise to the challenge. In this insider’s look at one of baseball’s wildest and most memorable seasons, veteran Yankees beat reporter Bryan Hoch unravels the remarkable journey of Judge’s run to shatter Maris’s beloved sixty-one-year-old record. In-depth, inspiring, and with an expert’s insight, 62 also investigates the more significant questions raised in a season unlike any other, including how—and where—Judge will deliver his encore.