The Emotional Swings Of Watching Aaron Judge Chase 61 Homers

Since hitting his 60th homer Tuesday night, 81 pitches were thrown to Aaron Judge during five chances to match Roger Maris and possibly surpass the 1961 American League record.

Those pitches were met with varying reaction from the five crowds totaling a combined 230,962 fans, who watched for 14 hours, 57 minutes as part of the 15 at-bats occupying the main area of focus along with differing opinions about what fans would do if they caught the ball hit for a potential 61st and 62nd homer.

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The six called strikes by plate umpires Chris Conroy, Clint Vondrak, Brian Knight and Carlos Torres and Adam Hamari were met with boos. Any pitch out of the strike zone were also met with boos and an occasional derisive chant such as the one reserved for Pittsburgh reliever Eric Stout, who Judge drew a four-pitch walk against during an eight-run seventh.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that’s what the crowd reaction was going to be,” Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton said Wednesday. “I’ve been to Yankee Stadium a lot of times. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody when the score’s like that but there was everybody in the ballpark. You just kind of assume that would be what the reaction was.”

And when Judge started taking his at-bats against the Red Sox, there was a different sound and it was noticeable.

It was almost complete silence when Judge stepped to the plate as fans scurried back from the bathrooms and concession stands towards any area to watch the event and usually that included lifting the cell phone out of their pocket for a chance to take a video or picture of potential history.

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The closest Judge got to getting fans capture potential history on their mobile devices occurred at 10:33 pm on Thursday night against Matt Barnes in the ninth inning of a 4-4 game.

That was the moment the fans were from silence to thinking Judge’s bat made that special sound that leads to a communal roar and then the sigh of disappointment when the realty of the ball hitting center fielder Enrique Hernandez’s glove 404 feet away and steps from the center field fence.

The three emotional reactions occurred in a span of 11 seconds. Since the Yankees won in the 10th (first overtime), it was the end of Judge’s night and later it elicited a passionate reaction from Barnes about his craft:

“With all due respect to Aaron Judge, he’s a great person and he’s having an unbelievable season, I’m trying to get him out. I frankly don’t care about history. We got a ballgame to win. If I give up a homer, the game’s over, right?”

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“So, I’m sure he does it at some point this season and I’ll congratulate him and everything. If I go out there and get caught up in the history of what he could potentially be doing and I start tiptoeing around the at-bat, I’m probably going to hang something.”

Friday brought more of the same with silence before Judge at-bats and fans rising upon the mere sound of the gavel banging for the scoreboard sound effect of “All Rise” as if it was a cue card while others outside the stadium streamed the game on Apple TV and possibly voiced their thoughts on the broadcast on the internet.

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Instead they saw the wrong Aaron homer as in Aaron Hicks, whose drive into the fifth row of section 136 in left field occurred shortly before Judge hit a 338-foot flyball.

On Saturday, the same anticipation built for Judge with a slight twist and some emotional reaction for the typically stoic slugger.

The moment occurred at around 3:40 pm and while ABC cut into his at-bats on its college football coverage when Judge began his latest bid with the same silence followed by “MVP chants before starting a three-minute at-bat.

In the seventh inning against John Schreiber in a 5-5 game, Judge got ahead in the count at 2-0, took two long swings and fouled off the next pitch. The seventh pitch was checked swing, Vondrak looked towards Conroy at first and from there the verdict came – Judge did not hold up and struck out. Judge glanced at Conroy, shook his head, and waved his hand to express his disgust.

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It also was his final act of Saturday as two pitches later, Anthony Rizzo hit a two-run homer and 55 minutes later, Scott Effross escaped a bases-loaded situation that if he failed at doing so would have brought Judge up for a bottom of the ninth Red Sox manager Alex Cora noticed many were hoping would actually occur.

“Actually, it was kind of weird,” said Cora, who spent most of the weekend telling anyone who would listen his pitchers planned on going after Judge. “The last inning there was a section towards right field, they started chanting ‘Let’s Go Red Sox’ and it was a bunch of Yankee fans. They were wearing their jerseys.

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“There was a guy next to me saying “Let’s Go Alex, Let’s go score two. I was like if you get this place going chanting “Let’s go Red Sox, you’re the man but he didn’t. It was interesting.”

The final day brought a rookie opponent in Brayan Bello, who recently drew some high praise from former Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez.

Judge saw nine pitches and on the second pitch his bat made the noise of someone getting a double, which satisfied fans but was not the desired outcome. In the third he walked on a full count and two innings later, Judge hit a 340-foot flyball the slightly had that home run sound but also the sound of just missed that, a reaction that Judge seemed to think also when he clapped his hands to acknowledge the fact while nearing first base.

About 25 minutes later the rain began as the Yankees batted and when rookie Oswald Peraza made the final out of the sixth, Judge was left in the on-deck circle and the heavy rain pelted the field. Instead of a mass exodus to the subways and cars, people merely moved to the concourses in the hopes of another Judge at-bat.

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A little over 90 minutes later, it was official the next Judge at-bat in the Bronx would be Friday after a three-game trip to Toronto where one of his homers generated one of the feel-good fan moments of this season.

The assumption is when Judge returns, he will be at 61 and maybe 62.

Then maybe not because if there is anything to be gleamed from the past five games is home runs cannot be hit on demand like accessing a television show whenever you want which is something to remember since long before getting to 60, Judge hit one homer in his first 13 games similar to how Maris did not homer in his first 10 games in 1961 before connecting off Detroit’s Paul Foytack.

“It’s tough,” Judge said. You can ask any hitter around the league. It’s not easy. I think they kind of happen by accident. I think homers are more thrown than hit to be honest. It really takes the right pitch, the right situation.”

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