Despite looking as if he’d just wandered out of a children’s story about a tree who turns into a real-live boy, Aaron Judge’s slash line still seems hardly credible. Through Wednesday night’s game in Chicago, where the 6-foot-7, 282-pound émigré from folklore became the fastest player in MLB history to hit 300 home runs by games played, Judge’s 2024 production has been nothing short of mythical: .333/.467/.707.
As much as stats nerds are a blight on baseball—if it’s folly to concern yourself with how Quaker chops up its horse feed (nobody cares, “steel-cut oats”), then there’s no excuse for making “exit velocity” a thing—the stuff that Judge gets up to when he has a bat in his hands almost justifies all the next-gen puffery. Since the All-Star break, his on-base plus slugging is 1.381, which is like something out of that Matt Christopher book about the kid who gets batting tips from Babe Ruth’s ghost. Relative to the league batting average (.244), Judge is operating at Wade Boggs’ level in 1983, when the chicken-enjoying third baseman hit a gaudy .361. Hell, forget the numbers—simply cast your eyes on the man’s spray chart. Thing looks like a sneeze played back in ultra slow-mo.
Inasmuch as every Judge plate appearance has become an event unto itself, the big fella has effectively put all of baseball on his back. Season-to-date, the Yankees have appeared in six of MLB’s 10 most-watched national TV windows, a tally that includes the No. 1 draw (Fox’s June 8 Dodgers-Yankees broadcast averaged 2.91 million viewers) and three of the top five. The Shohei Ohtani-enhanced Dodgers are also must-see TV, snatching up five of the season’s 10 biggest MLB audiences, a slate that includes both of their national dates with New York.
As A. Bartlett Giamatti memorably said of his favorite sport, “it is designed to break your heart,” which is why you can excuse Fox execs for not letting themselves get too fired up about the prospect of a Yankees-Dodgers World Series. While the former commish mourned the game’s fickle seasonality (“it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone”), his lament served as a more general reminder that heartbreak is endemic to baseball. And no one suffers quite like the True Believer; surrendering to optimism is an invitation for chthonic forces to start doling out a whole lot of emotional rump puntings. Disaster is how the furies punish the hopeful.
That said, with both clubs perched atop their respective divisions, Vegas bookmakers aren’t ruling out a 12th Fall Classic featuring the two rivals. LA is favored (+300) to rep the National League come October, while the Yanks (+500) have the edge over the rest of the AL. The Baseball Gods couldn’t dream up a better media matchup; together, New York and Los Angeles are home to 13.5 million TV households, or 10.8% of the national base.
As with most televised sporting events, star power and market size are the predominant factors in securing the biggest possible World Series deliveries, and a revival of one of the game’s greatest rivalries would likely scare up some serious numbers for Fox. The 1978 showdown between Bob Lemon’s charges and Tommy Lasorda’s more polished crew averaged 44.3 million viewers per game, a record that still stands today. Per Nielsen, 56% of all U.S. TVs that were in use during the six-frame set were tuned in to NBC, with share topping out at a whopping 65% for Game 4. (That NBC managed to attract a 65 share on a Saturday afternoon, even in the three-network era, is worth a low whistle.)
If there’s no bringing back the dizzying deliveries of yesteryear—while Game 7 of the 2016 Cubs-Indians Series averaged a 25-year high 40 million viewers, that turnout had everything to do with the historical value of watching Chicago exorcise a 108-year-old demon—there’s also little chance that those futures bets will pay off. The Yankees may be riding high, but that’s largely a function of a hot spring and a weirdly specific competitive imbalance; after cruising to a 40-19 start, the Bombers since June 1 have been plodding along at 32-31. If not for a 19-3 record against the AL Central, the Yankees would be splashing along in the shallows with the likes of the 59-61 Rays.
The Dodgers have put on a similarly lackluster midsummer show, going 12-13 in July after a 52-33 start.
If the Yankees’ hot-weather woes can be chalked up to the usual lack of effort from the cast of supporting characters—as much as Judge is reaping the rewards of batting behind the deadly Juan Soto (.307/.438/.615), pretty much everyone else in the order is swinging at piñatas out there—they’re also not getting a lot of mileage out of the leaky bullpen. Over the last six games, relievers have coughed up a skull-clutching 26 runs, although it’s probably worth noting that the AL isn’t exactly teeming with top-notch pens. Cleveland seems to be untouchable on that score, whereas every other club is keeping their arms together with spit and bubble gum.
Judge will continue his national barnstorming tour Sunday night in Williamsport, Penn., when the Yankees close out a three-game stand against the Tigers at the Little League World Series. With an average draw of just under 2 million viewers per game over the course of five appearances on ESPN, Judge has a chance to convert a whole bunch of first-time viewers into rabid baseball fans. If nothing else, should Judge send a ball screaming into the Central Pennsylvania night, the thousands of kids on hand at Historic Bowman Field are unlikely to ever forget their brush with a living, breathing myth.
It’s a nice thought, but let this be a warning to the army of new fans from the footy-pajamas demo: Bart Giamatti wasn’t kidding about baseball’s unique facility to break hearts. Aaron Judge may look like a figure from mythology, but he puts his gigantic pants on one leg at a time, just like anyone else. Don’t get your hopes up too high and you’ll never be disappointed.
