Aaron Judge’s gift to baseball? Deciding to play it

Last week, a prominent baseball executive identified Aaron Judge as the fresh new prince of a sport desperately seeking fresh princes.

“He’s been absolutely phenomenal,” commissioner Rob Manfred said during the All-Star break. “There is no other word to describe it. He’s a true talent on the field, with a really appealing off-the-field personality. He’s the kind of player who can become the face of this game.”

Manfred offered this assessment on the afternoon following Judge’s performance in the home run derby, an eight-player exhibition the 6-foot-7, 282-pound slugger soon turned into a one-man show. Although Judge needed nothing to validate the first-half numbers he produced facing pitchers disinclined to lob belt-high meatballs — 30 homers, 67 RBIs — the home run derby seemed to validate his status as a rookie legend.

“It’s the first time in a long time we have had a LeBron James type of personality,” Fox baseball analyst (and former fresh prince) Alex Rodriguez has noted, pointing out Judge’s ability to bench press 400 pounds and reach 32 inches in a vertical leap. “He’s an amazing figure for the next generation to say, ‘well, there’s a guy who can be a tight end and an All-Pro and he chose baseball. Why can’t I? Hopefully, kids are taking notice of Aaron Judge.’”

Kids who’ve taken notice of Judge since the All-Star break might reconsider choosing the most humbling of athletic endeavors. The Yankees rookie right fielder showed up Thursday at Safeco Field mired in a 3-for-26 funk, with nine strikeouts and no homers.

Is the post All-Star regression a consequence of the home run derby, which some believe can have an adverse effect on a hitter’s finely tuned swing? Or simply the kind of the rut that every hitter in the 148-year history of baseball endures now and then?

A thoughtful sort who understands the hazards of overthinking, Judge interpreted his lost weekend at Boston — where he went 1-for-18 as an inevitable scuffle.

“Everything is going to work out,” he told the New York Times the other day. “It’s baseball. This is a crazy game we play. You’re going to have those times you can’t get out, and you’re going to have those times when you’re doing everything right and the ball doesn’t fall.

“It’s just trust in the process that got me where I am. If I start making little changes here and there, it may be a quick fix, but in the long haul, it won’t work out.”

During batting practice Thursday, the right-handed Judge worked on hitting to all fields. When he’d launch the ball beyond the wall, the early arrivals responded with the “oohs” and “ahs” heard during a fireworks show.

Judge seems to enjoy the spotlight without craving it. In the tradition of recently retired Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, he regards the most salient statistic in baseball to be a team statistic: Games won.

At 25, less than a year since he was called up from Triple-A, Judge already has asserted himself as the Yankees’ unofficial captain. It’s not a rah-rah role but, rather, an understated grasp of such subtleties as waiting for his fellow outfielders to precede him into the dugout for a round of encouraging fist bumps.

Such a too-good-to-be-true exemplar of team spirit soon will find himself weighing the lucrative national endorsement deals that elude modern baseball stars. According to a London School of Marketing study, there are no ballplayers among the world’s 30 highest-paid athlete-endorsers.

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving is on the list, for heaven’s sake, as is free agent Derrick Rose. So are two cricket players, and two guys who are retired (Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant).

But nobody representing MLB.

That will change as America becomes even more familiar with the slugger whose smile reveals a slight gap between his two front teeth.

Meanwhile, the Judge mystique continues to build. When he was introduced Thursday for his first-at bat of a four-game series at Safeco Field, all eyes were on him.

Even though Felix Hernandez was on the mound, and the contest loomed as the season’s most important to date — Seattle began the evening trailing the Yankees by 1.5 games for a wild-card berth — Judge ruled, if only for a moment.

He got behind 0-2 against King Felix, swinging and missing twice before fouling the ball off. Judge rubbed some dirt from the batters box, a ritual he uses to get a grip: a mental grip absent any distractions.

Judge took ball one, and then ball two, before looking at strike three. As plate appearances go, it was not particularly eventful, and yet it was.

He coulda been a tight end.

This story was originally published July 20, 2017 at 8:35 PM with the headline "Aaron Judge’s gift to baseball? Deciding to play it."