Preview: Aaron Judge Chasing History Book

Chasing History

How Aaron Judge Captivated Baseball in 2022

Credits

The Athletic

Paul Fichtenbaum, Chief Content Officer

Dan Kaufman, Editorial Director

Craig Custance, Editorial Director

Sarah Goldstein, Senior Managing Editor - MLB

Chris Strauss, Managing Editor - MLB

Marc Carig, Deputy Managing Editor - MLB

Evan Parker, SVP/GM Content Operations

Trevor Gibbons, Head of Commercial Strategy

Rosalie Pisano, Commercial Partnerships

Oscar Murillo, VP Design

Wes McCabe, Design Director

Kenny Dorset, VP Social

Casey Malone, Associate CRM Director

Amanda Ephrom, Brand Strategist

Tyler Sutton, Marketing Manager

Brooks Varni, Editorial Operations

Featured writers from The Athletic

Lindsay Adler, Ken Rosenthal, Jayson Stark, Andy McCullough, Chris Kirschner, Marc Carig, Rustin Dodd

Special thanks to the entire The Athletic MLB Staff

In the fall of 2009, on the night Argonaut High School traveled to Linden, head football coach Rick Davis devised a simple defensive scheme: Double coverage over the top, extra bodies in the secondary, a cornerback assigned to spy the biggest and baddest weapon in all the Mother Lode League.

The Argonaut Mustangs were defend ing league champs, a small-school pow er with a punishing running game and roster full of athletes. Yet they still lacked one thing: A defensive back who could adequately cover their nemesis from Linden: Aaron Judge.

“We had a pretty damn good football team,” says Brad Steuble, the Argonaut quarterback. “But they had him.”

To the boys from Argonaut, a school in tiny Jackson, Calif., Judge was not a gifted baseball superstar or the face of the New York Yankees. He was just Aaron, the nice kid from a few towns over who manhandled them in three sports. Judge, a 6-foot-7, 235-pound senior, could have specialized in football, basketball or baseball, attracting Division I coaches to Linden and forging a path forward. But he couldn’t stand the thought of forsaking one, so he did them all. He hauled in pass es as a Jimmy Graham clone in the fall, resembled a high school Anthony Davis

in the winter and threw gas and clubbed homers on baseball fields in the spring.

In the old Mother Lode League, a cluster of small schools in northern California’s gold country, nobody had seen anything like it.

“The majority of the coaches in our league agree that he could have gone pro in any sport he chose,” says Davis. “Whether it be football, basketball, base ball, he was just that good.”

The stories of Judge’s high school ex ploits are legend in places like Jackson and borderline hilarious in hindsight. Consider Argonaut vs. Linden, Oct. 16, 2009: The night, Steuble says, began with three touchdowns in less than a minute. Judge went over the top for what felt like 80 yards. Argonaut broke a big touchdown run. And then Judge went deep again, running over a poor cornerback named Cody Oldham, cradling the football and galloping past the defense for another 80yard touchdown catch.

“He basically bossed him, like Randy Moss,” says Zach Devaney, an Argonaut linebacker.

“Cody got smoked that day,” Steuble says.

“We had a bunch of 5-foot-8 corner backs trying to jump and defend the guy,” Davis says.

Argonaut would settle down and roll to a 64-25 victory, but it never figured out how to stop Judge. He caught seven passes for 233 yards and four touchdowns. For

opponents in the Mother Lode League, it was just another night. Aaron being Aaron.

“He was kind of almost Calvin Johnson-esque,” says Jordan Sooter, who faced Judge in three sports at rival Summerville. “We were like, ‘He’s going to go somewhere.’”

Before Judge was a leading man in New York, the chiseled, gap-toothed face of a World Series contender, he was a triple force, a raw highlight machine who left a pile of small towns in his wake. Says legendary Linden coach Mark Miller: “It probably should have been illegal.”

For Judge, his high school years were formative. He came of age in a sleepy hometown, unburdened by labels or over wrought expectation, free to pursue pas sions, collect memories and switch sports every few months. He looks back with a trace of nostalgia.

“I wish I could go back and play, like on an organized team playing basketball or football,” he says.

Anybody who played football under the lights on Friday nights or high school bas ketball alongside childhood friends can relate. Yet in the last decade, Judge came to appreciate something else: His crowded high school athletic calendar wasn’t just a fun luxury or a way to pass the time before baseball season in the spring. It might just be the reason he became Aaron Judge.

The debate on the merits of youth sports specialization is having a moment.

The best-selling book “Range,” written by journalist David Epstein and released in May, argues that young athletes are bet ter off undertaking a diverse “sampling period” during adolescence. A recent ESPN series warned against the perils of youth basketball, pointing the finger at specialization and the dangers of overuse injuries. Academic study after academic study has shown that early specialization increases injury risk while doing little to create better athletes. And researchers say the trend has only gotten worse.

“It’s become part of the culture,” says Elizabeth Matzkin, chief of women’s sports medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

These days, the conversation around playing multiple sports is a little bit like becoming a vegetarian or embracing yoga. Everybody agrees it sounds like a great idea. Many people still don’t do it.

Matzkin, a leading expert on special ization, points to the powerful stories of Tiger Woods and Serena Williams, two prodigies who grew into champions. But the truth, Matzkin says, is that most col lege and professional athletes didn’t de velop like Tiger or Serena: They grew up like Aaron Judge.

The son of educators, Judge came of age in a nurturing household in Linden, a small town just east of Stockton, a setting that emphasized learning and activity, whether it be classwork, extracurriculars or sports. To be well rounded, Judge says,

‘They all fit hand in hand’: How Aaron Judge’s threesport high school dominance helped him thrive in MLB

RUSTIN DODD •

OPPOSITE: Linden High School’s Aaron Judge, a finalist for Charles Washington Award finalist on

2010. STOCKTON RECORD / USA TODAY NETWORK

The drive of Yankees slugger Aaron Judge: ‘I don’t want to spoil this opportunity’

Aaron Judge has a lot of time to think while standing in right field at Yankee Stadium. When the pitcher is getting ready to throw, he takes two steps forward, which he says helps him re-enter a mental “forcefield,” preparing him for the potential of a ball being hit in his direction. Between pitches, he steps out of the forcefield and looks around his environment.

He listens to what kids wearing jer seys bearing his number are asking him from the right field stands. He watches The Wave and the fights in the bleachers, giving him a mental balance from right field while also allowing him to appreciate Yankee Stadium, one of the most unique working environments on the planet.

Sometimes, as Judge looks around the ballpark, he scans the World Series pen nants that line the suite level at Yankee Stadium. Twenty-seven flags repre senting 27 World Series championships. Judge’s gaze settles on the most recent commemorative pennant, which reads: 2009. The Yankees’ right fielder was 17 years old when the Yankees last won a World Series; he was still nearly four years away from being drafted by New York in the first round and nearly seven years from making his major-league debut.

“I kind of get — not mad — but it’s kind of fuel every single time I look up there and still see ’09,” Judge told The Athletic at Yankee Stadium in September. “To not see anything from all the years I’ve been here, it just kind of motivates me.”

Judge is having an exceptional personal season, but if there’s one thing as consis tent as his presence in the batter’s box, it’s his insistence that his focus is on the team’s chances each year in October. After another big game on Thursday night in Toronto — he hit two home runs and had a stellar defensive play on the turf in a game the Yankees won 6-2 — Judge noted that “we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

The Yankees can finally clinch a wildcard spot if they win on Friday and the Red Sox or Mariners lose. In a big game on Thursday night in Toronto, Judge was the biggest individual contributor to the team’s success.

“The job’s not finished,” he said. “There’s some big games left.”

But, if the Yankees’ season doesn’t end with Judge and his teammates hoisting a World Series trophy above their heads, it’ll have been what the right fielder considers another lost year, another wasted oppor tunity to bring a championship back to the Bronx.

Aaron Judge — for better or worse — puts immense pressure on himself in the pursuit of a World Series. The 29-yearold wants to be the role model to eager children watching his at-bats each night; he wants his voice to carry weight, both within the clubhouse and externally when he speaks about his team. Don’t ask Aaron Judge about what he’s accomplished thus far in his major-league career. He doesn’t want to speak about himself, and to him, doing so without winning a World Series would be out of turn.

Everything about Judge is towering. He’s an enormous man who hits enor mous home runs while wearing the high est number he could wear on his uniform each night. He understands that his size makes him even more superhero-like to the kids who consider him their favorite player. His rookie season set a near-im possible standard for him, and he spent too much of 2018, 2019 and 2020 dealing with various injuries to spend as much time on the field as he would have liked.

OPPOSITE: Aaron Judge is filmed by Fox for promotion of the Field of Dreams game between the Yankees and the White Sox during media day, Feb. 20, 2020. BUTCH DILL / USA TODAY SPORTS

In 145 games this season, Judge is hit ting .288/.374/.549 with 39 home runs — a .923 OPS. His 150 wRC+ (a statistic that neutralizes offensive factors, with 100 be ing the threshold for league-average) is the third-highest in the American League this season, behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Shohei Ohtani. He’ll earn high-rank ing MVP votes and will likely finish the regular season as the single biggest in dividual contributor to the Yankees’ success.

“I’m not a happy camper. I’m not really a fun guy to be around the first couple of weeks after the season’s over, that’s for sure,” Judge admits. “Thankfully, in my position right now, I can say, ‘Hey, it’s time to get ready for next year.’ What makes it even tougher though is being in those rooms and you’re with guys who aren’t gonna get that opportunity to play here next year, and that’s kind of where it hits home. Just knowing that I’ve still got a chance to play this game next year, the year after that. For some of these guys, this was their last game or their last game in pinstripes. I wouldn’t say I get depressed, but I’m certainly no fun to be around.”

In late September, every ballplayer feels — in their parlance — banged up. Judge is wincing while taking home run swings with a dislocated pinky finger, and just a year or two ago, even a comfortable ob server would flinch watching him dig his knee into the turf on a defensive play, as he did against the Blue Jays on Thursday night.

Judge is guarded about many things, but especially on the issue of his health. In 2018, he was hit by a pitch on his hamate bone, and the Yankees gave a threeweek timeline for his return. Three weeks turned into six weeks, with Judge missing 45 games for the Yankees due to a broken bone that had occurred in a circumstance beyond his control.

Since then, most of the information the Yankees provide about the health and physical status of their superstar right fielder is vague and intentionally devoid of a timeline. The lack of transparency has often made the management of his health

LINDSEY

Aaron Judge kicks off home run chase, and no words are needed

In 1994, novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace wrote an essay about the ghostwritten memoir of Tracy Austin, a former tennis player who won the U.S. Open twice and was once ranked No. 1 in the world.

The piece, “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart,” is on its face a skewering review of yet another sports book filled with clichés but no substance, but more broadly it’s a meditation on the fascination with athletic success and the way athletes articulate — or struggle to articulate — what it takes to achieve greatness.

“Top athletes are compelling because they embody the comparison-based achievement we Americans revere — fast est, strongest — and because they do so in a totally unambiguous way,” Wallace wrote. “Questions of the best plumber or best managerial accountant are impos sible even to define, whereas the best relief pitcher, free-throw shooter, or female tennis player is, at any time, a matter of public statistical record. Top athletes fas cinate us by appealing to our twin com pulsions with competitive superiority and hard data.”

Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge has

OPPOSITE: Aaron Judge hits a walk-off solo home run during the bottom of the ninth against the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium, July 28, 2022. VINCENT CARCHIETTA / USA TODAY SPORTS

produced a variety of attention-grabbing statistics this season, be it his near-.300 batting average, his 70 percent hard-hit rate against fastballs, his career-high 10 stolen bases or his 52 games started in center field thus far.

None of these numbers makes Judge’s success as “carnally discernible,” as Wallace wrote, as his home run total en tering Aug. 1 — 42 long balls in 100 games played — and the way he has a real chance to hit 60 or 61 home runs by the end of the regular season.

Home run records, and the historical chases for them, are undeniably one of the most fraught elements of baseball history. Roger Maris struggled so badly under the weight of attention and his own desire to break Babe Ruth’s single-season MLB record of 60 home runs that he began los ing clumps of hair. (He got there, hitting 61 home runs in 1961, but at an onerous emotional cost.)

Maris’ record was eventually broken (over and over again) in ways that were both invigorating and disillusioning to the game and its observers. The sport was revived in 1998 when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire raced for 70 home runs that summer, an exciting national fasci nation that looks different with the knowl edge that MLB allowed the steroid issue to run rampant under its watch. Barry Bonds blew them away by hitting 73 home

runs in 2001, and to many who revere the game, Henry Aaron’s mark of 755 home runs is still considered the all-time stan dard given what Bonds was willing to do to hit 762.

In 1961, the Yankees failed to protect Maris from the onslaught of media atten tion, allowing their right fielder to answer questions ad infinitum as he pursued Ruth’s record.

“His hairline is tremendous,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Judge on Sunday, referencing Maris and his out fielder’s ability to stay steady under the increasing attention on his home run rate.

Yet for all of the drama that has and will always come with a player chasing a home run benchmark or team record, it is un deniable that watching Judge slam welltimed home run after well-timed home run this season has been nothing short of exciting, and the anticipation of his final home run total creates a remarkable storyline to follow amid a season during which Judge and the Yankees are already generating a lot of buzz.

Judge is likely to become a free agent af ter this season, and his future with the or ganization is in doubt. At the same time, he’s building a case for American League MVP while leading the Yankees on anoth er contending run. At a time when there is no shortage of topics to gawk at when it comes to the New York Yankees, Judge’s

No. 39

Date: July 28, The Bronx

Pitcher: Scott Barlow, Royals

One of the sneaky best parts about Judge’s walk-offs this season is to see how bad his “Griddy” is when he crosses home plate. Maybe with the millions of dollars he’s made this season, perhaps he can hire the originator of the dance to personally teach him. This homer tied Mickey Mantle on the Yankees’ all-time walk-off home runs list with 39. It broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the ninth, handing a victory to the Yankees despite having just two hits on the night.

home run pace is breaking through the rest of it.

On Friday evening, after Judge hit two home runs — including a grand slam — Boone sat down for his postgame news conference and answered a question be fore it was even asked: “He’s amazing.”

At no point during his follow-up com ments on Judge did Boone use his play er’s name or a qualifier such as “No. 99” that would specify to whom he was refer ring. He didn’t need to hear the inevitable question, he didn’t have to say the name “Judge.” The season he has put together has made it so that what is obvious can

LINDSEY

No. 47

Date: Aug. 22, The Bronx

Pitcher: Max Scherzer, Mets

Judge is on a nine-game homer less streak — the longest of the year — and has set off a nationwide panic of how this chase is even fath omable. In their previous meeting, the future Hall of Famer made the Yankees slugger look bad, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in Queens. In that matchup, Scherzer predominantly threw sliders low and out of the zone to Judge.

So, in this second at-bat of the night, Judge pounces on a firstpitch fastball and sends it to the right field seats. When asked after the game how he was able to take Scherzer deep on a well-executed pitch, Judge laughed.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “I gotta check the replay.”

RIGHT: Aaron Judge hits his 47th home run in the third inning against the New York Mets at Yankee Stadium, Aug. 22, 2022.

WENDELL CRUZ / USA TODAY SPORTS

No. 48

Date: Aug. 23, The Bronx

Pitcher: Taijuan Walker, Mets

It’s not always a bad pitch. In this case, Judge’s homer lands more than 20 rows up the bleachers in left field. It was Judge’s second homer off Walker this season and his fourth career shot against him, tied with Marcus Stroman for his most against an opposing pitcher.

No. 49

Date: Aug. 26, Oakland

Pitcher: JP Sears, Athletics

Sears hangs a 79 mph slider down the middle to his former teammate and Judge clobbers it to straightaway center, about 50 feet up the green batter’s eye. Statcast estimated the ball traveled 427 feet, but having been there in person for this shot, some recalibration for the technology might be needed in Oakland. There’s just no way this wasn’t one of the 10 furthest balls he’s hit this season, and how is this not a home run in every ballpark?

VINCENT CARCHIETTA / USA TODAY SPORTS

KELLEY L COX / USA TODAY SPORTS

What potential record home run balls could be worth for some lucky fans

NEW YORK — Standing in the con course behind the Yankee Stadium outfield Tuesday night, Matthew Smith, 21, baseball cap on backward, beer in hand, said he knows what he would do if he caught one of Aaron Judge’s hopedfor record-breaking home runs: give it to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. He had seats right behind Judge’s right field stalking grounds.

Told some experts are appraising at $20 million total the balls Judge may hit for his 60th, 61st and 62nd home runs, the latter of which would break the American League record and be the most by a player not tainted by the steroid era, the Ramapo College music major doubles down.

“It’s part of history,” Smith said, speak ing a few innings before Judge hit his 60th home run. That ball was returned by a Generation Z cohort, Michael Kessler, who only asked for some team swag and to meet the bomber himself. (The chances someone could possess all three balls at once, and thereby sell them for $20 mil lion, is very remote, to say the least.)

The Judge home run chase happens to coincide with a boom in the sports memorabilia business, a sort of perfect storm that could spark gasp-worthy val ues attached to the remaining home run

balls the California native hits the rest of the season — and not just the one that would give him the AL record. If he breaks the record, arguably his final home run of the season could be worth the most. Assuming he hits more.

The record price for a sports collect ible was set in August when a nearly per fect and rare 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card sold for $12.6 million via Heritage Auctions. Trading cards have command ed the most money during the current boom, with items such as game-used bats, balls, uniforms, sneakers and other equip ment starting to pick up in price.

Collector Todd McFarlane, the famed comic book artist and “Spawn” creator, bought Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball for $3 million in early 1999 before the stories linking the slugger to steroids emerged. Appraisers contend that ball has since lost significant value, but McFarland has publicly shrugged off concerns be cause of the business opportunities presented by owning — and showing off — the historic baseballs.

Judge’s record-breaking ball could fetch anywhere from $750,000 to $1.25 million, said Ken Goldin, the founder of Goldin Auctions that is now owned by Collector’s Universe, the parent company of Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA).

“That should take place relatively quickly,” Goldin said, recommending the lucky fan auctions the ball before Judge hits more dingers. And even if he does,

Goldin predicted the same price range for the final ball’s sale.

The No. 61 ball, which would tie Roger Maris for the team and American League record, should sell for $250,000 to $350,000, Goldin said.

“It is an incredibly hot market right now,” he said. “One thing that’s going to be very important to increase the value is if he caps it off with a world champion ship. This is what everyone’s going to re member: Aaron Judge carries the Yankees to their first championship in 13 years.”

Whether to witness history or a chance at the golden ticket — i.e. catching a lu crative home run ball — ticket prices for Yankees games have soared, especially in the outfield seats where the ball might land (it could settle in the bullpens away from the fans). Prices on average have more than doubled on the secondary ticket market in the last week, with some topping $4,000.

Adam Martin, a major trading card and sports collectibles retailer, noted that there are still relatively cheap outfield seats left at Globe Life Field where the Yankees finish the season with four games against the Texas Rangers.

“That’s probably a pretty good invest ment,” said Martin, co-owner of Dave & Adam’s Card World in Buffalo, N.Y., add ing that it’s potentially “shooting a win ning lottery ticket into the stands.”

Judge’s final home run of the season, not just No. 62, should command the

highest sales price, he said.

“The last home run ball he hits is a mil lion bucks,” he said.

Joe Webster, a collector who caught Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr.’s first home run ball at Great American Ball Park in 2018, warns whoever catches the ball to be ready for scrutiny if he or she does not immediately hand the ball over.

Webster, who studied where Acuña hit most of his minor league homers to posi tion himself in the left field upper deck and a friend in the lower level, received signed team items and met Acuña in ex change for the ball.

But he said to this day he receives grief for not just handing it over.

“Whoever catches this should strap in for some social media hellfire because you’re going to have half the world who thinks you should just give it up for a handshake and you’ll have half the world who thinks you should sell it for $20 mil lion,” Webster said. “There’s people in Braves country that despise me because I asked for more than just a baseball and a handshake.

“First, it was an absolute sh–storm,” he continued. “And the second year the same thing, you had a local radio host like still griping on it, like, calling me every name on the books.”

Catching the ball was relatively easy for Webster. Few fans were in the ballpark for an April game in Cincinnati. One fan nearly jumped in front of him to catch

BILL SHEA AND DAN KAPLAN • SEPT. 21, 2022

OPPOSITE: A fan holds a sign as Aaron Judge bats against the Boston Red Sox during the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium, Sept. 22, 2022.

BRAD PENNER /

Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani? We asked former MVPs to weigh in on the debate

There’s no shortage of opinions sur rounding the Most Valuable Player award in the American League. Plenty of pundits have weighed in on the merits of the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, who passed Roger Maris on Tuesday night with his 62nd homer of the season, and the Angels’ resident unicorn Shohei Ohtani, whose prowess both at the plate and on the pitch er’s mound is unmatched.

But when The Athletic reached out to a group of former MVP winners, there wasn’t as much debate as one might think.

There was one notable abstention.

Mike Trout, 2014, 2016 and 2019 AL MVP (Angels)

When it comes to Ohtani’s exploits, few have enjoyed a better view than Mike Trout. “He’s going out there and pitching every five days and can drive in 100 here by the end of the year — 35-36 homers,” Trout said, adding that “I’m just enjoying watching him go out there every night.”

Of course, Trout isn’t the most wellknown fantasy football commissioner in the sport for nothing. Though he admits “I’m good friends with Judge,” and he shares a clubhouse with Ohtani, when it came to the AL MVP debate, Trout opted

for diplomacy. He chose not to divulge who he thinks should win, though he thinks the conversation is healthy for the game.

Said Trout: “It’s good for baseball what’s going on.”

Vida Blue, 1971 AL MVP (A’s)

He remains the stumper at the heart of an all-time trivia question: Who is the last switch-hitter to win the American League MVP Award?

darn thing. Every time they (announce a new winner) in the offseason, I always look in the sports section and they show the previous winners from those years. I always see the name ‘Vida Blue’ and so I’m proud of that.”

So which side of the Judge vs. Ohtani debate is the player who threw left and batted both?

“I’m a pitcher and should probably give the nod to Ohtani, but what Judge has done is impressive considering that we ha

MARC CARIG AND DANIEL BROWN • OCT. 5, 2022

But Blue also had a good grasp of Ohtani’s stats, both as a hitter and pitcher. And the more he talked about the Angels’ two-way threat, the more he grappled with the decision over the phone line.

“That’s impressive, too, though. It’s a tough call,’’ the six-time All-Star said. “It’s a win-win if you’re sitting at a sports bar and you’re stating your case. Nobody should walk out of there with their head held down because it’s a legitimate argu ment on either side.”

Clayton Kershaw, 2014 NL MVP (Dodgers)

Clayton Kershaw struggles with that pesky little word: “valuable.” To him, us ing the word valuable means that MVP voters should consider team success, par ticularly when it’s a close call.

CLAYTON KERSHAW

It should be noted Blue wasn’t exactly Ohtani at the plate. The Oakland A’s su pernova batted .118 with no homers and two RBIs in 1971.

OPPOSITE: Fans watch as Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani warms up in the bullpen before his start against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, June 2, 2022.

BRAD PENNER / USA TODAY SPORTS

No, his MVP was won strictly from the mound. Blue went 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA and 301 strikeouts in 312 innings in win ning both the Cy Young and MVP Awards. He threw 312 innings that season, which seems improbable enough without men tioning that he did it at age 21.

“That was a magical time for me,’’ he says now, at 73. “I’m just glad I won the

ven’t heard any rumors about him being on any substance,’’ Blue said. “He’s just a big strong guy. It’s refreshing as a fan to know that he’s genuine and authentic. His approach … well, it’s amazing.”

As Blue spoke on the phone to The Athletic on Sept. 21, he was watching the Yankees-Pirates game. Judge cracked a double in his first at-bat. Blue pointed out that as of that date, the Yankees slugger led the AL in all three Triple Crown cat egories, which also helped sway Blue’s hypothetical vote.

“If you want to make an award for best player, make an award for best player,” Kershaw said. “But MVP, I think … if it’s a really close race, you give it to the guy that’s really helped the team get into the playoffs.”

So for Kershaw, the choice is clear.

“To me, between Judge and Ohtani, what Judge is doing is pretty crazy,” Kershaw said. “Obviously, what Ohtani does, no one’s gonna do that either. So, you go in and look at the teams. It’s tough to penalize Ohtani for being on a bad team but that’s kind of the way it is.”

Still, Kershaw appreciates what Ohtani is doing both at the plate and on the mound.

“

“MVP, I think … if it’s a really close race, you give it to the guy that’s really helped the team get into the playoffs.”