These are the best parts of sports, the very best, the snapshots you can paste into the scrapbook of your soul, souvenirs to be summoned any time you want. These are the mementos that sustain us, that live for as long as we live, as bright and as brilliant 20 years from now — or 61 years from now — as they are in the moment.
You will forget where you put your car keys, maybe as soon as this morning. In a pinch, you may not be able to summon the name of your third-grade science teacher, and on a karaoke stage you may well blank on a few words of “Margaritaville.”
But you will remember Aaron Judge swinging a bat at 7:07 p.m., Central time — 8:07 back home, in New York — and connecting with an 88 mph slider delivered by a 27-year-old pitcher named Jesus Tinoco, who now becomes a part of that memory eternally. You will remember the flight of the ball, and a Texas Rangers left fielder, Bubba Thompson, who tracked it all the way to the 372-foot sign at Globe Life Field.
You will, the rest of your days, recall how Thompson finally gave up as he reached an advertisement on the left-field fence for Estrella Jalisco beer. It will be impossible to forget the moments after the ball disappeared, home run No. 62 in this astonishing season, Judge taking a slow, satisfying stroll around the bases, saluting his family as he approached third base, receiving a tip of the helmet from third-base coach Luis Rojas as he made the final 90 feet of his trot into history.
Aaron Judge hits his 61st home run of the season in the seventh inning against the Blue Jays in Toronto on Sept. 28, 2022.Charles Wenzelberg / New York PostThe Yankees didn’t crowd home plate, the way they would if this was some standard walk-off home run in July; they knew enough to let Judge tap the plate with his left foot before mobbing him: Giancarlo Stanton first, then Josh Donaldson, then Aaron Boone.
“Pretty surreal,” he would say at game’s end. “That’s what it’s about for me. They’ve been along this journey, and being able to share that moment with them on the field was pretty special.
If you were watching on TV, an essential element will be the camera capturing Patty Judge, Aaron’s mother, tracking the ball silently with her eyes from her front-row seat behind the Yankees dugout, calmly watching its flight while around her 30,553 witnesses exploded with delight, following it with a thin smile on her face and falling back into her seat when the deed was done, before rising and embracing her husband, Wayne, Aaron’s father.
Yes. You will hold onto this one. If you are old enough, maybe you remember seeing Roger Maris’ 61st home run on Channel 11 61 years and three days ago. Maybe you remember Reggie Jackson planting one in The Black at old Yankee Stadium the night he was reborn as Mr. October. How many times have you seen the Yanks celebrate a championship?
Those are all in the pages of that scrapbook, available now to you any time you close your eyes, maybe alongside Eli-Manning-to-Plaxico-Burress (or Joe Namath trotting off the Orange Bowl turf), alongside Bobby Nystrom nudging a puck past Pete Peters (or Mark Messier shaking the Stanley Cup at Madison Square Garden), alongside every precious memory you’ve ever assembled as a sports fan.
Everything to know about Aaron Judge and his chase for the home run record:
Judge? The best part of the home run was the look on his face. He’d tried to shake off this pursuit of Maris, tried to convince everyone he wasn’t pressing. But in the first game of Tuesday’s doubleheader he slammed a helmet onto the shelf, a rare break with stoicism on the winding journey from 60 to 61 to 62.
But he smiled as he rounded the bases. He drank in the adulation. He seemed genuinely moved by how happy his teammates were, made a point of hugging each one. We don’t often get to share these moments with the athletes who author them, but this felt like an entire city had been waiting for this moment, and its patience had finally been paid in full at the exact moment it happened for this extraordinary slugger.
“It’s been a fun ride,” Judge said.
Maybe this all would have been even better if it happened at Yankee Stadium, which is where Maris hit No. 61 off the Red Sox’s Tracy Stallard on Oct. 1, 1961, where Babe Ruth hit No. 60 off the Senators’ Tom Zachary on Sept. 30, 1927. But Globe Life was plenty loud, and plenty ready for the moment, filled either with transplanted Yankees fans or loyal Texans eager to view history. We could hear it back here in New York.
And you will see it the rest of your life. Just close your eyes. Flip through the pages. Press the rewind button. It’s there. It’ll be there forever.
