I get that is is the most for an NL team, but 62 only gets him to 7th all time for the MLB as a whole. Sure, the 73 by Bonds is suspect, but this is 11 less.
Is it because this is the first time someone has eclipsed 60 HRs since 2001? Is it because he’s part of the Yankees? Is it because he is probably not on “the juice?” The wall to wall coverage is just ridiculous on ESPN. Is it just because ESPN has nothing else to report on and they need to invent “history making” like this to get attention for their floundering network?
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Every total higher than 62 is by someone who used banned substances. So, most of us believe the real number was 61, until now.
I think the unsaid assertion is that this is the first “clean” person to do it since Maris. Who knows if that is accurate or not but that is the implication. And yes, Yankees….
Media is always a very pro-Yankee bias. Lots of fans = lots of interest = lots of clicks.
I real that the MLB is really pushing the sports outlets to cover this so intently, like it is a final nail on the “steroid era” coffin.
I’m not a baseball fan, but I can see how a sports team that wants to forget it’s scandals would want to make the most of it’s chance at creating “history”
Baseball is HUGE about statistics and numbers, its a big part of the game for players and fans, now and for a 100+ years of the game. Numbers matter and we keep great records of them. Fans can probably recite to you random player numbers from their careers by heart, especially the notable ones. Baseball cares a lot about numbers.
60 HRs in a season is a astronomical number. 30 in a season is fantastic, done by top hitters. 40 is epic… 60, absolutely insane and puts it among the greatest hitting performances in the history of the sport.
But Judge’s is a bit different. IT very much matters that he’s not on steroids. ALL of the people above him are widely considered to have been on roids and cheated and there is much debate on if those people’s records really count. Many baseball fans completely throw them out of the conversation.
So for clean players: Judge is now #1 in that regard, and the record at 61 stood for 61 years (from 1961 until now). He just broke a 61 year old record in a sport that is really big about this record, it one of the most important records in baseball history. Before Roger Maris hit 61, Babe Ruth held the record at 60 which was done in 1927.
That means in almost 100 years of baseball, the amount of HRs for a clean player in a season has been nearly the same. And Judge just beat it. And the people he beat are absolute legends of the game.
Baseball writers can be real sticklers about tradition (for decades Marris’ 61 was asterisked because the season was extended between Ruth’s record and his so he broke the record with more games), and some writers always vote down every nomination to the HoF because Ruth didn’t get a unanimous ballot.
Those same traditionalists don’t count the juiced home run numbers that exceeded Marris’ totals, so they’re excited about someone who they judge as “clean” breaking Marris’ total, plus most of them love the Yankees.
It’s pretty cool because Judge does have the AL and team record for HRs in a season and he is a great player. Some people make a case that the juiced records of Bonds and McGwire are tainted, which is not unreasonable.
As far as ESPN goes, they do overhype things that happen in big markets like NYC. People on the CFB subs were complaining how ESPN was interrupting CFB games to show Judge at bats. I was watching the Ole Miss/Kentucky game and they did a split screen for Judge’s entire at bat. Just show the highlight after it happens. The Venn Diagram for people watching SEC football and people who care about this record don’t intersect that much.
One, it is an American League record. Two, the players who hit more — Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire — were all implicated or very strongly suspected in the steroids scandal of the early 2000’s. None of those three are in the Hall of Fame as a result and many view their home run feats with skepticism.
From a technical standpoint it is because it is the AL record, and even though the leagues now play with the same rules, they have always had separate records and stats. This was something that was agreed to when interleague play was established in 1997.
The other major argument is indeed that all the players with more hr did so with PEDs. Some will argue that today’s players are also taking PEDs but doing so in a way to avoid being detected by the tests. But at least there is testing in today’s game. There wasn’t any PED testing in the Bonds or McGwire/Sosa seasons.
ESPN coverage is something sports fans have always complained about. But because ESPN is the most known sports channel for non-sports fans, they do have to cater to that audience sometimes.
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