BIG FISH FROM A SMALL POND
Hometown following Judge’s ascent to stardom
THE PRODIGIOUS, eye-popping power. The easy smile. The egoless, teamfirst attitude.
Everything the baseball world has seen from Aaron Judge over a remarkable first month is nothing new to the people of Linden, Calif. They saw it up close, and believed Judge was destined for stardom one day.
But even t his t i ny farming town 50 miles southeast of Sacramento is in awe of what its favorite son has been able to do on the big stage of Major League Baseball in the big city of New York.
“We have to keep pinching ourselves back home,” Joe Piombo Jr., the Linden High School baseball assistant coach when Judge was there, said in a phone interview.
The town of a few thousand people with two restaurants, two grocery stores, one stop sign and no stoplights is fixated on the strapping 6-foot-7 outfielder’s meteoric rise — leading the Yankees to an 18-9 start entering Saturday and becoming the first rookie in baseball history to hit 13 home runs in the first 26 games of a season. Each day it seems Judge draws nationwide headlines after hitting another tape-measure home run, and the pride swells even more for the people in Lin--
den with each mighty swing.
“He’s the talk of the town,” said James Lagorio, Judge’s former high school teammate and close friend.
Judge was a three-sport superstar at Linden — the leading scorer on the basketball team, a wide receiver and touchdown machine on the football team, and the power-hitting first baseman and ace pitcher on the baseball team.
He committed to Fresno State to play baseball before his senior year, otherwise football coaches would have come flocking to Linden after he scored 22 touchdowns that year. His senior year, he was Linden’s ace, hitting 94 mph on the radar gun, in addition to his tapemeasure home runs. Up to 20 scouts attended his games that season. “We just keep waiting for them to name the high school Aaron Judge Field,” Lagorio said. “They had a play in basketball, [an] inbounds straight to him, he would jump over guys and dunk it. In football, they would just throw it up to him. Nobody had a chance to guard him. In baseball, he was putting balls on top of the buildings in deep center field.”
Piombo recalled a home run derby with Judge one day. An accomplished baseball player in his day, the assistant coach
hit a rocket to left-center field that caromed off a building an estimated 375 feet away. Piombo figured he had won the competition. But on the very next pitch, Judge cleared the building.
“He just looked at me with that smile,” the coach said. “He said, ‘Is that it, Coach?’ I couldn’t respond.”
But his prowess began before high school, friends say.
“You should’ve seen him in Tee-ball. All the kids turned their backs when he got up to bat. He hit the ball so hard,” said Trevor Snow, his longtime friend and former high school baseball teammate. Ironically, the Tee-ball team was sponsored by “Judge and Jury.”
Judge led Linden to the Mother Lode League crown as a senior and through three rounds of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Division IV playoffs, the best season the school had in years. Frequently, however, opposing teams didn’t let him take the bat off his shoulders. One team threw him nothing but curveballs in the dirt one game.
“It was almost like he was getting treated like Barry Bonds,” Piombo said.
Judge often would hit batting practice after games, at the scouts’ requests, because they had seen him swing so little in games. Joe Piombo, Piombo Jr.’s father and the Linden head coach when Judge was there, believed it taught the slugger a valuable lesson about patience, and not expanding the strike zone. Judge grew frustrated at times, wanting to help his team by swinging the bat, but it taught him the importance of not chasing pitches out of the strike zone.
“That developed him as a hitter,” the elder Piombo said.
Beyond his physical attributes and accomplishments, work ethic and high grade-point average, what everyone back in Linden remembers most fondly about Judge is what a soft-spoken, friendly and sincere person he was. When teammates would joke about him becoming a professional baseball player and getting them tickets one day, he would smile sheepishly, and try to change the subject. Bragging wasn’t his thing. Team success was more important.
He fit in with all different groups of students at Linden High School. Judge was part of student government, a member of Every 15 Minutes, the school’s anti-drinking-and-driving program, and maintained a 3.5 grade-point average. He was a student athletic director in junior high school. Piombo recently attended a funeral for a student in Judge’s class, a non-athlete. And even the kids who never played a sport wanted to know about the school’s former star.
“I’ve never heard him talk bad about anyone or anything,” Lagorio said. “He’s always been so humble. He was friends with everybody. All his classmates looked up to him.”
Snow was admittedly a big talker in high school, chirping to opposing players at times. On occasion, it led to contentious postgame handshakes. But those times, Judge told him to stand in front of him, in case a fracas of some kind broke out. With his hulking teammate by his side, nobody would look to pick a fight.
“Aaron will never instigate or start a problem, but best believe the dude is going to have your back,” Snow said.
Just a 90-minute-drive from the Bay Area, Linden is full of Giants and A’s fans. But Judge’s ascension has altered the town’s allegiances. When the Yankees visit Oakland, most of Linden is expected to be there, having bought up tickets in right field to be as close as possible to him. Even Piombo Jr., a die-hard Red Sox fan, can’t root for them when Judge is on the other team. Pinstriped jerseys and Yankees hats have been popping up around town.
“Everyone,” Lagorio said, “is a Yankees fan now.
“It’s weird. We don’t look at him as some famous star. He’s one of our friends.”
“You should’ve seen him in Tee-ball. All the kids turned their backs when he got up to bat. He hit the ball so hard.” — Trevor Snow, former high school baseball teammate of Aaron Judge