REACHING A VERDICT
Admiration for Judge rooted in respect, playing hard and, yes, moonshot HRs
HOW to explain Aaron Judge?
How is it that we’re wild about him although he’s an honor student recently graduated from the “old school” — even if he was born after they knocked it down?
Or is that, in addition to hitting home runs, why we’re wild about him?
Having been compromised by TV and marketing plans that sell bad-is-cool, immodest bat-flipping sluggers, mean-mugging staredown artists and end-zone twerkdancers, perhaps we’ve become frightened to publicly admit that we’d much prefer young stars to be more Aaron Judge, less Odell Beckham Jr.
Other than HRs, what’s worth enjoying about Judge? Try these: We love the way he plays the game, respects the game, treats the game. We love the way he plays hard, runs hard, catches with both hands. We love his polite, warm engagement of fans.
We love his unapologetic humility and dignity, the kind sacrificed years ago to what ESPN and Nike determined, to our sustaining detriment, to be the bad-dude standard for attention and adulation. Judge betrays that lie. Yes? No? Where are those media who bash and ridicule “purists” and “traditionalists” for living life in the past lane — grumpy old men stewing in their obsolete juices — on Judge? Why haven’t they condemned Judge for playing humble, old-fangled, winning baseball? How has Judge been able to return us to a place he has never been?
Or is it that the new-age hip — aka, panderers — love what they see from Judge, too? Might they be closeted traditionalists who for years were afraid to risk the wrath of fools?
Where is ESPN’s smack-mouthed Dan Le Batard, who trashed those who prefer baseball to be played “the right way” — run hard to first, no all-about-me displays — as code for playing the game “the white way”? Where is his attack on Judge?
Friday in Seattle, after Judge hit a home run that threatened to ripple Puget Sound, YES’s David Cone noticed what we noticed: Judge allowed himself the briefest glance toward the ball before running — yes, running — toward first. Cone
loves the way Judge plays the game. But in the same telecast, Cone said ex-Yankee Robinson Cano, as he was shown in the Mariners’ dugout, eventually will “punch his ticket” to Cooperstown.
Sure, why not? A guy who has spent his career minimizing his teams’ chances to win by not bothering to do the least he could do — run to first base — is today Grade A Hall of Fame material. Oops, there goes my grumpy old traditionalist side. Gotta learn to control that.
Also, Friday, came the revelation that Yoenis Cespedes, a one-trick pony despite the pony’s recidivist ailments and indifference to performing — he was “rested,” Sunday, until flying out as a ninth-inning, “high-leverage” pinch hitter — said
he’d like to one day return to play for the A’s, the first of three teams to which he became expendable as a player who hits home runs but otherwise doesn’t give a rat’s retina.
But as dating website ads promise, there’s someone for everyone. Cespedes, who’d already proven to the Mets — as he had to the A’s, Tigers and Red Sox — that he’s often not in the mood to play baseball — he’s accomplished at turning doubles into singles — resigned for $110 million over four years.
And Friday he pledged allegiance to the A’s. When Cespedes, before he re-signed with the Mets, was found to have played golf while on the disabled list, GM Sandy Alderson excused him while conceding that made for “a bad optic.” That’s how traditionalists say, “It looks bad,” likely because it is bad.
This bad optic? Given the Mets are paying a part-time, indolent outfielder $110 million, Mets ownership has again been suckered (see: Madoff, Bernie) out of a fortune.
On the other hand, what at first seemed an act that invited cynical suspicion — as if Aaron Judge is Eddie Haskell in pinstripes — remains stuck in genuine.
So it now seems OK — not as politically incorrect or as pop-culturally risky as it first seemed — to admit that we like the way Aaron Judge plays, treats and respects baseball. We can admire him without even fractional compromise of the dormant and/or antiquated senses of right-from-wrong and good from bad.
As good and bad optics go, Aaron Judge is still not an optical illusion.