Life lessons from dad make this Father’s Day special
OAKLAND — To this day, Aaron Judge still can’t stop thinking about the most valuable belief his father instilled in him when he was a boy. “‘If what you did yesterday still seems big today, then you haven’t done anything today,’” Wayne Judge first told his adopted son when Aaron Judge was around 10 or 11 years old.
“It goes through my head all the time,” said Judge, who features the quote on his Twitter page — @TheJudge44 — for all of his nearly 86,200 followers to see. “He told me that over and over as a kid. We’d have a baseball tournament and the first day I’d go 4-for-4. I’d be happy and coming in the next day and I’m like, ‘I’m the best,’ and he was like, ‘Hey, you were 4-for-4 yesterday. What have you done today? I need you to go out there, have fun, compete and do the same thing today.’ So even when I go 0-for-4 now it’s like, ‘So what?’ Go out there and do something today.”
It has served Judge well as he’s taken the baseball world by storm, redefining the “Statcast ERA” with towering home runs that fly off his bat at record exit velocities. And to think, the 25-year-old rookie would’ve been demoted to Triple-A Scranton had he not won the starting right field job for the Yankees out of spring training. Now, he’s a contender for seemingly every award imaginable. AL MVP? The Triple Crown? Nothing seems out of the 6-foot-7, 282-pounder’s reach at the moment.
Judge thanks his father and mother, Patty, for all of it. On Sunday, he will celebrate Father’s Day with his parents in the stands at Oakland Coliseum, 85 miles west of where he grew up in Linden, Calif. And much the way many of us would talk reverently about our fathers, Judge talks about his father the same way.
“He’s so passionate,” Judge told the Daily News during an interview earlier this week in Anaheim. “And by that I mean just the love he showed for me as a kid growing up, how passionate he was for believing in me and what I wanted to do. He never pushed sports on me or anything else on me. He just said, ‘Hey, I’m there for you and whatever you want to do.’ So all the times I bugged him saying let’s go play catch after he’d just get done working (as a physical education teacher) from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. He’d come home and I’d want to go outside and play catch with him after I was finished with my homework. He was tired and wanted to take a nap, but he still went out there and played catch with me. He still went out to the batting cage and flipped with me until the sun went down. So he was just passionate about helping me grow as a player and a person, and helping me mature as a man and take responsibility for things.”
During the offseason, Judge needed to make adjustments to his swing after striking out in half of his at-bats during his brief cameo with the Yankees in 2016, and he did. The results have been staggering. It all goes back to what he learned from his father.
“My dad told me, if you’re going to go out there and play baseball or you’re going to play basketball or football, work hard at it, no matter what,” Judge said. “I want you to have fun with your buddies, but you have to put in the time because this is your craft. He didn’t just want me to be good. He pushed me to that next level. He pushed me to try to be the best on the team.”
Judge starred as a three-sport athlete at Linden High School. He ended up gravitating toward baseball, earning a scholarship to play at his father’s alma mater, Fresno State. Wayne Judge actually preferred basketball the most. Wayne politely declined comment for this story.
“He was a lefty, he was a shooter and we’d play a little 1-on-1 and I couldn’t stop him,” Judge said of his father, who stands 6-foot-3. “He just drained any shot he wanted to. You’d give him a couple shots to warm up, and he was good to go. For a while, it was pretty competitive until I started getting a little taller than him and could push him around in the post. But he was kicking my butt a little bit.”
Judge’s father preached to him the importance of sacrifice and teamwork. He was always thinking ahead and breaking down the game with his son. Judge could have a perfect game and his father would always find that slight imperfection he could improve upon. It all culminated in Judge reaching the majors.
“My favorite memory with him is when I got drafted (in the first round in 2013), just because of all the years of him taking me all over for my games and practices. He was always there,” Judge said. “And then getting drafted by the New York Yankees and getting this opportunity and having my parents there, it’s just crazy. I could never repay him for everything he’s taught me over the past 25 years.”
Another memory also stood out.
“When I was younger, I’d always forget stuff,” Judge said. “I think there was probably 4-5 times where we’d drive 30 minutes to a town for the baseball tournament and all of a sudden I’d get to the field and look in my bag and I didn’t have my cleats. So my dad had to race all the way home to get my cleats and get back before the game started so I could play. He wasn’t happy about it, but I learned quickly that I’d better not forget anything else after that.”
Growing up, Judge would go with his dad to see the Stockton Ports, the local minor-league baseball team.
“It’s just kind of funny looking back,” Judge said. “It was crazy getting to see the Ports play as a kid, like these are professional athletes. And now I’m getting a chance to do it. It’s pretty surreal.”
Judge has made so many unforgettable moments in 2017. But his father rarely gives him a chance to relish them. There is always another pitcher to face, another game to play.
“Even after games in college if I was 4-for-5 in the car ride home he’d ask me so what happened in that third at-bat? He was passionate. At times I didn’t like it, but looking back on it you appreciate it. He pushed me, and now that’s the drive that I have,” Judge said. “I don’t get to ride home with him in the car now, but after a game if I go 3-for4 I look back at that one at-bat where I didn’t get a hit, or if I made an error on the field, I’ll think about what happened and what was going through my head at the time. So he kind of helped break down the game for me. He was happy about the positive stuff, but he wanted me to just to be a well-rounded player so he just always tried to push me in everything I did.”
PHOTOS BY EVAN GROSSMAN/DAILY NEWS, MARK BAHRENFUSS & GETTY