MAAS WORDS
Ex-Yankees stud shares thoughts on Judge mania
Before Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez took baseball by storm the past two seasons with their stunning performances as rookies, there was Kevin Maas.
In the summer of 1990, Maas became the fastest rookie to hit 10 home runs, doing so in just 72 at-bats, and finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year race after going deep 21 times in 79 games.
Maas was at Old-Timers’ Day on Sunday before the Yankees’ 7-6 loss to the Rangers at the Stadium, so he naturally was asked about Judge and the record-setting rookie season he is enjoying.
Watching what Judge has been able to accomplish — the sport’s home run leader with 26 long balls and close to the top in the other two Triple Crown categories — has reminded Maas of himself in his day.
“Kind of an out-of-body experience in some respects, just because you’re doing it on this stage,” the 52-year-old for- mer first baseman said. “There’s some good memories of those times, and I see some of the same stuff in these guys, and they’re off to a great start.”
Maas said he hopes Judge is able to adjust when the struggles come, as they undoubtedly will. His advice was not to make any changes. When Maas went into a slump, he tried to hit home runs and began pulling off the ball.
Whenever a rookie gets off to a redhot start as Sanchez did last year and Judge has this year, Maas is referenced to put it in perspective. He never was able to replicate that torrid debut in 1990. The Yankees released him in 1994.
“It doesn’t bother me a whole lot,” Maas said. “I’ve got nothing to apologize for. I had 65 home runs in the big leagues. As far as I’m concerned, I had a good career. Could it have been longer? Could it have been more prodigious, more prolific? Sure, but I had a good run, and I have good memories from it.”
Maas said he believes he helped usher in the dynasty of the Core Four. He thinks his success helped convince the Yankees to stop trading their prospects, and it led to them producing players such as Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada.
“In some respects, it took something like that for management to say, ‘Hey, our younger players can play at this level. [We] need to give them a chance,’ ” Maas said. “And after that, it was pretty much a floodgate opened up. Within a few years, we had many of our great players from our system come up and obviously win several World Series.”
Maas now works as a financial adviser for Charles Schwab in San Francisco, so he doesn’t follow the Yankees on a day-to-day basis. But he can’t avoid hearing about Judge.
“It’s hard to avoid the headlines, and they are the headlines right now — or Gary was last year, especially, and Judge is this year,” he said. “It’s fun to watch. Am I vicariously [living through Judge] in that whole experience? A little bit. Wishing him well, and it’s all good because it’s all for the Yankees.”
Maas planned to introduce himself to Judge at some point Sunday but said he wouldn’t offer any advice.
“The best thing is for me to stay out [of ] his way for sure,” Maas said with a laugh, “and let him do his thing.”