Debates have raged about where Aaron Judge’s season stands in history, after the Yankees slugger broke Roger Maris’s American League home run record by hitting 62 during the 2022 campaign. While the all-time MLB record of 73 home runs is still held by Barry Bonds, some observers believe that mark is illegitimate, because of the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs during Bonds’s era.
The latest to take a definitive stance on the matter is MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.
Speaking on FS1’s “The Carton Show” on Monday, Manfred was asked for his thoughts on the matter. Though he acknowledged Judge’s season was great for baseball, the commissioner reiterated how MLB views the home run record.
“Look, we have always taken the position that the record book says what it says. You can’t change or undo what happened,” Manfred said. “With respect to numbers, there’s a long history in baseball where different things happen in different eras. … Fans make their own judgements.
“I think what you saw with Aaron Judge was an absolutely monumental performance, and fans reacted to it that way. I think that’s kind of the end of the story.”
Judge himself, who bested Maris’s AL mark in the penultimate game of the season, told Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci earlier in the year that he feels strongly that the legitimate record still belongs to Bonds.
“Seventy-three is the record,” Judge said. “In my book. No matter what people want to say about that era of baseball, for me, they went out there and hit 73 homers and 70 homers, and that to me is what the record is. The AL record is 61, so that is one I can kind of try to go after. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it’s been a fun year so far.”
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