It’s been 61 years since Roger Maris captivated the baseball world with 61 home runs in 1961. Now, Maris has some company in pinstripe lore.
Aaron Judge launched his 61st home run of the season on Wednesday against the Blue Jays, tying Maris for the all-time American League record. The monumental blast came in the seventh inning off Tim Mayza, and moved Judge past Babe Ruth on the single-season home run list.
Judge’s 61st home run came in the Yankees’ 155th game of the season and Judge’s 151st. Maris famously broke Ruth’s record on the final day of the ’61 season.
Judge is the first player to hit 60 home runs since 2001, when Barry Bonds (73) and Sammy Sosa (64) each accomplished the feat. Outside of a the four-year stretch between 1998 and ’01 that saw six 60-homer seasons—three by Sosa, two by Mark McGwire and one by Bonds—Ruth, Maris and Judge are the only others to reach the milestone in the sport’s history.
Judge leads the majors in nearly every offensive category, and also tops the AL all three Triple Crown stats: batting average, home runs and RBIs, the latter two by insurmountable margins. If he’s able to hold on to the lead in average, he’d become the first Triple Crown winner in a decade and just second in 55 years. He would also be the first Yankee to pull it off since Mickey Mantle in 1956.
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