MLB fans attending the interleague series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees in the Bronx this weekend have an opportunity to go home with one of the strangest souvenirs to emerge this season.
While the two teams battle on the field, shops around Yankee Stadium are selling split caps featuring the names and numbers of sluggers Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani.
It looks about as odd as it sounds.
Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani split caps ahead of the Yankees-Dodgers showdown this weekend 👀
The Yankees are also selling Ohtani jerseys at their home park this weekend.
It’s not like this series is Ohtani’s first at Yankee Stadium, either. The two-way star appeared in 13 games (including two starts on the mound) in the Bronx while playing in the American League for the Los Angeles Angels from 2018 to ’23.
Fans fired off their takes once MLB’s official social media accounts shared a photo of the odd split hat:
Whoever buys this hat will feature two of the top hitters in baseball on their melon.
Entering this weekend’s series, Ohtani is batting .318/.385/.588 with 15 homers in 61 games. Judge is hitting .289/.423/.658—good for a league-high 201 OPS+—with 19 doubles and 21 homers in 64 games.
Following Saturday's 7–3 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday, New York Yankees star outfielder Aaron Judge acknowledged that the series against the team he grew up rooting for means a little bit more than any other.
Judge, a Linden, Cali. native, has now homered in each of the two games the Yankees have played against the Giants—and he has done so in front of countless friends and family members at Oracle Park in San Francisco.
After the game on Saturday, Judge was asked about what it's like to "come home" and get the chance to play in the ballpark where the team he grew up loving plays.
Judge acknowledged how much it means to him, saying that he wants to "do something special" for the friends and family who have showed up to support him.
"I have a lot of family and friends in town. You've got to do something special for them, I'm trying to stay locked in and put on a show for them."
"I have a lot of family in town, a lot of friends in town," Judge said. "You've got to do something special for them, I'm trying to stay locked in and put on a show for them."
And put on a show, Judge has.
The Yankees slugger, on the heels of a red-hot month of May that saw him post a 1.397 OPS in 28 games while breaking out of an April slump, has gone 4-for-7 with three home runs and six RBI in two games in San Francisco, including a 464-foot moonshot to left field on Saturday.
Judge, during his 2022 free agency bid, nearly ended up in a Giants uniform. Even though that didn't come to fruition, it's safe to say that the Yankees captain is making the most of his first opportunity to play in a ballpark that's very near and dear to his heart.
As Willie Mays turns 93 years old Monday, the position he redefined with his combination of speed, power and elan has lost its glamor. Center field is the worst position on the field this season and populated with one of the worst collections of hitters the position has ever seen.
Center fielders entered play Monday hitting .224 with a .292 on-base percentage and .648 OPS, all of which would easily be the worst rates at the position. With the way modern hitters sacrifice batting average for power, you might excuse the ineptness if there was some serious slugging. Nope. Center fielders this season are slugging .357, well below the nadir of .370 in 1989 since the mound was lowered in ’69.
How bad is the center field crisis? This bad:
Nine teams are hitting less than .200 out of center field.
The .648 OPS from center field is the worst of any position, 19 points lower than the next worst, second base. Center fielders also have the worst batting average, worst OBP, worst slugging, fewest hits and fewest total bases among all positions.
Seven teams have one or no home runs by their center fielders.
It’s not just a bad month. Since the mound was lowered in 1969, the seven worst batting averages for center fielders all have occurred in the past seven seasons (2018 to ’24).
Even the arms are worse in center field. Average arm strength has dropped from 90 mph in 2022 to 89.4 in ’23 to 89.2 this year.
What in the names of John Fogerty and Terry Cashman is going on here?
Mike Trout, Byron Buxton, Clay Bellinger and Luis Robert Jr. are hurt.
Aaron Judge, Julio Rodríguez, Corbin Carroll, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Cedric Mullins are having slow starts.
Judge, who has had an uncharacteristically slow start this season, was given his first career ejection against the Tigers on Saturday.
Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports
A bevy of young center fielders are having a hard time hitting their weight, or at least .230, such as Tyler Freeman, Parker Meadows, James Outman, Ceddanne Rafaela, Kyle Isbel, Dominic Fletcher, Jose Siri, Johan Rojas, Michael Siani, Victor Scott II, Stuart Fairchild and Will Benson.
What is so strange is that the amazing athleticism and offensive profile we see from a new generation of shortstops—Elly De La Cruz, Bobby Witt Jr., Gunnar Henderson and CJ Abrams—isn’t showing up in center field.
It was Mays, who debuted with the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons and in the National League with the ’51 New York Giants, who popularized center field as a glamor position of power and speed. His two home parks, Rickwood Field and the Polo Grounds, had enormous outfields that allowed him to showcase his range.
Mays changed the game. In 1955 he became the first player to hit 50 homers while stealing 20 bases. He led the league in stolen bases each of the next four seasons, pulling the game away from its station-to-station conservatism. Until Mays, baseball had seen only one 30–30 player, Ken Williams of the St. Louis Browns back in ’22. Then Mays did it in back-to-back years, ’56 and ’57.
Mays hit .300 with 30 home runs eight times, a record for center fielders, followed by Mickey Mantle (7), Ken Griffey Jr. (5), Duke Snider (4) and Trout (3). Only three center fielders in the past six years have done it even once: Judge (2022), Ketel Marte (’19) and Trout (’18).
Comparing anybody to Mays is folly. As the journalist Murray Kempton wrote, Mays was as original as Faulkner or the Delta Blues. The actress Tallulah Bankhead, a fellow Alabaman, supposedly said the world had two true geniuses: Shakespeare and Mays.
There will likely never be a center fielder quite like Mays, who hit .300 with 30 home runs eight times.
Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated
Leo Durocher, Mays’ first manager with the Giants, once wrote that “If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases and performed a miracle in the field every day, I’d still look you right in the eye and tell you that Willie was better.”
Durocher said Mays was the ultimate five-tool superstar.
“And,” he added, “he had the other magic ingredient that turns a superstar into a super-superstar: charisma.”
Mays remains the pinnacle of what a center fielder should be. There is no one like him before or since. Forget finding a center fielder who hits .300 with 30 home runs these days. Can we at least get a center fielder who hits .280 with 20 home runs? Sadly, the answer last year was no (for the first time in 47 years) and it might be too much to ask again this year.
Aaron Judge was handed an early trip to the clubhouse in the New York Yankees' tilt against the Detroit Tigers at Yankee Stadium on Saturday.
With one out in the seventh inning and New York clinging to a 5–3 lead, Judge was called out on strikes by home plate umpire Ryan Blakney. Judge disagreed with the call and said a few words to Blakney as he walked back to the Yankees' dugout. A few seconds later, Blakney threw Judge out of the game.
It was Judge's first career ejection in his 870th MLB game. Per YES Network's Seth Rothman, the moment also marked the first time a Yankees captain was ejected from a game since Don Mattingly on May 13, 1994. Derek Jeter, who was the Yankees' captain from 2003 to '14, was never ejected in his 20-year career.
The Yankees weren't pleased with Blakney's decision. Judge walked back to argue more with Blakney, and he was quickly joined by New York manager Aaron Boone. Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo shouted his opinion from the dugout railing.
As is custom, baseball commentator Jomboy provided fans on social media with some lip reading.
Editor's note: The video below contains profanity.
Trent Grisham replaced Judge in center field to start the top of the eighth inning. The Yankees finished off the 5–3 win to improve to 22–13, good for second place in the AL East.
