As Aaron Judge crowned a season to remember in Arlington, Texas, by whistling his American League-record-setting 62nd home run on Tuesday night — a 100 mph moonshot that lofted over the left-field wall at Globe Life Field — the debate over how we should remember his performance smoldered on. Some pointed to the oft-repeated “AL […]
If home run numbers are chief among baseball’s vital signs, you can understand why onlookers are worried about the game early this season. After an unprecedented five-year power surge, MLB-wide homers per game are down by more than 20 percent from last season and by more than 30 percent from their all-time high in 2019. […]
Among the many welcome returns of MLB playing a full 162-game schedule in 2021, baseball fans have been treated to a particularly interesting home run leaderboard chase this season. First of all, a pitcher — yes, we cannot state this enough, a pitcher — has led the major leagues in homers for most of the […]
When Yermín Mercedes of the Chicago White Sox got a 3-0 meatball to hit in the ninth inning of a May 17 blowout against the Minnesota Twins, he didn’t miss. But after Mercedes hit the ball 429 feet for his sixth home run of the year, his Hall of Fame manager, Tony La Russa, was […]
Henry “Hank” Aaron, who died Friday at the age of 86, was a Hall of Famer’s Hall of Famer. He reached international renown in 1974 by breaking Babe Ruth’s all-time home run mark, which had stood unchallenged for four decades, but that was just the crowning achievement of a career that spanned 23 years and […]