Yankees Aaron Judge Already Impacting Mickey Mantle’s Legacy

Yankees players are usually impacted by the legacy of the past. We cannot just measure an Aaron Judge home run; we have to measure it next to the Babe’s and the Mick’s. And, if he is fortunate enough to have a career worth remembering, we will measure his greatness the same way. But now Judge is helping to define Mickey Mantle’s career and solving a baseball debate from the 1950’s.

The Yankees have seen some of the best players in baseball wear pinstripes. And in the 1950’s, one of those players was Mickey Mantle. No reader of this space needs me to state Mantle’s career stats to know he was one of the best players of all time. It was said of the Mick that no one who ever hit the ball that hard ever ran so fast.

Even the man’s number—Seven—is legendary.

But the debate then as now is who was the best and greatest center fielder of the decade; please pause before judging those words, best and greatest, as redundant. The Fifties overflowed with all-time talent. While Mick roamed Yankees Stadium, Willie Mays was doing the same for the Giants across the Hudson at the Polo Grounds.

And of course, the Duke of Flatbush, Duke Snider, was playing for the Dodgers. We tend to forget him a bit today but those who saw him play, and his career numbers, mark him as memorable. It is those self-same statistics where we should look to find the answer(s) to the question(s). By that standard, the list of the three Hall of Famers, from 3^rd to 1^st, is The Duke, The Mick, and The Say Hey Kid.

A quick comparison should suffice, particularly since I am not going to get into career at-bats. All of the following are in the same order: Duke, Mickey, Willie.

RBI’s: 1,333/1,509/1,903; Hits: 2,116/2,415/3,283; Home Runs: 407/536/660; and, finally WAR: 66.5/109.7/156.2. There is no debate. Willie Mays was the best player of the 1950’s.

But was he the greatest? Until Aaron Judge came along, I didn’t think there was a difference. It has been difficult to understand how people could think of Mickey as better than Willie, even accounting for racial overtones. Now I see where I made the wrong assumptions. Willie was better, but Mickey was greater, and Aaron Judge has helped me understand that.