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.

There are certainly special, perhaps magical, qualities to baseball. For instance, baseball is ruled by talent and will. That is not true in soccer, hockey, football, or basketball; they are governed by the clock. You cannot win a Yankees baseball game by having the ball last, and you cannot run out the clock. You can only win by being better than I, and I have something to say about that.

Now, you could say that is true in sports such as golf or tennis, and you’d be right. I want to stick to the right weight class, though, and limit the comparisons primarily to the other major team sports. But the point is worth mentioning, if for no other reason to show that even those quality has some sports equivalents.

But the Home Run is different. There is something special about the home run, something Yankees fans understand innately. And it’s the final and most important magical quality to the game itself, that thing that sets it apart from all the other Big Five, and beyond.

It is the home run, you see, that shows how limitless baseball is. And, by comparison, how constrained and limiting the other sports are, even golf and tennis.

What is the longest touchdown pass the greatest quarterback can ever throw? It can only ever be from the back of one end zone to the back of the opposite one, roughly 140 yards. A mighty heave indeed but one that can be equaled by others. The same happens in all the sports. Soccer fields forever limit the longest goal, as do the rink and the court.

And even in golf, the man who swings the mightiest blade can still only sink a hole in one a par five; there are no pars nine, ten, or eleven.

So, I can only imagine the impact of Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. I doubt any other two men in baseball ever hit the ball consistently as hard and far. And I can make the argument that neither was the best player on his team. Lou Gehrig is a top five player and was regarded as better by many Yankees writers of the time.

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Mickey has competition on his Fifties teams, as well. Yogi won three MVP’s in the 50’s, to Mickey’s two. And Yogi played catcher, which is the hardest and most important position. Then, of course, there is Mays. When you talk about five tools, Mays exemplified every one of them. There is not another player in history who played both sides of the ball better.

But Mickey Mantle was a greater player. He didn’t just hit home runs; he sent Zeusian lightning bolts and audacious thunderclaps straight into the imaginations and souls of baseball fans everywhere. It’s why they revere him, why those who saw him play will always think him more than a man. He didn’t just inspire his Yankees teammates and lift up his team with his 500-feet home runs. No, he inspired the fans and lifted them up by their souls.

Yankees Chase Headley and his Teammates Will to Power

Headley and the Yankees know that the season is long and can swallow a player’s focus. That’s what make baseball so hard.

I don’t know what Aaron Judge will be yet nor what kind of career he will have. I won’t know that until he has had a career to review. There is no part of this that in any way suggests he will have a career like the Mick’s. I am not even claiming he will have a career beyond tomorrow. No, this is about his reminding us of the greatness of the game and the men who played it bigger than any others.

And it’s about the greatness inside each of us, and how big we can be. Now, throw a thunderbolt at heaven.