Outside The Confines: 62 at last

It went down to almost the last day, but Aaron Judge has done it. In a game against the Rangers last night, Judge hit his historic 62nd home run of the season. In doing so he managed to best the AL record and the Yankees team record previously held by Roger Maris.

The hunt has been on all season, and in the past few weeks it seems like everyone has held their breath waiting to see if he would break the record.

Now that he has, that makes three massive milestones reached this year: 62 home runs for Judge, 700 home runs for Albert Pujols, and 3,000 hits for Miguel Cabrera. It’s been nice to see the chases happen throughout the season.

This is also the last OTC for the 2022 regular season, which is weird to be saying.

More on the big 62:

• Ben Clemens talks about the colossus of clout.
• Bryan Hoch reports on the milestone for MLB dot com.
• David Adler has 15 facts about Judge’s historic season.
• Arianna Vedia introduces us to the fan who caught the massive home run.
• A fan made a very risky leap in an attempt to catch the ball. Story by Nick Selbe. Selbe also has a general report on the milestone.
• Want to know how much that home run ball is worth? According to Thomas Neumann experts think it could fetch up to $2 million.
• David Schoenfield takes us on the road to 62.

And now on to the rest of today’s links.

• Judge wasn’t the only Yankee setting records last night.

• Michael Baumann suggests that the playoffs aren’t too big, but rather baseball is too small.
• Anthony Castrovince looks at the many formats of MLB’s postseason.
• Dan Hajducky and Anthony Olivieri dive into the world of baseball card prospecting, and ask when it’s worth it to take a chance on a card before a player even makes it to the majors.
• Seems like a good time to start speculating about who will take home all the big awards this season. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• David Tobener thinks the Giants should pay to restore the Double Play, an iconic SF watering hole and landmark for baseball fans.
• In today’s weird baseball.

(And the Rockies made it three in a row Tuesday night.)

And tomorrow will be a better day, Buster. Make it so.