The game has 99 problems, but Judge ain't one

Time sneaks up. Aaron Judge turned 30 in April. Fortunately his odometer is still light, and there is no sign of career re-entry, not with 45 home runs and 40 regular-season games remaining.

But there should be some urgency. Judge is the best thing going on today in Major League Baseball, and should be treated as such.

There is no guarantee that baseball will soon welcome another player who (A) is 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds (B) is absurdly productive when healthy (C) could have made it big in football or basketball but went against the grain and chose the grandpa sport (D) takes the most exciting swings in baseball (E) has apparently retained his natural humility and grace and (F) plays in a city that never sleeps on its Yankees.

That last point is the most critical. Judge can become a free agent after this season. He had told the Yankees he wasn’t talking contract after Opening Day, and he let a seven-year, $213.5 million offer come and go. He said he was looking forward to free agency and dealing with 30 teams, and that “the Yankees will be one of those teams.” Note to Pittsburgh and Miami: Don’t get terribly excited about that 30-team reference.

Judge turned out to be a shrewd economic predictor, although he was in position to manipulate the price. He leads the American League in runs, hits, homers, RBI, on-base percentage, total bases, slugging percentage and OPS, and he will make a run at Roger Maris’ club record of 61 home runs in a season. He also has 10 more home runs, in this humidor season, than anyone else. Kyle Schwarber (34) and Yordan Alvarez (30) are the only other players with 30. He has 94 runs, 13 more than runnerup Mookie Betts.

Judge also has 11 steals to accompany those 45 longballs. Shohei Ohtani is the only other player with 20 homers and double-figure steals (25-11). And he has shown that it is possible, and in fact useful, to hit .300 while he does all that.

So this is becoming the best offensive season by a righthand hitter in Yankee history. It would be a monstrous surprise if Judge deserts the Yankees, who drafted him 32nd overall from Fresno State and have astutely developed and marketed him. They’re the ones who, early on, created a Judge’s Chambers section, populated by fans in judge’s rooms. They surrounded him with firepower, although Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo are hurt at the moment, and the Yankees have lost their bullpen magic and are tied with Houston for the best record in the American League.

But free agency is its own ecosystem, and Judge doesn’t seem captivated by life in the big city, at least after midnight. His hometown is Linden, CA., an hour from Sacramento, population 1,800. He goes back there, and to Fresno, to connect with family, and hold clinics.

Judge is a one-man vessel of good examples. He did not deny himself opportunities by channeling everything into one sport as a youth. His adoptive dad, Wayne, pointed out Aaron’s resemblance to Dave Winfield, who was drafted by the NFL and NBA. At Fresno State, quarterback Derek Carr continually urged Judge to play tight end for him. With Davante Adams wide on the other side, that could have worked nicely.

And Judge was not an instant star for the Bulldogs. He often hit leadoff, in fact, which distracted some scouts, and it took a visionary like Yankees’ scouting director Damon Oppenheimer to make the pick.

But Judge stuck with baseball because, as he said, he enjoyed the negotiations with the pitchers, what Gene Mauch used to call “that damned good guessing game.”

He also said he recognized the value of failure, of which baseball has a lifetime supply. This would make his eventual success even sweeter, he reasoned. Delayed gratification. Huh? Which century are we talking here?

On Opening Day, Black players made up 7.2 percent of major league rosters. That’s down from 18 percent in 1991. To reverse that, young Black athletes need to see someone like Judge defying the current, embracing the minor league grind, instead of surrendering to the lure of the NBA gravy train, where you make millions right out of the chute by sitting on the bench and “developing.”

Of course, there’s really no reason they can’t see Judge now, since he plays for America’s most visible sports franchise. It is hoped, by MLB anyway, that those kids will get a clearer picture this winter, when Judge breaks the bank into splinters.

If the Yankees do have a viable rival for Judge, it might be San Francisco. That was the favored team of Judge’s youth, and his favorite player was shortstop Rich Aurilia. Lord knows the Giants need him, after their 107-win carpet ride of 2021 devolved into this earth-toned entity that holds up the middle of the N.L. West. The Giants know they need a headliner and were rumored to be interested in Juan Soto last month. Judge would be even better suited, in a park where the ball flies to leftfield and where not nearly enough of those seats are filled anymore.

Wherever he goes, Judge should be displayed as the No. 1 reason to watch baseball again, to remain on the couch or in your seat until No. 99 comes to the plate and does his thing. Once he leaves this game, recess could last a long time.