Aaron Judge has a legitimate chance of breaking Roger Maris’ American League single-season home run record, but Maris’ son is not necessarily pulling for him.
In a recent interview with TMZ Sports, Kevin Maris said he would ultimately like to see his father’s record of 61 home runs stand for another season. However, that stance is not personal; Maris wishes Judge the best in his pursuit of the mark, and if the record must fall, he’s glad it will be broken by another New York Yankee.
“I don’t know if anybody likes their record broken at the end of the day,” Kevin Maris said. “But it’s nice to see him giving it a good run. Records are made to be broken at some point. If it happens to be this year, you’ve got to tip your hat to the guy.”
One has to applaud Maris for his candidness. The 61 home run mark remains quite revered, even though the MLB record has been broken by Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds. With both players linked to PED use, a lot of fans still view Maris’ 61 homers as the legitimate single-season mark, and it does remain the record on the books in the American League.
Judge has actually been on pace to best the record and has not showed much sign of slowing down. Judge has a league-best 43 home runs through 109 games this season (he’s played in 105 of them). He needs to hit 19 more in 53 games to break the record.
Judge’s pace has been a home run every 2.53 games this season. At that pace, he would finish the season with 20 more home runs for a total of 63.
Judge may pull off the feat, though he can’t afford to go cold for any period of time.
