Explore More
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge swung a bat that weighed more than the ones he normally uses during batting practice on Tuesday night, one with much heavier historical significance, too.
Judge was loaned a replica model of the bats used by late Pirates legend Roberto Clemente before Tuesday’s 5-2 loss at PNC Park in Pittsburgh after he and a contingent of Yankees visited The Clemente Museum upon arriving from Cleveland on Sunday night.
Judge, baseball’s home run leader with 29, normally uses a 35-inch, 33-ounce bat, but the loaned Clemente bat was 36 inches and 38 ounces.
“I was checking out all of the bats he had and kind of rubbing a couple of them on me to get a little bit of luck,” the 6-foot-7 Judge said before going 1-for-5 with an RBI in the loss to the Pirates. “It’s pretty impressive what he swung, for his size, too.
“You see the pictures of him, I’m thinking this guy’s 6-5, 6-6 but you hear he was maybe 5-11, 5-10. It’s pretty impressive he was able to swing something like this and produce the numbers he did.”
The Hall of Fame outfielder died in a plane crash off the coast of his native Puerto Rico while traveling to deliver relief supplies to Nicaragua earthquake victims on New Year’s Eve in 1972. The 15-time All-Star and 12-time Gold Glove winner finished his career with exactly 3,000 hits and a .317 lifetime batting average.
“I’d never been [to the museum], but I think what Clemente means to this game and the type of person he was and the ambassador he was, not only for this sport, but outside the sport. The reach he had,” Judge said. “Very few like him have done what he’s done.
“Extremely tragic what happened because he was just starting. … Everything he did on the baseball field was great, but the stuff off the field was even bigger. And the touch he had with little kids, signing autographs … that’s something that’s always been a passion for me, so I just kind of felt a connection and wanted to check it out.”
Yankees ace Gerrit Cole and Tuesday’s starter Jameson Taillon, who both began their careers with the Pirates, arranged for about 10 teammates to get a tour of the museum. Cole said he’s been to the museum several times, and he once visited with Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder.
Yankees catcher Kyle Higashioka also took a couple of dry swings with Clemente’s lumber outside the batting cage, and declared “that’s a man’s bat.”
“Any time you can share what Roberto was all about with some players that are new and maybe not quite as exposed to the story as they otherwise have been now after being there, that’s part of the legacy of [Clemente],” Cole said.
In Tuesday’s loss, Judge drove in the Yankees’ first run with a single to left in the fifth, but he bounced into an inning-ending double play with two runners aboard in the seventh and was caught looking for the final out in the ninth.
“We just couldn’t really get that big hit to get the momentum going on our side,” Judge said after the game. “I thought we’d come back, but they were able to hold us down until the end.”
— Additional reporting by Dan Martin in Pittsburgh
ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3N7j3BmaW1flq6zu81moa6cl5p6uq3NpJyeq12csrV505qqrZ1dpLNuvs6bnKusn2KwrbHMnqWtnaNiuaazwJywaA%3D%3D