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Aaron James Judge (born April 26, 1992) is an American professional baseball outfielder for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). A five-time MLB All-Star, Judge was unanimously selected as the American League (AL) Rookie of the Year in 2017 and finished second in voting for the AL Most Valuable Player Award that year. In 2022, he set the AL record for most home runs in a season with 62, breaking the 61-year-old record held by Roger Maris, and won the AL Most Valuable Player Award. Judge stands 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) tall and weighs 282 pounds (128 kg), making him one of the largest and tallest players in MLB. Judge played college baseball for the Fresno State Bulldogs, and the Yankees selected him with the 32nd pick in the first round of the 2013 MLB draft. After making his MLB debut in 2016 and hitting a home run in his first major league at bat, Judge went on to have a record-breaking rookie season in 2017. He was named an All-Star, won the Home Run Derby (the first MLB rookie to do so), and hit 52 home runs, breaking Mark McGwire's MLB rookie record of 49 and Joe DiMaggio's Yankee full-season rookie record of 29. His rookie record stood for two years, until Pete Alonso hit 53 home runs in 2019. Judge won the AL Rookie of the Month Awards for April, May, June, and September, as well as the AL's Player of the Month Award for June and September. After the 2022 season, he re-signed with the Yankees on a nine-year, $360 million contract and was subsequently named the team's captain. Early life Judge was born in Sacramento, California, and he was adopted the day after he was born by Patty and Wayne Judge, who both worked as teachers in Linden, California. He and his older brother John were both adopted. Judge is biracial. Judge was a San Francisco Giants fan. Judge attended Linden High School, where he was a three-sport star. He played as a pitcher and first baseman for the baseball team, a wide receiver for the football team, and as a center for the basketball team. He set a school record for touchdowns (17) in football and led the basketball team in points per game (18.2). In baseball, he was part of the Linden High School team that made the California Interscholastic Federation Division III playoffs. Judge graduated from Linden High in 2010. College career Various colleges recruited Judge to play tight end in football, including Notre Dame, Stanford, and UCLA, but he preferred baseball. The Oakland Athletics selected him in the 31st round of the 2010 MLB draft. Still, he opted to enroll at California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) to play for the Fresno State Bulldogs baseball team in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). In 2011, Judge was part of a Fresno State team that shared the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) regular season title, won the WAC Tournament, and qualified for the 2011 NCAA Division I baseball tournament. Louisville Slugger named him a Freshman All-American. He won the 2012 TD Ameritrade College Home Run Derby. He played collegiate summer baseball for the Brewster Whitecaps of the Cape Cod Baseball League in the summer of 2012. In his junior year, Judge led the Bulldogs in home runs, doubles, and runs batted in (RBIs). Judge was named to the all-conference team in all three of his seasons for the Bulldogs—in the WAC in his first two seasons, and the Mountain West Conference (MW) as a junior (the Bulldogs joined the MW in July 2012, between his sophomore and junior seasons). Professional career Draft and minor leagues The Yankees drafted Judge in the first round of the 2013 MLB draft with the 32nd overall selection, a pick the team received as compensation after losing Nick Swisher in free agency. Judge signed with the Yankees and received a $1.8 million signing bonus. He tore a quadriceps femoris muscle while participating in a base running drill, which kept him out of the 2013 season. He made his professional debut with the Charleston RiverDogs of the Class A South Atlantic League in 2014. He had a .333 batting average (6th in the league), .428 on-base percentage (OBP; 3rd), .530 slugging percentage (SLG; 6th), a .958 OPS and hit nine home runs with 45 RBIs in 65 games for Charleston. The Yankees promoted him to the Tampa Yankees of the Class A-Advanced Florida State League during the season, where he hit .283 with a .411 OBP (2nd in the league), .442 SLG, eight home runs, and 33 RBIs in 66 games for Tampa. The Yankees invited Judge to spring training as a non-roster player in 2015. Judge began the 2015 season with the Trenton Thunder of the Class AA Eastern League. After Judge batted .284/.350/.510 (5th in the league) with 12 home runs (tied for 9th) in 63 games for Trenton, the Yankees promoted Judge to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders of the Class AAA International League in June. He was chosen to represent the Yankees at the 2015 All-Star Futures Game. The Yankees decided not to include Judge in their September call-ups. Judge batted .224/.308/.373 with eight home runs in 61 games for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The Yankees invited Judge to spring training in 2016, and he began the season with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Judge was named to the International League All-Star Team in 2016 but did not play in the 2016 Triple-A All-Star Game after he spent a month on the disabled list due to a knee sprain. In 93 games for the RailRiders, Judge batted .270/.366/.489 with 19 home runs (4th in the league), 62 runs (tied for 8th), and 65 RBIs (tied for 7th). New York Yankees (2016–present) 2016 Judge made his MLB debut on August 13, 2016, starting in right field against the Tampa Bay Rays. In his first MLB at-bat, Judge hit a home run off Matt Andriese; the previous batter, Tyler Austin, also making his MLB debut, had done the same. This marked the first time that two teammates had hit home runs in their first MLB career at-bats in the same game. Judge also hit a home run in his second MLB game, becoming the second Yankees player (after Joe Lefebvre in 1980) to homer in each of his first two MLB games. Judge's debut season, in which he batted .179/.263/.345 and struck out 42 times in 84 at-bats (95 plate appearances), ended prematurely when he was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a grade two right oblique strain on September 13, 2016, against the Los Angeles Dodgers. 2017 The Yankees named Judge their Opening Day right fielder against the Tampa Bay Rays. He had his first multi-home run game on April 28 against the Baltimore Orioles to help the Yankees win 14–11, coming back from a 9–1 deficit. One of the home runs had a measured exit velocity of 119.4 miles per hour (192.2 km/h), the fastest exit velocity for a home run measured by Statcast since it was adopted in 2015. This record would later be broken by teammate Giancarlo Stanton on August 9, 2018, when Stanton launched a home run with an exit velocity of 121.7 miles per hour (195.9 km/h). Judge ended the month of April with 10 home runs, tying the rookie r.... Discover the Aaron James popular books. 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