The New York Yankees won the game, but Aaron Boone is still losing the fight. A day after Aaron Judge’s towering fly ball was ruled a foul ball instead of his ninth home run of the season, Yankees manager Aaron Boone made a formal complaint to Major League Baseball. Boone called MLB senior vice president of baseball operations Michael Hill on Monday, hoping for answers.
What he got was a chance to vent and a sympathetic ear. There’s no mechanism to retroactively award Judge the homer, even though replays showed the ball clearly left the park and went into a cluster of trees outside that are in fair territory at Steinbrenner Field. But Boone made the call anyway.
“It was a tough call,” Hill told Boone, according to the Yankees manager. Boone knows the challenges of playing in Steinbrenner Field very well because it is the Yankees’ spring home. The limitations, however, are more extreme when the games actually count. The absence of a third deck and camera angles makes the replays difficult and the sight lines unfamiliar. The foul pole used to gauge the home run is significantly shorter than one in a major league park, which typically reaches the third deck. “Not being in a major league park, with the third deck, complicates it and all that,” Boone said.
What becomes cringeworthy is if Judge comes near another record. He already holds the American League single-season home run record with 62, and his swings this season look as sharp as they did in 2022, when he set that franchise record.
If he comes close again this year, the league’s ruling on Sunday will loom even larger. Boone was ejected on the next pitch, an outside-corner slider that struck Judge out looking. He argued the call with home plate umpire Adam Beck, but got the most of his money’s worth with third base umpire Scott Barry.
With Judge, Boone knows we are watching a future Hall of Famer. He’s a generational talent whose story will be told in Cooperstown someday. Boone was just trying to make sure that the book on Judge contains every page he deserves.
