To the best of my recollection, I had not watched an entire major-league baseball game since Game 7 of the Yankees-Diamondbacks 2001 World Series.
The games are too slow, too long, too lifeless.
Baseball was the first love of my life — I miss you, Mickey and Yogi — but as I got older, I found I enjoyed watching Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods play a round at the Masters more than anything else in sports, especially baseball.
The game I long worshipped turned into a game of slash lines, OPS, strikeouts, ghost runners and exit velocity. It’s not a sport anymore, it’s a game of data processing in which analytics mean more than hitting it where they ain’t.
And then on Sept. 18, everything changed. Aaron Judge hit his 59th home run. I have since watched more baseball in two weeks than I watched in two decades.
I was held prisoner by Judge’s attempt to break Roger Maris’ home run record, which I held to be the most holy of all records in sports — but I loved being a baseball hostage.
Over the last two weeks, I hesitated to make any plans. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything except stand next to the big screen, or stare at my iPhone, more nervous than at any time since the Yankees beat the Dodgers in the 1977 World Series.
Finally, a few ticks after 5 Tuesday afternoon, Judge set me free. I had the same joyful feeling as I did on Oct. 1, 1961 while sitting in the living room with my dad, from whom I inherited the gift of being a Yankees fan.
Because of that famous home run, I grew up fascinated by sports records, privileged to be a baseball junkie in a period when Maury Wills became the first to steal 100 bases, Pete Rose became the only man in modern times to get 4,000 hits and Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s seemingly unbreakable streak of 2,130 consecutive games played.
Baseball has always been a game of unforgettable numbers: Joe DiMaggio’s unassailable 56-game hitting streak, Ted Williams’ .406 batting average, and Babe Ruth’s once-historic record of 714 home runs. Now comes Aaron Judge.
This is baseball’s space. No other sport has the romance of numbers to match it.
Tell me: What NFL quarterback threw the most touchdown passes in a season? Shouldn’t that be a celebrated and widely known number? It is not.
Peyton Manning threw 55 touchdown passes in 2013. Who knew?
Or tell me: What NFL running back holds the record for career yards gained? And what is the number? Given the NFL’s popularity, shouldn’t it be common knowledge?
It’s not. Emmitt Smith gained 18,355 yards. He broke Walter Payton’s record of 16,726, and if there was a ceremony to celebrate Smith’s record, I never heard about it. That’s far too many numerals to remember, sort of like Kareem-Abdul Jabbar’s NBA career scoring record of 38,387 points.
The most precious record in NBA history is surely the 100-point game by Wilt Chamberlain in 1962. The game wasn’t televised and as far as I can determine, there is no video of that historic night 60 years ago.
Before anyone had heard of Roger Maris, one of the most celebrated sports records in history was the day Roger Bannister became the first to break the 4-minute mile (3:59.4). But that’s ancient .That was 1954. Today, more than 1,600 runners have broken the 4-minute mile, including Salpointe Catholic High School graduate Andy Trouard.
Track and field is a sport of numbers but those numbers have too many decimal points and fractions of inches to create any romance. Usain Bolt holds the most coveted of all track records — the 100 meters – but almost no one knows what that record is.
It’s 9.58 seconds. Move on. Nothing to see here. Check back in 50 years when inevitably the next historic sprinter runs 100 meters in 8.99 seconds. That’ll be like Bannister’s 4-minute mile.
If there is one sports record that could one-up baseball’s home run records it would be for someone to come along and win 19 golf majors in the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship.
Alas, that time has come and gone. Tiger Woods, his body broken, about to turn 47, seems stalled with 15 majors. It’s not going to happen. Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors victories appears unbreakable.
Tucson’s greatest sports record was surely set on a February afternoon at McKale Center 1989. That was the historic day Arizona All-American Sean Elliott made a free throw for his 2,326th career point, breaking Lew Alcindor’s seemingly untouchable Pac-10 career scoring record.
But unlike the 61 years that separates the home run records of Roger Maris and Aaron Judge, Elliott’s record fell three years later to UCLA’s villainous Don MacLean.
Records are made to be broken, right? Even if it takes 61 years and puts tears in an old man’s eyes.
