Maybe it’s time to get rid of the charade game called American and National League. Just say it to Judge – Aaron Judge.
The slow Yankee’s 62nd home season has been honored as a new American League record. But most likely no one will ever break that AL mark, as the American League and National League are facing extinction.
With next year’s schedule increasing the interval from 20 games this year to 46 games (28.4% of the season), it is only a matter of time before half of the matches will be played with the teams. team in the current league.
“I don’t think there’s any difference in leagues,” said Bobby Valentine, who played and managed in the NL and AL during a career that began with the Dodgers in 1969. of the National League appointee, Valentine told Deadspin, “I often wonder if they should have an MVP, which I think they should.”
Former National League President Leonard Coleman is fine with separate leagues and awards. “From the beginning there was stiff competition between leagues, but I think that has almost disappeared,” said Coleman, who was head of the National League from 1994 to 1999, when his position was lost. removed when MLB merged the two leagues into its office. “You can keep them for tradition,” he said over the phone.
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But if things go the way Valentine’s Day, it could be goodbye to MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and a host of other double awards that, following the NFL’s example, make no distinction between AFC and NFC when it comes to awards.
“That’s what I prefer,” said Valentine, adding that he’ll be merging the two sets of stats. “If I have the highest batting average next year, or the most hits at home, the best ERA, then I want to think of myself as the best in baseball,” and not just in a tournament. fight.
Coleman proposed a simple solution to the statistical problem: “You can merge them yourself. You have the National League batting champion, you have the American League batting champion. You know who has the highest average in Major League Baseball. It’s right in front of you.”
A potential shift in baseball would come after what the NFL and AFL did with their awards and stats when their merger went into effect in 1970.
Later today, Judge is likely to win his first MVP award after his historic season. But with the alternation of tournaments, there is still a question of his home run record.
With all due respect to the Yankees right puncher, is there an asterisk next to his 62? And before you Yankee fans rush to me, it’s not for the same reason that players like Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa have earned their symbolic asterisks.
Another area where two leagues becoming one becomes murky is league performance. Is 62 home runs really an American League record as Judge knocks out his 10 home runs against National League teams?
Those games included a pairing against the underdog Pirates, who finished with the second-worst record in the NL, and a game against the Reds, who drew the Bucs with 100 losses. (The Mets have helped him the most of any NL team, allowing the three to pocket four; the Brewers and the Cubs each put two.)
As Maris was aiming for Babe Ruth’s divine record of 60 home-players (Babe did that on a 154-game schedule that went into effect in 1927), the baseball commissioner, Ford Frick, announced it. midway through the 1961 season (which was extended to 162 games when AL added two new teams that year): “If a player doesn’t hit more than 60 points until the club has played 154 games, it will there must be some special mark in the record books to prove that Babe Ruth’s record was set on a 154-game schedule. . .”
Despite never having made a real mark in the record books, Maris ’61 is often ridiculed. But even those Frickers can’t deny that that Yankee right-winger has smashed all of his home games against the only teams in the American League.
Valentine and Coleman both agree that Judge is the record holder for a legal American League home run. As Coleman put it, “Judge plays in the American League. He achieved 62 home runs. That is the record.”
