Aaron Judge, the would-be football star? Not quite.
Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge during spring training on March 23, 2022 Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Aaron Judge was picked by the Yankees with the 32nd selection in the 2013 MLB Draft out of Fresno State. The rest, as they say, is history.
But it could have been a very different history if Judge had accepted one of the many scholarship offers he received from powerhouse programs to play college football.
Judge, who played wide receiver, defensive end and even safety in Linden, California, was offered full scholarships to Notre Dame, Stanford, UCLA and Washington, among others, to play tight end.
He was 6-7 and about 250 pounds as a high school senior. He wore No. 2.
Who knows? Judge’s name might have been called in the 2014 NFL Draft.
On the eve of this year’s draft, Judge — a 49ers fan — was asked if he ever seriously considered going the football route.
“I thought about it maybe in college — it would have been a possibility to play in college — but my heart wouldn’t have been in it,” Judge said. “My heart’s always been here playing baseball. So it would have been cool, it would have been fun, I would have definitely enjoyed it. But I think my career would have ended right after college.”
Why?
“I just see the athletes they have nowadays and how good those guys are,” Judge said. “They’re just on a whole different level than I was. I respect what they do, that’s for sure.”
Judge is still 6-7 and he’s now a solid 282 pounds. He stands out among baseball players as the largest man to ever play centerfield, as he did on Wednesday when the Yankees hosted the Orioles in the Bronx.
But Judge, who is friends with several NFL players including fellow Fresno State alums Derek Carr and Davante Adams, said he just sees football players as “a different breed.”
“Just their skill set,” Judge said. “Those guys were born to do that. That’s one thing I liked about football — it’s a different mindset than baseball. If I got mad because I dropped a pass, I could kind of use that anger on the next play or the next possession if I’m on defense: ‘You know what? I’m going to go after this guy and hit him harder.’
“In baseball, if I get mad, it’s not going to help me hit the ball. It’s probably going to make it worse. Then I see the type of athletes they have out there, how they can just hone that energy. It’s just their skill set, man. I’d like to say I could maybe hang with them, but I know I definitely couldn’t.”
Judge also stood out on a high school football field, which is why his coach would move him from defensive end to safety during late-game drives so he could swat down any pass thrown his way.
“If late in the game, we knew they were passing, I’d play safety,” he said. “But mostly it was receiver and ‘D’ end. We had some fun with that.”
Judge was also — no surprise — the star center on the Linden High basketball team. College scouts from that sport sniffed around him as well. Judge rejected them like he would a layup in the paint.
“I had basketball scouts come in and want to talk,” Judge said. “I’d say, ‘I appreciate it, but I’m kind of playing these [sports] for fun. Baseball is really my passion.’ I got letters, a lot of calls, but it kind of stopped them right there. I didn’t want to lie to anybody, tell them, ‘Yeah, I’d love to.’ I was pretty straight and honest with them. I was pretty young, maybe a little naïve, I guess. I could have maybe strung it along, see how far it went. But I was focused on bigger things.”
Those bigger things didn’t include being an All-Star outfielder — not right away. Instead of taking one of his full scholarship offers to play football, Judge accepted a partial pitching scholarship to attend Fresno State.
He never pitched in college, instead becoming a star centerfielder. He blossomed as a junior, hitting .369 with 12 home runs in 56 games, and then went to the Yankees on an extra first-round pick they received for losing Nick Swisher in free agency.
Any regrets?
“No. I think I picked the right one,” said Judge, who homered on his 30th birthday on Tuesday, and, before the season, turned down a contract extension from the Yankees worth about $230 million in hopes of landing an even bigger deal.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
