The New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge just made baseball history.
The 30-year-old hit his 61st home run of the season during a Sept. 28 game against the Toronto Blue Jays, officially tying Roger Maris‘ American League record. The historic shot came in at the seventh inning, when Judge smashed a ball from Tim Mayza over the left field wall at the Rogers Centre.
Prior to Maris, Babe Ruth held the record with 60 single-season home runs in 1927.
With seven more games remaining, Judge could very well surpass Maris’ 1961 record for most home runs in a season. However, he’ll still need a dozen more successful hits if he wants to match Barry Bond‘s MLB record of 73 single-season home runs, which was set in 2001 during the league’s controversial “steroids era,” per ESPN.
But that’s not to say Judge can’t make the history books again. After all, Bonds recently predicted that the outfielder will be able to make more home runs after his 61st hit.
“Trying to get to that 61 is the hardest one,” he told the outlet on Sept. 26. “Trying to get to that one. Once he gets to it, he’s probably going to hit five or six in a row after that. But trying to get to there, that’s the hardest one, that 61 is going to be the hardest. It’s a big moment on 61.”
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