One individual quite familiar with New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone addressed the alleged controversy involving slugger Aaron Judge from earlier this week.
“Each player knows going into that scenario that if you are caught, there is a price to be paid,” former MLB All-Star Bret Boone, Aaron Boone’s older brother, explained during a recent edition of “The Bret Boone Podcast,” per Logan Mullen of Audacy. “As far as the Aaron Judge thing that’s going on, I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But I can just say, from a player standpoint and what other players see, optically, it was not a good look – especially when you end up hitting the ball 480 feet.”
During Monday’s game between the Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, the Blue Jays’ television announcers pointed out that Judge glanced either toward the dugout or first base coach Travis Chapman multiple times during an at-bat that the four-time All-Star selection ended with a moonshot of a home run.
Judge said after the game his eye movement was related to “chirping” he heard from the New York dugout, but Blue Jays right-hander Jay Jackson later admitted he tipped his pitches while facing the reigning American League Most Valuable Player.
Chapman – or anybody from the bench – communicating Jackson’s tells to Judge is permitted under MLB rules as long as electronics weren’t involved. Nevertheless, Bret Boone is hardly the only person within the baseball community to suggest the Blue Jays should’ve sent Judge “a message” via an inside pitch later in the midweek series.
“When something happens to a player of that caliber, yes, all eyes are going to be on you,” Bret Boone added about Judge’s actions on Monday. “People are going to be breaking down, they’re going to be going through film, does he do this all the time? Nobody has come up with any other time, so it’s very rare. He hit a home run earlier in the game, and his eyes weren’t moving, but that particular at-bat, four times.”
Bret Boone makes a good point about other teams possibly looking for similar eye movements from Judge in future games. Then again, Toronto probably learned a lesson about not upsetting the man who set a new AL single-season record for home runs just last year.
