MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
One of baseball's most hallowed achievements could be within reach this year. New York Yankees' slugger Aaron Judge is flirting with the magical, elusive batting average, .400. Now, he does have impressive stats so far this season, but it has been the better part of a century since a ballplayer's reached that number. Steve Futterman explains just why .400 is so difficult.
STEVE FUTTERMAN, BYLINE: When the Yankees came to Los Angeles last week to play the Dodgers, one player clearly stood out.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: Right fielder number 99, Aaron Judge.
FUTTERMAN: Judge, 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds, towers above everyone in the batters' box. Breaking barriers is nothing new for him, as heard here on the Yankees Radio Network.
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JOHN STERLING: Swung on. There it goes. Deep left. It is high. It is far. It is gone. Number 62, to set the new...
FUTTERMAN: In 2022, Judge set the American League record for the most home runs in the season, pretty remarkable stuff. But when you mention hitting .400, that's something altogether different. No one has done it since 1941.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: Coming up for the second time at bat, Ted Williams, hitting .405.
FUTTERMAN: Ted Williams ended that season at .406 for the Boston Red Sox. In the 84 years since then, no one else has done it. So why do people think Aaron Judge might have a chance this season?
JIM ROWSON: The greatness of Judgie (ph) is that, you know, he never stops trying to get better.
FUTTERMAN: That's the Yankees hitting coach, Jim Rowson.
ROWSON: This is a guy who's at the top of our game. If the book ended right now, it's a Hall of Fame book, but yet, we're not even close. He's still writing the story.
FUTTERMAN: They first worked together in 2014 when Judge was just a rookie. This is Judge's tenth season and maybe his best, hitting for both power and average as he flirts with .400.
ROWSON: If he does this, I mean, it's going to be astronomical numbers, right? But I wouldn't put it past him. There's nothing that I wouldn't say, hey, this guy can't do. I don't think he's striving for necessarily .400, but I think he's striving every day to be the best hitter that he can be. And that hitter can definitely do it. It's possible.
FUTTERMAN: In the first two months of the season, Judge has been a hitting machine.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #3: Here's Judge already with three hits today. And a bouncer through into left field - a four-hit afternoon for Aaron Judge.
FUTTERMAN: Following that game against the A's on May 11, Judge was hitting .409. Since then, his average has dropped a bit, but he's still within striking distance of .400. But to do it for an entire season, in 1995, Ted Williams told the Classic Sports Network that would take nearly perfection.
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TED WILLIAMS: In order to have that .400 a year, which is a wonderful year, everything has to fall in place. You get cycles of good hitting, good pitching, you know? Everything has to fall in place - good year, bad - everything has to come in place.
FUTTERMAN: After Williams, the man who came closest to hitting .400 in a full season was George Brett in 1980. The Kansas City Royals infielder batted .390. If he had had just five more hits, he would have reached .400. We contacted Brett to get his comments. He told us it's too early. Call me in August. Aaron Judge is used to both the attention and deflecting questions about individual accomplishments, like breaking this barrier.
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AARON JUDGE: I just try not to think about it. You know, I got a job to do on the field. You know, I got to make plays, score some runs for the team. You try not to get too hyped into that. That's for you guys to do, and I got a job to do on the field.
FUTTERMAN: Last night, Aaron Judge had two more hits in the game against Cleveland.
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MICHAEL KAY: Judge hits one through the right side for a base hit.
FUTTERMAN: Another step closer to .400, but the season still has four more months to go. For NPR News, I'm Steve Futterman in Los Angeles. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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