The year Aaron Judge became Aaron Judge

THE CAPTAINS STAND in the outfield and take a long look at the Fresno State baseball roster standing in front of them. They're trying to figure out the answer to a strange question: Who are the best football players from this group?

Senior infielder Danny Muno has the first draft pick for the team's 2011 preseason touch football game. Fresno State has a roster full of future MLB players, with legitimate NCAA title aspirations, so Muno is choosing from about 40 elite Division I athletes. But he catches everyone off guard by pointing to a tall, unproven rookie who has been on campus for about six weeks.

"I'll take Big Ass," he says. Big Ass is a true freshman named Aaron Judge.

Judge is 6-foot-7, 250-some pounds, and most of the guys know by now that he was supposedly a good high school basketball and football player, too. He logged a lot of time over the past four months with his teammates doing offseason baseball workouts, which mostly involved running and batting practice.

He has impressed teammates with his athleticism and willingness to work, though the Bulldogs' veteran roster hasn't gotten to know him well yet. They like him, for sure. But none of the players intend to coddle a wide-eyed 18-year-old who is still trying to figure out whether he is a pitcher or an outfielder.

The football game is a goofy little monotony-breaker for the team. Head coach Mike Batesole introduced it into the endless preseason schedule of calisthenics and conditioning work as a fun aside in the fall. But the players care about it way more than Batesole ever expected. The veterans mark up the outfield grass with the outline of a partial football field, complete with end zones and sidelines. Teams were usually five players each, with veterans serving as captains and maintaining standings. They sometimes held practice and had mini playbooks. "I even remember some guys had shirts made up with their team names on there," Batesole says.

Muno selects Judge first. The other captains go back and forth for a few minutes, filling out their rosters. But none of the other picks really matter -- this is about to be the Big Ass show.

On the first play, with the coaching staff camped out on the grass behind first and second base, Muno calls a wide receiver screen to Judge. He catches the ball, finds a seam behind his blockers, and then makes about 30 jaws drop.

He is big and has good straight-ahead speed. But his juke moves are downright startling. Judge goes side to side like a 5-foot-8 guy, and five seconds after he catches the ball, he has scooted by all five defenders as he stands in the makeshift end zone. "He made someone just about tear their ACL, then went 40 yards for a touchdown as he juked out everybody else," says Jordan Ribera, who was Fresno's junior first baseman. "You don't think someone that size can move like that."

The coaches couldn't believe it.

"What was that?" Batesole yells. "He's Barry-freaking-Sanders out there."

Muno's team goes on to win the football tournament, and Judge is the MVP. It would be a little silly to call a preseason conditioning touch football game a signature moment in the career of Aaron Judge, three-time MLB MVP.

But for some of Judge's best friends, that game stands as the most memorable event they had experienced with him. It serves as the end of one chapter of his life -- his incredible high school football and basketball career -- and the beginning of his emergence as a transcendent baseball superstar.

Just one question remained: What kind of baseball superstar did he want to be?

A BIG PART of why Judge is an awesome baseball player is that he never really focused on it until he got to Fresno State. In fact, he used to openly tell people that he liked winding down one sport and getting ready for another, all year round. Football led into basketball, which led into baseball, which led into football, and on and on for his entire childhood. "He liked doing lots of things, and he was a star at pretty much everything, including his schoolwork," says Bob Ammerman, Judge's high school baseball coach and a longtime family friend. "If he had wanted to play soccer, he'd be a pro soccer player right now."

He spent his elementary school years assuming he would pursue basketball when he got older because of his height. But by the start of his senior year at California's Linden High School, basketball slid to a close third on Judge's list, with baseball a slight favorite over football.

When he was asked about his favorite memory as a high school athlete, Judge didn't mention home runs or touchdowns. He said he loved picking up trash with his basketball teammates for community service. "We got up real early, had breakfast, and walked around the community picking up garbage. We had a lot of fun," Judge told The Stockton Record in 2010. "It was a good bonding experience."

His parents, Wayne and Patty Judge, insisted he play multiple sports. They adopted Aaron when he was one day old, raising their biracial son in Linden, a predominantly white town of 1,800 in central California's San Joaquin County. The best way to understand the area is to know that the creator of "Sons of Anarchy," Kurt Sutter, decided San Joaquin County was the perfect home for his show. He said he wanted "blue collar" and "outlaw" as the backdrop for his motorcycle gang crime drama.

Wayne and Patty Judge are not outlaws. They are educators in the sense that it isn't only a profession, it is their philosophy of life. They met at Fresno State and embarked on long careers working as teachers in the school system around the Linden area, about 130 miles northwest of the university. Both loved sports and considered them an essential part of the youth learning experience, so Aaron played any and every sport as a kid.

His basketball and football days at Linden High School were the secret sauce to what he has become. He's about the smoothest 6-foot-7, 280-pound outfielder that humanity could ever produce, and it's largely because he spent his formative years trying to be Tony Gonzalez in the fall, Scottie Pippen in the winter, then Dave Winfield all spring and summer.

By the time Judge got to his senior year in 2009-10, he was in the middle of a beautiful predicament. He averaged 18.2 points and 12.8 rebounds per game in basketball, but he wasn't receiving major college offers for hoops. He emerged as a legit Division I tight end prospect, with Notre Dame, Washington and UCLA all chasing after him. Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh was particularly aggressive during several phone calls and written correspondence, saying he loved Judge's pass-catching skills (968 yards and 17 touchdowns as a senior) and tenacity in the run game.

There is a reason, though, that Judge often says, "Baseball is my one true love." The sport represents some significant similarities to his personality -- it's a little quieter, its competition more fierce than savage, and grinders are welcome.

One moment, in particular, pushed Judge toward the diamond. In the summer before his senior season, Judge went to a weekend camp at Fresno State. He was raised in a Bulldog home, and he absorbed the 'Dog into his pores. When he stepped into the batting cage that weekend, Judge smashed one ball, then a second, then a third, before the coaches pulled him out of the cage. The Judge camp was a little confused, so Patty Judge approached assistant coach Pat Waer. What they didn't know was that Batesole had seen enough; he didn't want other coaches to notice Judge, so he cut batting practice short.

"Do you have any recommendations for what Aaron can work on?" Patty asked Waer.

"Yes, I would work on him saying yes to the scholarship offer we're about to hand him," he said.

Patty and Wayne collected Aaron and went to see Batesole in his office, and sure enough, he immediately told the family that Fresno State would like to offer him a scholarship. Judge, in return, said he was interested.

He only made a loose commitment, though, so the football heat was real that fall. He read all the letters and took the phone calls. But Judge had begun to love baseball at a different level than the other sports, even though almost everybody involved thought his ceiling was just as high for football. "He easily could have played college basketball or college football -- easily," Batesole says.

A few weeks after verbally committing, he went to Fresno State for his official visit on a Saturday. Batesole told one of his veteran leaders, Ribera, "See that big guy? We need him."

Ribera understood the assignment. He introduced himself to Judge, who already knew who he was. Ribera, a future Rockies draft pick, led the nation with 26 home runs in 2010. Later that night, he took Judge to see quarterback Derek Carr and the Fresno State football team play. Then they went to a frat party and hung out for the rest of the day. Judge still tells people that Ribera is the one who got him to officially pick Fresno.

In his heart, Judge had just made the toughest decision of his life -- what he would pursue, and where he would pursue it. Judge went back to Linder and won his high school league's Triple Crown, while also going 9-3 with a 0.88 ERA on the mound. That summer, the A's drafted him in the 31st round of the 2010 draft as a pitcher/first baseman.

"He knew by then what he was -- a baseball player," says Ammerman, his high school coach.

AT FRESNO, Judge spent the fall and winter dabbling in all three spots. His bullpen sessions were incredible. He had a Paul Skenes-like delivery, smooth and technically sound, the ball pouring out of his body with an ease that was borderline irritating even for his Fresno teammates. "He was one of those guys who effortlessly sat at low to mid-90s," says pitcher Justin Haley, a future sixth-round pick of the Red Sox. "The rest of us had to work our tails off to throw that hard."

At first base, Judge showed impossible footwork for someone his size, and his height made him a giant target with a long stretch. In the outfield, he often threw like a guy who could be a starting pitcher, showcasing an arm that 15 years later ranks among the best in baseball.

The coaching staff wanted Judge's position to naturally reveal itself, rather than pressuring him to choose. It was even on the table that he could pitch one day, then start at first base or in the outfield until his next turn in the rotation.

Batesole wasn't sure what kind of moxie Judge had. In a scene that Fresno coaches and teammates frequently recall, Batesole called out Judge during his first team meeting.

"Judgey, stand up," Batesole said.

Judge rose.

"In high school, you scored 17 touchdowns as a senior, didn't you?"

Judge nodded.

"And in basketball, you averaged 18 points a game?"

Judge smiled.

"And in baseball, you hit .500?"

Judge shook his head yes.

"Wow, you could have done just about anything you wanted with your life, huh?" Batesole said, pausing a moment. "Sit down. Nobody cares."

Even the veterans on the team thought Batesole was too hard on the new kid. But everyone interviewed for this story said that Judge set a tone from that first team meeting: he wanted to get better, so he was willing to absorb criticism. Batesole proceeded to ride Judge the way he thought was best. He knew Judge could become the best player he had ever coached.

"The way I look at it, if he couldn't handle that, how was he going to deal with thousands of Stanford fans screaming at him at a regional?" Batesole says now. "Testing him mentally was a big part of the plan, and he handled it fantastically. He thrived on it. He ate it up."

Judge would nod his head when Batesole got on him, or smile his way through whatever needling he got from his coaches or teammates. Judge always puts on a giant grin that makes him feel more outgoing than he actually is. In reality, his joyous face masks a very guarded personality. Even now, he is a worldwide star, but remains someone we recognize more than we actually know. He did not respond to an interview request for this story.

"He has that big, beautiful smile, and he spends time with almost every kid he walks past," Batesole says. "But he is a killer. He has that thing that Kobe and Michael Jordan had. If his stroke isn't right, he isn't going to the bar. He will stay in the cage until he gets it right."

His old Fresno State buddies laugh about the idea that Judge is quiet and reserved. He's not. Not behind closed doors, anyway. To them, they still think of the camera-shy teenager who liked to dance and sing in the clubhouse after games and could absorb and dish out nonstop crap from a rowdy bunch of veterans. They called him Judgey or Big Ass, and the coaches would even write "BAJ" for "Big Ass Judge" instead of his name. "I wouldn't yell that across the room at him," Ribera says. "But when we're talking, I still say Big Ass."

At almost any time of day or night, Batesole would be rounding up players for "Pusoy," a Filipino card game where four players shed cards until one last player is declared the loser. Judge immediately worked his way into the upper echelon of Pusoy players, which put him in Batesole's rotation. It was the perfect game for a team that loved chop-busting because it isolated one losing player for everybody else at the table to goof on. On more than one road trip, players would be sleeping on the plane when Batesole would wander over and ask some of them to move so he could get a game going with his core Pusoy players, including Judge.

That first season, Judge also played "Call of Duty" with his teammates. Half of the baseball team played, and they would usually invite two other Fresno State athletes at the time -- Carr and Paul George -- to link up and play, too. George especially loved getting into games with the baseball players. Judge enjoyed storming right onto the battlefield on foot, and George liked to be a sniper, clearing the way for Judge and others.

George became an almost-nightly fixture on "Call of Duty," with players still laughing to this day about how many exciting Saturday nights got derailed because of a good game with George and Judge. A bunch of them would grab dinner and then take a shower to go out for the night, then decide to log on for one game. But "just one game" would turn into them all six hours later, still in their towels, signing off at 2 a.m., and going to bed instead of the party scene they had originally planned on.

Judge and George hit it off on the basketball court, too. Some of the baseball players would head over to a rec league court on campus, and George would sometimes show up. On more than one occasion, a group of frat bros would be there and challenge the Fresno State athletes. They would know they were going to lose, but they wanted the story as much as anything else.

The Fresno stars gave them stories, too. George, who'd come back to campus in the NBA offseason, played at about half-speed, mostly chucking 3s. Judge would play down low, pounding the boards and launching on some of the nastiest dunks those rec hoops had ever felt. "He would just sky through the air," Ribera says. "He was so good at basketball, too."

Ribera pauses, then throws up his hands, "He's good at everything!"

THE BULK of Judge's credibility with his teammates was forged in The Barn, Batesole's name for the batting cage off to the side of Fresno's baseball field. He would always tell them, "Make sure you're stacking hay in The Barn." Judge immediately became the team's No. 1 haymaker before he played his first game. He wore out coaches with batting practice, while also throwing as many bullpen sessions off the practice mound, too. At first, he would be dragging when he wrapped up those long sessions. But within a few months, he had a remarkable ability to be sharp after 100 swings and 100 pitches -- he didn't really tail off.

"Some of the reason he is so good is that he works very hard on never getting tired," says former Fresno State assistant coach Erik Wetzel. "Physically and mentally, he could lock it in even when he was exhausted. He could perform no matter what."

On the mound, teammates hated hitting against him. He could throw low-to-mid 90s effortlessly, and his frame made it feel like he was landing in the batter's box with them. To this day, he is one of baseball's hardest-throwing position players, with an average throw of 90 mph in 2025. "The ball got on you so fast," Ribera says. "I still have no doubt he could be pitching in the MLB All-Star Game if he'd pursued that path."

As the season approached, the coaching staff didn't quite know what to do with Judge. Pitch? Outfield? First base? All of the above? He was torn, with an affinity for all three positions, though first base ranked third on the list -- Ribera, his recruiting host, had that position locked down.

In conversations with coaches, he expressed reluctance about not pitching. In his baseball soul, he loved both pitching and hitting, which left everybody gridlocked about what to emphasize in his development. "About the only thing we decided was that he had to play every day, wherever we could get him in the game," Batesole says.

That Fresno State roster was loaded. The Bulldogs had won the NCAA title two years earlier, and that was the bar for this team, too. As the season approached, Judge continued to build toward pitching and playing the outfield. But he realized almost immediately that innings were going to be harder to come by than at-bats.

So he doubled down on Barn work. Assistant coaches Wetzel and Ryan Overland threw him thousands of pitches behind a screen from 50 feet away, hiding carefully after every 65 mph toss rocketed off Judge's bat, going 100-plus mph. He could spray liners to the opposite field, which Batesole loved from his right-handed hitters. "The ball would come off the bat in a way where you think it's going to land in the right-center gap between the outfielders," Wetzel says. "But then you'd hear it clunk off the wall. His line drives really carried."

He immediately looked like a high-level Division I hitter. There was still some mild concern about Judge's massive frame translating into a clunky swing that couldn't catch up to college fastballs. And early on, his coaches also were a little surprised that for all of Judge's power, he wasn't hitting many home runs. The liners into right-center were great, and that's how he ended up batting seventh in a stacked 2011 Fresno lineup. But he still had significant work to do to reach his final form as a power hitter. "He really wasn't able to use his whole leverage right away," Muno says. "He was a real raw, but you could tell he was going to be good."

That work happened through exhausting cagework. Wetzel, the former Rockies prospect, had learned a power-generating drill from Todd Helton that was perfect for Judge. He would move the protective cage closer, to about 20 feet away, then he would fire fastballs from short range. Judge's job was to purposely let the ball get as far past him as possible, then fire his hands down and try to connect with it. Any contact whatsoever was good, even foul popups. The goal was to be able to develop intense tracking ability and then generate a fast surge into the ball, which would hopefully make regular swings seem easy.

Judge struggled with the drill initially, but he's not the kind of athlete -- or person -- to struggle for very long. He did hundreds of swings a day in addition to regular practice, honing his focus to an elite level by the time the season arrived. "I have no idea how many fastballs I threw to that guy," Wetzel says. "He could hit all day."

But Judge's swing got tighter and faster every day for months leading into the season. By opening day, he had emerged as the team's best option in right field, with mound opportunities looking unlikely for early in the season. He had some hopes that he would get some pitching reps down the road, and his Fresno bio to this day lists him as pitcher/outfield.

But in this case, fate would ultimately decide for him. Without even knowing at the time, Aaron Judge's pitching days were over.

JUDGE WAS LIGHTS OUT as a freshman. He won the WAC's Freshman of the Year, playing mostly center field and hitting .358 with two home runs and 30 RBI in 215 plate appearances. The team sputtered in the NCAA regionals, though, going 0-2 to finish 40-17. With virtually all of the Bulldog veterans departing, this would now be Aaron Judge's team in 2012.

But he would have to be center fielder Aaron Judge, not pitcher Aaron Judge. He had shown too much potential as a cornerstone offensive player to dabble on the mound anymore. There was no meeting or news release to make the decision official. Everybody involved just felt like the universe had sorted out Judge's career trajectory for him -- he would be an outfielder going forward. "I think he knew that his future was going to be smashing baseballs, not throwing them," Ribera says.

Just one problem: the whole "power" thing. Judge was powerful, for sure, and Overland said Judge's exit velocity made coaching third base a nightmare. But the ball was not leaving the park. He had 67 hits as a freshman, with only two home runs and 12 doubles, which came out to a .445 slugging percentage for a guy who would eventually be at .615 for the Yankees. "He didn't have enough loft yet with his swing," Wetzel says. "But he was hell-bent on getting it."

Scouts had already taken note, though. Talent evaluators kept telling Batesole that they didn't see Judge generating enough carry from his swing to ultimately be a home run hitter in the big leagues. Batesole would push back, pointing out that the NCAA's new safety measures in 2011, designed to deaden the sport's aluminum bats, had deflated power numbers across the board and that the home runs would come for Judge later in his career. But nothing put a dent in the narrative. "It pisses me off to this day," Batesole says. "I don't know what they were thinking. He should have been in the conversation to be the No. 1 pick."

Judge and the coaching staff incorporated that concern into his growth, though, and he practically moved into The Barn that offseason. Overland and Wetzel began to work with Judge on hitting with a wooden bat, as well as intense sessions that aimed to inject more air under his hits. It was less of a swing overhaul and more about tweaks to get his hands through the zone a little lower, and the results were slow but steady. As a sophomore, Judge jumped a bit to four home runs and 14 doubles.

But the eye test showed more progress than the stat line. Two of his home runs came off Stanford's Mark Appel, the eventual No. 1 pick in the 2013 draft, and another was against UCLA's Trevor Bauer. Judge was getting under the ball better, along with an impressive jump from 25 walks as a freshman to 48 in Year 2. He was showing a little more pop with much better plate discretion.

He also emerged as a more vocal leader in the clubhouse, something Batesole and the coaches pressed him on. He's not exactly a rousing orator, so he had to rely on actions rather than speeches. Teammates still rave about how much time Judge spent at the top of the dugout, a giant cheerleader relentlessly chirping for everybody on the team from the rail. "He's not the first to speak when he's in a crowd," Haley says. "But he's a blast to be around. He really is the kindest monster you will ever meet -- one of the greatest teammates I ever had."

Judge and his teammates would go to all the Bulldog football games, even the road trips when possible. Ribera still remembers loading up his Expedition and Judge moving the seat back -- "It took about seven minutes to get him in the car," he says -- and then they would hit the highway. Later, they would come back to campus, grab some Chipotle and a 30-pack of Keystone Light. If they didn't go out that night, they'd throw on Step Brothers, Superbad, or Pineapple Express, all Judge favorites, and hang together.

"Those were some of the best times of our lives," Ribera says. To this day, when they get together, Judge and Ribera will reminisce about those nights of endless laughs for the grand old price tag of $11.99 at the local beer distributor.

Judge's humility only added to his growing legend with his teammates. Batesole treated him like any other player, and Judge demonstrated an amount of thick skin that those close to him say he still carries with him today. One infamous example came during a road trip to Pepperdine in 2012, when Judge warmed up in sneakers. When coaches told him he had to go get his cleats on, Judge confessed that he had accidentally brought two left cleats instead of a normal pair. Because neither team had any other players who wore a size 17, Judge played that night with two left shoes on. He went 1-for-4, with four putouts in center field, and teammates spent most of the night picking on him for stumbling around with his enormous mismatched cleats.

"You wouldn't have known he was the best player on the team when he was at Fresno by the way he took crap from people," Ribera says. "Even now, he's like that, and I always thought that pushed everybody around him to be humble and just one of the guys, too."

The team finished 30-27, winning the WAC for a seventh straight year before going 1-2 at NCAA regionals to end the season. Judge had shown definite improvement, emerging as a prospect to watch. But conventional wisdom about his upside hadn't changed much. He had been a 31st-round pick coming out of high school and now looked like a midrounder with the same general knock: He was big and powerful but couldn't hit it out of the park.

As the college postseason moved on without Fresno State, Judge accepted an offer to go play in the Cape Cod independent league. He would get a chance to hit with wooden bats and play in front of East Coast scouts on a regular basis early that summer. "It was a golden opportunity for him," Overland says.

But then an even better opportunity popped up: an invitation to compete in the Ameritrade Home Run Derby for college players, to be held in Omaha during the 2012 Men's College World Series. Most MLB teams would have their A-team of scouts in attendance, so Judge could perhaps show once and for all that he had big league power -- or not.

OVERLAND IS HONORED when Judge asks him to be his pitcher in Omaha. He had been Batesole's catcher on the 2008 NCAA title team and now had a job as Fresno's volunteer assistant in 2012. The two had spent hundreds of hours together in The Barn that season. He would grunt as he fired off another max power fastball, and Judge would clang blast after blast into the mesh net, trying to morph into a home run hitter.

He flies in from California the night before, and Judge zips away from New York to Nebraska around the same time. They're both feeling some pressure. This would essentially be a 20-hour mad dash to prove that Judge isn't a line-drive singles hitter, with the derby being broadcast on CBS to a national audience. Sure, he still had the rest of the Cape Cod season, plus another year at Fresno State. But an unimpressive showing in Omaha won't do anything to help his cause. He has to play well.

They strategize a little beforehand. But they mostly just trust The Barn work. Judge warns Overland that he wants to be patient and take a few pitches, even meatballs, to train his eyes and lock in. So Overland knows he'll have to be throwing mid-60s for at least 50 pitches and maybe as many as 100-150. He feels his palms get a little sweaty in the first round as he watches one personal BP pitcher plunk his hitter twice with fastballs. He hadn't even thought to unlock that fear.

Overland is a little wild in the first round, throwing about three pitches for every one Judge swing. Judge keeps telling him, "Slower," as Overland continues to accidentally overthrow. He gradually settles into a groove, and Judge starts smashing the ball. He hits four home runs before he gets to 10 outs, which is enough to advance him from the first round (eight hitters) to the next round (four hitters).

Judge hits a home run on the first pitch of the second round. But then things get ugly. He hits a liner that falls into the outfield grass. Then a pop fly near the warning track. Then another medium-range fly ball. He ends up hitting eight consecutive outs, and both he and Overland are feeling hope disappear. He has two outs left and needs four home runs to advance to the final against LSU's Mason Katz and Virginia Tech's Tyler Horan.

For three pitches in a row, Overland grooves fastballs out and over the plate. If an ump had been calling balls and strikes, Judge would have gone down looking. But that's what those Barn sessions had lasered into his brain -- an ability to hone in and look at pitches until the perfect pitch, at the perfect time.

On Overland's fourth pitch, Judge rips a rope into the left-field bleachers. That puts him at two home runs, with two outs to go. He watches three more cupcakes go past him before he swings again. Same result -- home run.

After another out, Judge steps out of the box with one final shot at qualifying for the finals. The last swing is considered a bonus ball, so the next pitch could either advance him into the final round or end his night with a very disappointing outcome -- two rounds, 20 outs, seven home runs, and a third-place finish out of eight hitters. Not ideal for someone trying to shake a growing rep that he doesn't have big league power.

Once Judge collects himself, he steps back in the box and looks at three more pitches from Overland. His coach is dealing at this point, ripping off the same beautiful BP ball over and over again in rapid succession. Judge is getting dialed in.

On the fourth pitch, Judge's bat explodes down from behind his head. He connects and drives a missile out over a horde of Little Leaguers, into the left-center bleachers. He's in the finals.

The drama is over, though: Judge blows past his opponents in the last round with five home runs before he gets to six outs. He's the 2012 home run derby champion, setting a tone for the next season at Fresno State and his future.

Overland and Judge grab dinner, go to bed, and then fly out in separate directions again in the morning. Judge goes back to the Cape Cod league, hitting five home runs in 32 games to build on the derby win. Overland goes back to Fresno, where he's promoted to assistant coach the next year before ultimately taking over for Batesole four years ago.

In 2013, Judge jumped from six total home runs as a freshman and sophomore to 12 as a junior, with a .655 slugging percentage. A few months later, the Yankees would take him with the No. 32 pick in the MLB draft, and there's no better way to describe what happened next than this:

Aaron Judge was about to make a big-ass surge to the top of baseball.br/]