2025 Batting Champion Begins Pursuit of a World Championship
It's the year 2025, and MLB celebrates an alleged gambler as the face of the sport. The media creates a narrative that a power-hitting catcher deserves the MVP award. You have MLB investing heavily with rules that target large-market teams to create parity. These decisions directly impact a two-time MVP: a 6-foot-7 player who hits 50-plus home runs each year, yet remains curiously overshadowed—Aaron Judge, whose struggle for recognition amid distractions sets the stage for his defining moment.
When Aaron Judge, captain of the New York Yankees, drops a fly ball in the World Series, he is plastered all over social media, and ridicule follows, while his team is mocked. Aaron holds the title of captain once held by icons like Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, Don Mattingly, and Derek Jeter. He shoulders a legacy and heavy expectations. Defining his career and reviving championship glory are now his key challenges after injury derailed the Yankees' postseason hopes in 2023. This was reinforced after the 2024 World Series disappointment. His quest for validation has never been more urgent.
Now, the Yankees' heart and soul will play once again in the postseason. Juan Soto, his former dance partner of a year ago and the most expensive player in MLB, will now watch on television. Soto will sit in his jacuzzi in the Dominican Republic, wondering what could have been. Judge went on to win the batting title and flirted with the triple crown. He will lead the Yankees once again against their eternal rivals, the Boston Red Sox. Since the infamous seven-game classic win in the 2003 ALCS when current Yankee manager Aaron Boone hit a series-clinching home run, the Red Sox have dominated New York.
In a timeline as described, the Yankees blew a 3-0 lead in the 2024 ALCS against Boston, as if the narrative diverged into an alternate universe at that moment. The Red Sox then beat the Yankees in four games in 2018, when Judge and his boom box celebration were cut short. In 2021, Giancarlo Stanton hit one home run, but two more were reduced by the Green Monster to two singles at Fenway Park, and Boston emerged victorious in the Wild Card game.
Now, it's the best of three, and all the games will be played in the Bronx. The winner buys a ticket to Canada against the AL East champion Toronto Blue Jays. This would be a perfect time to imitate CERN and restore the fabric of the universe to the timeline where everyone is aware that the Yankees are 27-time champions. They have an opportunity to fix the ancient edge they once enjoyed for nearly a decade.
Boston is minus Rafael Devers, and the rookie sensation Roman Anthony will not be here to pressure the Yankee staff. Here is a team Judge has had moments against. He hit .286 with 14 hits, drew seven walks, drove in eight runs, and hit five home runs, two of which came off tonight's game one starter, Garrett Crochet, in 2025. Aaron Judge has a certain mindset going into tonight, which focuses not on the past but the present. "We haven't had too much success against them, but no better time to change that. Especially right now," Judge reflected, "It's time to really turn it up a notch."
The numbers say it all goes back to Aaron Judge, the one player who can impact this series with his power when it is unleashed. The problem is that it never materializes in October. If Aaron Judge wants to avoid being the Don Mattingly of the 2000s as a beloved Yankee captain who never won a World Series, then starting tonight, he must change the narrative. A 2009 Alex Rodriguez run could ensure a championship and wash out previous indiscretions. It's all about moments and hitting big home runs at the right time and in bunches, which would place the Yankees above the rest in this season of equality. The pursuit to accomplish this in his final prime years is a call to urgency.
