by the correspondent in the USA Massimiliano Herber
“Goodbye … Number 61 … he has chased history, and now he is doing it”, the commentator’s words in commenting on Aaron Judge’s feat are not afraid of rhetoric. The New York Yankees hitter became the player in American League history (one of two in the Major League) to hit more home runs in a single season. After having equaled a baseball legend like Babe Ruth who in 1927 had reached 60, in the night against the Toronto Blue Jays Judge reached 61. A record still in cohabitation with another New York star, Roger Maris, who had set it of 1961. Sixty-one years later, sixty-one homeruns.
The wait for the equalized record lasted a week, a spasmodic wait especially for the newspapers of New York and the East Coast. Baseball remains the American pastime par excellence, the glue of society, a sports myth that has become the great reservoir of memory of the country. Dreams and destinies hang from the trajectory of the 108-stitched leather ball. The 30-year-old Yankees winger’s dream now is to hit the 62nd home run. From Friday his team returns to play in the Bronx, until Sunday, and then there will be the playoffs.
The bumper season of the Yankees number 99 and the hunt for the record are having repercussions on betting and ticket prices. The cost for seats located in the points of Yankee Stadium where the historic home run is likely to arrive has risen from 72 to 197 dollars. Catching the ball hit by the Judge will be like winning the lotto. An investment firm has already offered a million dollars yesterday – before the record was equaled – the president of an agency specializing in collectible stickers and other memorabilia announced via twitter that he for the number 62 ball will offer two million. dollars.
Several times in American literature and cinema the parable of a home run is a metaphor for existence. All the great writers, from John Fante to Paul Auster, passing through John Updike, confronted each other. In the novel, “Underworld“, Don Delillo tells of the ball that decided the 1951 World Series final between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The story of that ball is the story of the people who changed hands in life. Ne”The best“, Robert Redford sends it straight into the stadium headlights, shattering the lights and extinguishing the glare of a life of ephemeral and fraudulent success. Who knows who will write the story of Aaron Judge’s next home run, of that ball that rears towards the sky, like a dove, will fly far away and, perhaps, will make rich those who manage to claw it. Because, despite the media hype and the business that revolves around it, in baseball in America there is always this aura of grandeur and purity; it is a coincidence that the playing field has the shape of a diamond.
