There are moments in baseball when the game offers more than just numbers, more than a box score or another entry in a record book. It offers a sense of occasion, of witnessing something rare — perhaps even unprecedented. Watching Aaron Judge in 2025 is to stand at the edge of that moment. You can almost hear the echo of Ruth’s footsteps in the Bronx, but what you're seeing is different. It’s right-handed. It’s modern. It’s mountainous. It’s Aaron Judge, and this isn’t just a hot streak — this may be the most thunderous stretch of right-handed hitting the modern game has ever seen.

Since 2022, Judge has transformed his at-bats into symphonic exhibitions of power and precision. A .314 average. A .439 on-base percentage. A slugging mark that hovers in the clouds at .682. And when he connects, the ball doesn't just leave the yard — it leaves a vapor trail. His 168 home runs over his last 450 games put him in a class shared only by McGwire and Sosa, both tainted by asterisks. Judge, by contrast, stands tall and clean — literally and metaphorically — as a six-foot-seven monument to the game's evolving possibilities.

And yet, for all the brute strength, Judge is not merely a masher. He’s a craftsman. In April, while others were finding their rhythm, Judge was composing a jazz riff on Ted Williams. Fifty hits before May. A .423 average over 34 games. A .510 OBP. Numbers that place him in company not just with Foxx or DiMaggio, but with legends whose names are uttered with reverence, not relevance. You could fill an All-Star roster with players who didn’t do what Judge just did in a month.

This isn’t speculation — it’s declaration. Over the past calendar year, Judge has produced a 252 wRC+. That’s not just elite. That’s video-game Ruth. It's a stat so absurd it makes you question your spreadsheet. The only other name to match it? Ruth himself — and even that comparison is beginning to wobble under the sheer size of what Judge is doing. His 1.283 OPS over the past year? Higher than Ruth’s in his fabled 1927 campaign. Higher than Mantle’s best. Higher than anyone since baseball was still stitched in red.

And perhaps the most poetic part of it all is that Judge does this while wearing the same uniform as Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle. He doesn't just play for the Yankees — he carries the weight of Yankee history and somehow adds to it without crumbling. He’s not just chasing ghosts; he’s catching them. He’s rewriting the language they wrote in. He’s the biggest man to ever win a batting title, literally. If he does, he'll tower over the record books in more ways than one — 6-foot-7, 282 pounds of mythmaking muscle and measured menace.

​​So yes, ask the question. Let the barstool debates rage and the sabermetricians fine-tune their algorithms. But as for this moment, right here, right now, there is only one right-handed hitter you have to see to believe. Aaron Judge isn’t just a slugger or a superstar. He’s something rarer. He’s a truth in pinstripes — undeniable, unforgettable, and unfolding in real time.