It has officially been a decade of Aaron Judge.
Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of Judge’s MLB debut, a day the Yankees’ now-captain highlighted with a home run in his very first major-league at-bat.
It proved to be a fitting introduction for Judge, now a three-time American League MVP whose 385 career home runs have come at a historic pace.
But while Judge was a promising prospect when he debuted on Aug. 13, 2026 — MLB Pipeline ranked him No. 4 in the Yankees’ farm system — nobody could have predicted the prolific production that would follow.
At the time, the Yankees found themselves in a period of transition. They were 59-56 and in fourth place in the American League East, mired in mediocrity behind an aging roster.
The night before, the Yankees bid farewell to a 41-year-old Alex Rodriguez, whose impending release they had announced ahead of time. Rodriguez went 1-for-4 with an RBI and made a ninth-inning appearance at third base that night as a sellout Yankee Stadium crowd said goodbye to the longtime slugger.
The Yankees conducted a series of interconnecting roster moves the next morning, including releasing Rodriguez and promoting Judge and fellow rookie Tyler Austin ahead of their game against the Tampa Bay Rays in the Bronx.
Judge, the No. 32 pick in the 2013 MLB Draft, was known for his prodigious power but arrived to the majors with questions about his high strikeout rate. He batted .270 with 19 home runs, an .855 OPS and 98 strikeouts in 93 games at Triple-A in 2016.
The first baseman Austin, also making his MLB debut that day, batted No. 7 in the Yankees’ order, with the right fielder Judge hitting directly behind him in the No. 8 hole.
Austin set a high bar that afternoon when, in his first big-league at-bat, he drilled a 331-foot, opposite-field home run against Rays right-hander Matt Andriese in the bottom of the second inning.
Judge, then 24, followed with an even more impressive blast, crushing an Andriese changeup 457 feet to straight-away center field and off of the batter’s eye.
Austin and Judge became the first teammates in MLB history to hit back-to-back homers in their very first plate appearances.
Judge added a fifth-inning single and finished 2-for-4.
“What a day,” Judge remarked after the Yankees’ 8-4 win that afternoon. “That’s all I can really say.”
Judge and Austin are two of only 14 Yankees to homer in their MLB debut. The others include Yogi Berra, Jasson Domínguez and 21-year-old George Lombard Jr., who joined that exclusive club last week.
That was the first of many jogs around the bases by Judge, who is one of four players in MLB history with four 50-homer seasons and whose 62 home runs in 2022 remain a single-season AL record.
In terms of games played, Judge was the fastest in MLB history to reach 300 home runs, as well as 350.
With only 1,204 games under his belt, Judge is all but assured to be the quickest to reach 400, too. That record belongs to Mark McGwire, who hit his 400th homer in 1,412 games.
“I’ve had a lot of great teammates and I’ve been on some good teams,” Judge said last season after hitting his 350th homer in his 1,088th game. “They put me in the best position to go out there and perform at my best. It’s just a shoutout to all the teammates I’ve had over the years.”
And while a championship has eluded Judge to this point, his No. 99 is almost certainly destined for Monument Park, over which his first home run ball sailed exactly 10 years ago.
A broken rib has limited Judge to 17 home runs in 59 games this year, but slugger resumed light activity — including on-field running and upper-body resistance work — last week and vowed to return this season.
He has five more years on his contract after this one to continue climbing up the Yankees’ all-time leaderboard.
Judge ranks fourth in Yankees history in home runs, behind only Babe Ruth (659), Mickey Mantle (536) and Lou Gehrig (493); while his 1.022 OPS trails that of only Ruth (1.195) and Gehrig (1.079).