It’s hard to believe but true – Aaron Judge, who has played ten career seasons in the Majors, had never played a regular season game at Coors Field before Friday night. Injuries prevented the slugger from competing against the Rockies, during the Yankees last road trip to Colorado in 2023.
He would have had a chance then to close the margin on his attempt to homer in every Major League ballpark. As it stood on Friday, there were just five Major League parks where he had not put one over the fence; but Coors Field, legendary for being a launch pad for baseball’s best hitters, and Judge’s power bat are seemingly a match made in heaven for baseball fans. So, needless to say, Judge added the stadium to his hit list, blasting an 0-2 change up to deep leftfield in the fifth inning for his 17th Bro Bomb of the season.
Judge finished the night going 2-4, with two runs scored, raising his batting average to .398, falling just two percentage points short of becoming the fifth player since 1997 to hit .400 or better over the course of his team’s first 50 games. The four players who did do it are all Hall of Famers: Chipper Jones, Todd Helton, Tony Gwynn and Larry Walker.
Aaron’s fifth inning home run gave the Yankees a temporary 2-1 lead, but despite the dinger, the New York Yankees would go on to shockingly drop the contest 3-2 to the underdog Rockies.
Judge never having played in Coors Field is magnified when you look across the dugout at his teammate, Giancarlo Stanton, one of the six active players to have knocked one out of every park. Aside from his home field in Miami before coming to the Yankees, he had his second-highest home run total in Denver. As road stadiums go, Stanton has hit the most home runs at Nationals Park in Washington DC, which happens to be one of the other stadiums where Judge has never played.
Aside from Nationals Park, the only remaining Major League ballparks left for baseball’s home run king to conquer are Truist Park in Atlanta, Busch Stadium in St. Louis and Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The Yankees will play in St. Louis this season against the Cardinals but Judge will have to wait to join the exclusive club of players that have hit a home run in every park as the Yanks will not play at the Braves, Nationals or Cubs in 2025.
We know about Stanton homering in every stadium, but the rest of the group of active players who Judge seeks to join are Juan Soto, Carlos Santana, Manny Machado, Randal Grichuk, and Matt Olson.
Aaron Judge continues to play at Hall of Fame level, breaking records and putting himself next to elite company. It’s fitting that homering in every stadium could be an accomplishment he will attain in the very near future. It is an amazing accomplishment reserved for the game’s greatest sluggers, but if Aaron wants to reach it, consistency and longevity are the keys.
