|
|
|
It’s not as if the New York Yankees have never played a slugger in the outfield before. And it’s not as if Major League Baseball has never had a home-run king named Aaron. However, less than five weeks into the season, the Bronx Bombers and baseball are rightfully agog over the magnificent missiles launched by right fielder-in-pinstripes Aaron Judge. The 6’7”, 282-pound rookie leads the Major Leagues in home runs (13), but the frequency of his blasts pales in comparison to their majesty. There are four-baggers and then there are screamers, escape-velocity rockets. Take, for example, the comet Judge unleashed last Friday night against the Baltimore Orioles, a dead-center-field shot that erupted off his bat at 119.4 miles per hour. According to Statcast, that was the hardest-hit home run that the technology has recorded since it was introduced two years ago. Related: Derek Jeter is Seinfeld, haters are Newman Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now Two weekends ago in Pittsburgh, Judge launched a 460-foot parabola that was his longest of the season. Again, some sluggers hit home runs; Judge sends baseballs on flights that offer business and first-class seats. “[Aaron] is just a humongous human being that has out-of-this-world power,” Yankees third baseman Chase Headley told ESPN recently. “Five-hundred- fifty-feet is not out of the question. If there is nothing in the way, he is hitting it 550.” Judge has high-fived teammates all spring long USA TODAY SPORTS Headley is talking in terms of feet, but then again who knows? Volume? The Yankees are 11-0 in games in which Judge has gone yard, including having erased deficits of eight and four runs during the recent homestand. Judge, who turned 25 last week, is the youngest player in Major League history to hit 13 home runs in his team’s first 26 games. The Yankees are in first place in the American League East as they travel to Chicago this weekend to face the world-champion Chicago Cubs. A buzz has returned to the Bronx that extends beyond the confines of Stan’s Sports Bar (a popular pre-game watering hole), thanks primarily to Judge. Earlier this week, manager Joe Girardi, ordinarily circumspect in his praise, even invoked the “D-word” in addressing Judge’s prospects. "He's a little bit like Derek [Jeter] to me," Girardi said last Monday. "He's got a smile all the time. He loves to play the game. You always think that he's going to do the right thing on the field and off the field when you look at him. He's got a presence about him. He plays the game to win all the time, and that's the most important thing. It's not about what you did that day. "And I understand that's a big comparison, but I remember Derek when he was younger and he grew into that leadership role. But that was Derek. Derek loved to have fun and loved to laugh and loved to play the game and always had a smile on his face. He was energetic. And that's what I see from this kid. I see him doing things the right way on and off the field, and that's the way Derek was as well when he was young." Shades of 'Jeets': Judge even leaped into the stands to snare a foul ball against the Red Sox last month USA TODAY Told of his skipper’s comments, Judge, betraying his Jeter-ness, replied, “There’s only one Derek Jeter...I’m trying to be the best Aaron Judge I can be.” He is a superior Aaron Judge to the one who played the final six weeks for the Yankees last season. Although Judge hit a home run to Monument Park (i.e., dead-center field in Yankee Stadium) in his first Major League at-bat last August 13, he also struck out 42 times in 84 at-bats (he was whiffing .500). When the season ended, the Yankees and their fans were far more enthused about the prospects of fellow August call-up Gary Sanchez, a catcher who belted 20 home runs in only 53 games, than they were about Judge. Last month, in the season’s fifth game, Sanchez strained an arm muscle and was put on the disabled list. The Yankees were 1-4 at the time and Judge had yet to hit a home run. They are 16-5 since and Judge, whose gargantuan build makes him the rare baseball player who looks right wearing “99” on his back, has led the surge. Meanwhile, not unlike Jeets, a mythology of sorts is already building around the Yankee round-tripper: During batting practice on Tuesday, Judge crushed a baseball that not only landed in the bar located beyond the center field wall, it smashed a flat-screen TV inside. The Yankees have no plans to replace the screen. It’s the first monument to Judge in a stadium that is flush with them. |
|
|
|
One longstanding complaint of writers is that language is severely limited—that at times it's impossible to compress the world into letters and sentences. More to the point: Is there a German word for a crow wielding a knife that it swiped from a crime scene? Scratch that. Even if there were, it wouldn't begin to encompass the life of a Vancouver crow named Canuck. He's a salty character, like an ornery uncle who shows up to Christmas smelling of cigarettes and brandy, lugging gifts that fell off the back of a truck. Canuck plays the ponies. If you're down on your luck and need a loonie, he'll spare you one—but you'd better repay him with interest in a week. One year ago, Canuck became internet famous. (Please note: What follows is in no way an exaggeration; there is no personification or hyperbole of any kind. These are facts and things that happened in the real world, God bless it.) Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now It started with a shootout. Police in Vancouver arrived to quite a scene: a McDonald's parking lot, a car engulfed in flames, a man with a knife. Officers shot and arrested the man after an apparent confrontation, then cordoned off the crime scene with red tape. Enter Canuck. The crow swooped down, a thief in broad daylight, and snatched the knife left in place at the crime scene. But like many a career criminal with more gall than foresight, it wasn't a clean getaway for old Canuck. A CBC segment last year about the incident featured a hilariously straight-faced reporter describing how it played it out. "Witnesses say officers chased the crow for about 15 to 20 feet until the crow eventually dropped the knife and police got ahold of it," said CBC reporter Meera Bains. "Police have confirmed this. They do say this crow was quite persistent but they did manage to get ahold of the evidence." At this point Bains did crack a small smile, but recovered to add: "The crow also persisted and hung around the crime scene for a while. He was seen hanging out on the burned car and trying to get into the camera gear of some of the media that were out there." The bird wasn't charged with any crimes (although I have a suspicion about who would have represented Canuck, had it been necessary). What did come to light was that this crow was not just any crow—this was no plain bird that squawks the days away on a telephone wire. It was local legend Canuck, identifiable by an orange tag on his foot. Pictures of Canuck surfaced and a meme was born. A photo of our hero, somehow grimacing even while possessing no mouth or teeth, with a knife in his beak, was too funny for the internet to ignore. Outlets from The Washington Post to the New York Daily News to ABC News wrote about Canuck. It was a brief run-in with international notoriety. But the meme lives on—if you have Twitter (or live on it, like some of us), you've almost certainly encountered the photo of Canuck, sinister and be-knifed, likely accompanying a joke of some sort. (A popular one involves imagining he's angry about someone trash-talking Edgar Allen Poe, seemingly misidentifying Canuck as a raven.) But the crow has long been famous locally. Before pilfering the knife, he attacked a cyclist and appeared in a previous CBC piece about the incident. Canuck life's began with a tumble out of his nest. He was apparently nursed back to life by a human, and as a result has little to no fear of people. Crows don't have fingers, but if they did, Canuck's would be as sticky as the digits of a kindergartner who just polished off a honeybun. He has been accused of stealing cigarettes, rolling papers, lighters, change, keys and anything else that's loose and can fit in his beak. He's also a regular at the local horse track. "We're thinking maybe he's got a gambling problem," said Shawn Bergman, who described himself as Canuck's best friend after the knife incident. It has been a bit rough for Canuck in the year since stealing the weapon. The bird was at a kids' soccer tournament in March when a father whacked it with a flagpole, appearing to knock Canuck out as children "screamed in terror," according to local paper the Vancouver Sun. But after a stay in an animal hospital, he's returned to his stomping grounds outside Bergman's home, resuming his ruffian life (one that's followed by 50,000 people on Facebook). But maybe he's mellowing a bit with age—crows in the wild typically live just seven to 10 years—because's he's got a friend he hangs with now named Cassiar. The newest video on his Facebook page shows Canuck just ambling about with his friend, perhaps indicating his thieving days are behind him. More likely, though, is that he's planning his next heist with an accomplice. remote-communication, wireless-m2m, remote-connectivity, remote-access, m2m-connectivity, iiot, industrial-networking, industrial-wireless |