New York Yankees star Aaron Judge crushed a 462-foot home run Monday night in a winning effort against the Toronto Blue Jays. That normally wouldn’t be the subject of any controversy, but comments from Rogers Sportsnet announcers Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez about Judge’s eye movement just before the pitch was thrown led to insinuations that Judge and the Yankees were doing something against MLB rules.
The Yanks were already up 6-0 in the game, and earlier in Judge’s at-bat, manager Aaron Boone had been ejected for arguing balls and strikes. Judge told reporters on Tuesday that he was looking over at his dugout trying to get his teammates to stop chirping the home plate umpire.
On ESPN New York on Tuesday, Yankees play-by-play announcer Michael Kay said it’s possible the bench was trying to tip the incoming pitch to Judge. But the way in which it was communicated isn’t against the rules.
“That’s absolutely legal. It is not illegal as long as there are no electronics involved,” Kay said. “That is a legal way to pick up a sign. The Blue Jays have to do a better job of waiting til the last moment to set up and where the pitch is going to be.”
Kay said of Shulman and Martinez that he respects both of them. He didn’t seem to think they were trying to accuse Judge of cheating.
“I don’t blame Dan Shulman or Buck Martinez they see one of the greatest players in baseball his eyes darting. So they just brought it up,” Kay said. “They didn’t say that they thought he was doing something wrong.”
Kay laid the blame on Jays manager John Schneider for allowing his catcher to tip the pitches. He said unless it was revealed that the Yankees were using electronics to relay signs like they were caught doing several years ago, there’s no point in making the story bigger than it needs to be.
Co-host Don La Greca agreed.
“Let’s not make it out to be that it’s something else, or that there’s something wrong,” La Greca said. “‘Judge would never do that. Judge would never want to know what the pitch was.’ There’s nothing wrong with it! Of course anybody would look if somebody’s gonna tell you what the pitch is gonna to be.”
