This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
The loudest moments of Aaron Judge’s day usually come in the evening, when he strides to home plate at Yankee Stadium amid theatrical fanfare. A booming voice calls his name, followed by a blast of Swag Surfin’, his walk-up song “F.L.Y. (Fast Life Yungstaz),” turned up to the max.
That’s Judge at the office, bat cocked high, ready to inflict damage on whatever pitcher the Yankees happen to be facing. The quiet moments unfold behind closed doors in his Manhattan apartment: watching the sun rise during a bottle feeding, or volunteering to perform a diaper change without hesitation.
This will be Judge’s first Father’s Day as a dad. He and his wife, Samantha, welcomed Nora Rose Judge into the world on Jan. 27. Judge treasures his role as the Yankees’ captain, but once he’s home, the scoreboard resets.
“She brings me so much joy, so much excitement, so much wonder,” Judge said. “Especially on the good days or bad days here at work, when I come home to her, everything changes.”
Parents understand: you can read the books, take the classes, survey friends and family for advice -- and still, nothing prepares you for being in the trenches. Each day delivers a new curveball: a lost pacifier, a surprise spit-up, a mess to clean, a meltdown to soothe.
For Judge, it has been the diapers. He changed his first in the hospital, beaming with pride after copying the nurse’s example perfectly. He didn’t realize how often he’d be repeating those folds and tucks. By now, those mechanics are almost as familiar as his uppercut swing.
“The first four months, I think it’s just the amount of time you’ve got to change the diapers; that’s the biggest thing,” Judge said. “I really didn’t expect that.”
He doesn’t duck the work. He and Samantha take care of Nora on their own; no nanny, no night nurse.
“I love doing it all,” Judge said. “Especially if it helps her, or helps my wife.”
On a typical game day, hours before stepping into the batter’s box, he plays Dad.
“I’ll wake up, go downstairs with her, just kind of hang out,” he said. “I’ll feed her; my wife will feed her. Really, it’s just me holding her, walking around the apartment. It’s nothing too crazy. We’re pretty chill before game days.”
That shifts during the rare, precious Yankees afternoon game or off-day at home, when the Judges’ stroller might get the long-awaited call from the bullpen.
“Off-days, we’ll kind of get after it a little bit -- go around, go to the park, do something cool,” he said. “If it’s an earlier game, we’ll get a chance to play, do some things like ‘tummy time’ that are important. So, things like that.”
Much has been said about “Dad Strength.” The league practically trembled when considering what that might mean in Judge’s case, fresh off a ’24 season in which he led the Majors in homers (58), RBIs (144) and OPS (1.159), among other stats.
But for Judge, fatherhood hasn’t been about muscle. He feels more centered and grounded than before.
“She definitely calms me,” Judge said. “She’s a calming presence, which is pretty wild. You almost fall asleep when you’re holding her. It’s great -- she calms me at night before I go to bed, and keeps me calm when I’m coming here into work. It’s incredible.”
Judge is famously locked in on the moment -- the next pitch, not the next month. But with Nora, he lets himself imagine the future: her in the stands, old enough to understand why it feels like the whole city is cheering for her dad.
“Hopefully she’s old enough to see me play this game,” Judge said. “I might be a little older by the time she really starts recognizing what’s going on. I just want to teach her the importance of hard work, the importance of showing up every day for something, and the importance of being a team player. It’s all about the little things.”