Cal Raleigh vs. Aaron Judge: The race for MLB’s ‘clean’ home run record is on

SEATTLE – To our mostly naive minds, it was perhaps the most exciting baseball season of our lifetimes. Four years after a strike canceled the World Series, two sluggers took defibrillators to the chest of America’s pastime.

One night it would be Mark McGwire, the Cardinals titan mashing fastballs and sliders a mile into the sky. Another night it would be Sammy Sosa, the Cubs clubber who churned out homers and charmed the country.

The great home run chase of 1998 – when Big Mac hit 70 and Slammin’ Sammy 66 – was incomparable in terms of the emotions it provided the game’s fans. Roger Maris’ record of 61 was obliterated, but it seemed – and boy is that the operative word – as though his successors were worthy ambassadors of the game.

Then, of course, we found out that McGwire and Sosa were cheats – performance-enhancing-drug users whose transgressions kept them out of the Hall of Fame. That ’98 season is tarnished, and nothing has come close to it …

Till now.

Right now, the Mariners and the Yankees are entangled in a three-game series whose conclusion will come five days before the All-Star break. And though the results of said series may have playoff implications, that is not the featured storyline of the matchup.

What’s on the marquee is Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh and Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge. Consider this the commencement of the “clean version” of the Great Home Run Chase. And this is one of the rare cases in which the clean version is better.

Raleigh entered Wednesday’s game with an MLB-leading 36 home runs – the most for a catcher before the All-Star break. It was also the most for a Mariner before the All-Star break, as Raleigh broke Ken Griffey’s mark of 35 with a homer Tuesday. In this battle, Raleigh is more like Sosa, who had never hit more than 40 homers before ’98. Raleigh’s previous high mark is the 34 he smashed in 153 games played last year.

But with the Mariners sitting at 48-43 entering Wednesday, Raleigh is on pace for 64 homers, which would break Judge’s American League record of 62 set in 2022. The American League record. That’s what I have to call it in an official capacity, as Barry Bonds, McGwire and Sosa – whose single-season highs in home runs are 73, 70 and 66, respectively – all set those PRs in the NL. But PEDs disgraced all three of those totals. As far as I’m concerned, Judge is the true single-season home run king … and Raleigh has a real chance to take that crown.

Of course, Judge isn’t about to relinquish that title quietly. He entered Wednesday’s game with 34 home runs after homering in Tuesday’s 10-3 win over Seattle. With a slash line of .360/467/.738, he is the overwhelming favorite to take home AL MVP honors despite Raleigh’s historic first half.

Judge is more like McGwire in this race, having established himself as a homer mainstay with 62 in ’22 and 58 last season. Being at 34 right now is, incredibly, simply Judge being Judge.

Last season, Judge got a bit of push from Shohei Ohtani, who hit 54 homers for the Dodgers (and has 31 this year.) In 2022, the next closest to him was Phillies left fielder Kyle Schwarber, who hit 46. But now the greatest hitter of his generation has his fiercest home-run competition. Who wins in the end? No idea. Who wins for now? Us.

Granted, sometimes a reality stink bomb has to be thrown into the parade. The year Reggie Jackson hit 37 homers before the break, he ended up with 47 on the year. The year Chris Davis had 37 before the break, he ended up with 53. Big numbers, no doubt. But sustaining baseball excellence through 162 games is one of the toughest feats in professional sports.

For now, though, we have two players in the American League going tit-for-tat with the bat. We have a superstar and a breakout star going back and forth in pursuit of a mark that should be more revered than Bonds’ 73 or McGwire’s 70 ever was.

This chase won’t get the TV networks in a frenzy to cover every at-bat the way they were in the latter part of the 1998 season, but it deserves just as much respect. Someone has a chance to break 62, the official American League record.

But in reality, it’s a mark that could put one of these players in a league of his own.