It came as little surprise that Aaron Judge, the man who reinvented the tape measure home run in his rookie season, won the 2017 Home Run Derby. His thudding moonshots left us all in awe as we watched, with mouths agape, as Judge deposited ball after ball in the farthest reaches of Marlins Park. When all the balls finally landed, Judge had racked up nearly four miles of home runs, crushing 23 in the first round to narrowly defeat Justin Bour of the hometown Marlins and 13 in the second round to knock off fellow rookie sensation Cody Bellinger. Matched up against Miguel Sano in the finals, Judge topped the Twins third baseman’s mark of 10 with almost two minutes left on the clock, ending his night with 47 total home runs against only 29 “outs”. When the 2017 season was done and dusted, Judge stood alone with a new MLB record of 52 home runs in his rookie season.

     The 6’7” slugger hit this Official Major League Baseball Robert D. Manfred Jr. sphere for his 23rd and final home run of the first round. Judge has signed this baseball on the panel directly south of Commissioner Manfred’s stamped signature in blue pen. Underneath his signature, Judge inscribed “Rd 1 – HR #23”. To the left of Manfred’s facsimile John Hancock, Judge inscribed “2017 ASG / HR Derby Champ”. This ball comes with a MLB Authenticated hologram (JB 890092).

Auction Notepad