Red Sox

Aaron Judge doesn’t question validity of Ted Williams seat after crushing home run

"Not a myth. I think he definitely did it."

Aaron Judge hit a 470-foot home run in the Yankees' loss to the Red Sox on Friday. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

July 27, 2024

Aaron Judge added to the list of memorable deep home runs hit at Fenway Park in the Yankees’ 9-7 loss to the Red Sox on Friday.

The Yankees star slugger crushed Red Sox reliever Zack Kelly’s 92 mph cutter in the seventh inning, hitting a three-run homer that gave New York the lead. The ball went under the video screen in left center field, landing on the walkway behind the screen and camera perch.

Judge’s homer traveled 470 feet. While impressive, it was 32 feet short of the Fenway Park record, a 502-foot blast hit by Ted Williams in 1946 that’s marked by a red seat in the right field bleachers.

Judge acknowledged it’d be tough to match the distance of Williams’s home run.

“Yeah that’s impossible,” Judge told reporters of hitting the ball to the red seat.

However, Judge didn’t question the legitimacy of Williams’s 1946 home run.

“Not a myth. I think he definitely did it,” Judge said with a smirk. “But that’s a tough one. That’s a tough one.”

Aaron Judge hit a monster 470-foot home run tonight. The Yankees slugger discussed his 3-run blast and more with @M_Marakovits and the rest of the media. #YANKSonYES pic.twitter.com/2I0LYQUKlm
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) July 27, 2024

A few members of the Red Sox have questioned whether Williams actually hit a home run 502 feet at Fenway Park over the years. Triston Casas was the most recent member of the organization to cast some doubt over the home run, reigniting the discussion in April.

“That’s my best ball, for sure,” Casas told reporters after hitting a 429-foot homer against the Angels. “I had one hit harder, exit velo-wise, last year. But that Ted Williams seat is starting to feel more and more like a myth.”

David Ortiz has also been among the skeptics of Williams’s home run, calling the red seat “bull.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever hit one there,” Ortiz said in 2015. “I went up there and sat there one time. That’s far, brother. Listen, do you see the No. 1 [Bobby Doerr’s retired uniform number on the façade above the right field grandstand]? I hit that one time. You know how far it is to that No. 1 from the plate? Very far.

“And you know how far that red seat is from the No. 1? It’s 25 rows up still. That’s the farthest I’ve ever hit the ball right there, and no one else has gotten to the No. 1 . . . The closest one that I have ever seen — I remember a day game, I hit a ball in that tunnel. But still — I crushed one and it wasn’t even close to that.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora came to the defense of Casas following his comment in April, saying he was giving Williams a compliment. He added that it was “probably a very windy day” when Williams hit a 502-foot blast in 1946.

Cora’s assumption that the wind carried Williams’s homer might be correct. The homer was initially estimated to be a 450-foot home run, according to a story in the following day’s Boston Globe. However, it was later measured at 502 feet and it could’ve gone as far as 535 feet had it not struck a fan’s straw hat, according to an estimation from Hit Tracker Online.

As for Judge’s home run on Friday, it reminded Cora of another iconic Red Sox slugger.

“The big boy is who he is. He’s amazing,” Cora told reporters. “I haven’t seen a guy hit a ball there since ‘07 when Manny [Ramirez] used to lift up there.”

Ramirez can also claim to have hit one of the longest home runs in Fenway’s long history. His second home run in a game against the Blue Jays in June 2001 went an estimated 501 feet, sailing over the Green Monster and Lansdowne Street.

There have been some close calls for Williams’s record in recent years. Rowdy Tellez hit a home in 2019 that was estimated to be a 505-foot homer, but the official measurement wound up being just 433 feet. Miguel Sanó hit a home run against the Red Sox that went 495 feet in 2021, which is the longest home run hit at Fenway in the Statcast era (2015-present).

Even though Judge’s homer on Friday fell a bit short of the longest-ever hit at Fenway, he seemed to be a bit amazed by how far it went.

“I try not to watch them. I had to check the replay to see where it went,” Judge said of his homer. “I was just happy it gave us three runs.”