Aaron Judge recently reached a significant career milestone as he became the youngest player to ever hit 300 home runs.
He is clearly one of the best players in the game. But, despite playing in New York, for the Yankees and being literally larger than life at 6-foot-7, Dan Le Batard asked an intriguing question on Thursday’s edition of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz: Is Aaron Judge one of the 50 most popular athletes in America right now?
“I feel like if we sat here and started talking stars in sports, I’m not sure we wouldn’t get to 50 names, FIFTY, before anyone mentioned Aaron Judge,” Dan said.
Dan goes on to say that someone who looks like Judge and does what he does in that uniform at any point in his lifetime before now would be top 10 easily. But even as MLB Network’s Adnan Virk says that’s crazy, JuJu is able to rattle off a list of names without even thinking twice (and yes, Jaylen Brown belongs on that list.)
In thinking about it, Dan’s completely right! In fact, I’m not sure Judge is a shoo-in for the top 100!
Even taking away my Red Sox fandom, the simple truth of the matter is baseball as a sport has receded from the national consciousness to the point where being the biggest name on the Yankees isn’t enough to make you a certified star.
Just looking at a list of the most popular NBA players by Instagram followers, you’d have to go all the way down to Kristaps Porzingis at No. 42 (1.6M Instagram followers) to find an NBA player with fewer than the 1.7 million IG followers Judge has. Without a doubt LeBron James, Steph Curry, KD, Ant-Man, AD and most — if not all, yes even Derrick White — of the gold-medal-winning USA Basketball squad from Paris would rank ahead of Judge in popular culture. Not to mention Giannis, the Joker, Jimmy Butler, Dame and others.
If you look at the NFL, how many starting quarterbacks alone are more popular than Judge? Certainly Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen. How many WR1s like Tyreek Hill, Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson, or RB1s like Saquon Barkley? And we certainly can’t leave out Travis Kelce.
Then in the WNBA, there’s more names than ever you would list before Judge. Certainly Caitlin Clark with over a million more IG followers would rate ahead of Judge. Not to mention A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, Diana Taurasi, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink and Kelsey Plum. You can probably throw in UConn’s Paige Bueckers and USC’s JuJu Watkins, too.
Not to mention non-team sports athletes like the GOAT Simone Biles, Tiger Woods, Lionel Messi, Scottie Scheffler, Coco Gauff, Conor McGregor and others.
A poll by YouGov of The Most Popular Contemporary Sports Personalities (Q2 2024) has Judge ranked at No. 59 among all adults, which then drops all the way to 234th if you look at just millennials. Something tells me that number isn’t suddenly going to rise with the Gen Z crowd, either.
So sorry, baseball fans. I feel your pain, but the fact of the matter is time has passed the National Pastime by. There has never been a worse time to be one of baseball’s best. Even if you’re the toast of New York.
Tune into The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz Monday-Friday at 11 a.m. ET on DraftKings Network!
SHOW BREAKDOWN
Local Hour: Consistently Erroneous Math
Today’s Cast: Dan, Amin, Chris, Tony, Juju, Jess and eventually Roy. We’re going back to our roots as video is down today and we are in our old-timey radio world. Aaron Judge hit his 300th home run last night, but does anybody care? Why does being the fastest player to 300 home runs not mean anything anymore? Plus, have actors become too attractive? We discuss who the seminal movie star of this era is and whether or not Dan will remember Timothee Chalamet. Roy joins the show after dropping off Princess Claire at her first day of first grade. Did he cry? Why was the teacher 35 minutes late? Is the traffic really that terrible in Miami?
Big Suey: 50 Stars Bigger Than Aaron Judge
FIBA denied The Big 3 League’s challenge to the Olympic Champion, Netherlands, to play a 3×3 game. How would that game go and what does the U.S. need to do to become more dominant in 3×3? The show then discusses who would be great 3×3 players to send to the Olympics and who would make the best 1 on 1 players in the NBA. Would LeBron James be able to defend Kevin Durant 1 on 1? Where is Stugotz when you need him? Then, Adnan Virk joins the show to discuss Aaron Judge hitting his 300th career home run and being the fastest player to 300 in MLB history. Juju thinks he can create a list of 50 bigger stars in American sports. Plus, our discussion of seminal handsome movie stars continues with Adnan. Then, Roy brings the show full circle in a way only he can.
Hour 1: 19 People Have Played Third Basemen
We have competing Stats of the Day to kick off the hour and to celebrate, Dan wants the long version of the Stat of the Day music. Chris struggles through his stat of the day trying to explain how many people have played third base for the Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Angels since Anthony Rendon left DC. JJ McCarthy will miss the entire season and we judge the competing Stats of the Day. Plus, Dan drove without a seatbelt and Amin has a weird story about his buddy Carl. Then, Amin was fascinated by Oscar De La Hoya’s interview on Club Shay Shay, Juju has an apology for Raygun and Jim Harbaugh has offered Colin Kaepernick a job.
Hour 2: Agree to Agree
It’s a loaded Hour 2 on the show today that kicks off with Dan apologizing to Jacksonville and then insulting its smell. We continue the discussion about Colin Kaepernick being offered a job by Jim Harbaugh with the Chargers. It leads into a discussion of Royce White’s comments on Steve Bannon’s show while campaigning for Congress in Minnesota. Juju shares his Thursday Thunder, then Jess and Tony get into the hacking scandal that has allegedly impacted 2.9 billion and why Tony just doesn’t care at this point. Greg Cote wins the Gasbag of the Week for his prediction that the Dolphins would win the Super Bowl and we examine whether they have missed their window now that Tua is expensive. Jess closes the loop after US Soccer hired Mauricio Pochettino to be the men’s team’s next manager, Hard Knocks disappointed Amin and Amin shares his experience having to do karaoke of Sammy Davis Jr.
Postgame Show: Man’s Best Friend Not Best Friends
We continue the discussion about rookie karaoke and get back into Hard Knocks covering Jonathan Owens heading to Paris to watch Simone Biles at the Olympics. Tony says they have too many dogs, how many dogs is too many?
VIDEO
Check out the Le Batard and Friends YouTube page for more and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also follow the show on X at @LeBatardShow.
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