Aaron Judge Addresses Viral ‘Arson Judge’ Tweet From Last Year’s Free Agency

Aaron Judge has continued his dominance with the Yankees through the first two months of the 2023 MLB season, fresh off of signing a massive deal to remain in New York last offseason.

But before the four-time All-Star signed his nine-year, $360 million contract to stay with the Yankees, Judge mistakenly became the center of a popular MLB meme when a report containing a rather glaring typo suggested that his time in the Bronx was coming to an end.

Prior to earning his new deal, Jon Heyman of the New York Post misspelled Judge’s first name in a tweet, writing “Arson Judge,” while suggesting that the slugger was leaning toward signing a deal to join the Giants—his favorite team as a child. In a recent episode of On Base with Mookie Betts, the Dodgers’ outfielder asked Judge about the wild moment.

“I think my name changed a little bit… Yeah, Arson Judge. I haven’t seen his stats yet with the Giants,” Judge joked with Betts during the episode.

“Mm, me either, they got to be pretty good though,” Betts quipped back.

Judge then recalled his agent texting him about the situation during the league’s Winter Meetings before sharing his perspective on the hilarious tweet.

“It was funny... That [the tweet] kind of blew up a little bit,” Judge told Betts. “I started getting a couple of text messages from family and friends, with the Yankees, kind of what’s going on.”

While Giants fans earned a couple minutes of hope that Judge was headed to the Bay Area, the 31-year-old ultimately returned to New York, where he’s continued to build on an impressive stretch of play. In fact, the stats for the reigning American League MVP this year are already very similar to his unparalleled ’22 campaign when he broke the AL single-season home run record. 

Through the first 47 games this season, Judge has slashed .298/.410/.679 with 18 home runs, putting him right on the same pace as last year, when he also hit 18 homers and slashed .303/.371/.657 through the the same part of the ‘22 season.