The Yankees began a seven-game road trip by defeating the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night by a score of 7-4. Aaron Judge made his mark with two home runs (and his second one was an absolute moonshot). It didn’t come without controversy, and ESPN’s Buster Olney provided an explanation on Tuesday morning.
He did so in an incredibly eloquent manner. It also felt unnecessarily complex.
In case you missed it, Blue Jays announcers saw Judge’s eyes dart toward the Yankees dugout right before launching a 462-foot tank. There weren’t any real allegations thrown around. However, that didn’t stop social media from running with it.
Judge seemed to initially have no idea what reporters were describing when asked about the situation. But then, he remembered being annoyed with “chirping” coming from the dugout. This thing is the definition of a nothingburger, especially with what Olney said about it on Twitter:
There is an assumption on the Jays' side that their pitchers/catcher were betraying the identity of the forthcoming pitches last night, and that this was being conveyed to Aaron Judge — and this is why he was glancing to his right, for info.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) May 16, 2023
I’m sorry, the Jays did what now? There are a lot of words here to say the Blue Jays thought they were tipping their pitches.
Even if this was the case, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the same as a runner on second base picking up on something and relaying it to the batter. We talk about illegal sign-stealing all the time these days, but this is perfectly legal.
If a team can’t successfully keep something under wraps, the opposition has every right to use it to their advantage.
So, while social media will likely run with the “Aaron Judge is a cheater” narrative for a little bit, it should fizzle out pretty quickly. But from now on, I’m going to need Olney to describe normal things in my life in this manner. Like, I need him to tweet about how I’m going to betray the identity of dinner for my kids tonight so they have no idea there are vegetables on the plate.
You can reach Matt Musico at matt.musico@xlmedia.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
