NEW YORK – Aaron Judge knows that San Francisco manager Gabe Kapler knelt down along with several of his players, and the New York Yankees star wants to talk to his teammates about whether they want to gesture against racial injustice sooner. of the major league season. can opener.
“That is the beauty of the United States, it is the freedom of expression and the freedom to express yourself,” Judge said Tuesday. “We have a special platform to be athletes and to be able to tell what’s going on in this world. Some people express it online. Some people express it in words. Some people kneel down.”
Kapler and some of the Giants knelt during the national anthem before Monday night’s exhibition game against Oakland. Judge and the Yankees open the delayed pandemic season on Thursday in World Series champion Washington Nationals.
“I think any message we are trying to get across here is that we want to try to express unity and that we are all in this together,” Judge said. “Try to have those awkward conversations we need to have and bring those awkward conversation points.”
Yankees manager Aaron Boone and his players plan to further discuss the matter after traveling to Washington on Wednesday.
“This country allows you to express yourself in many different ways, and that’s one of its beauties,” said Boone. “So I respect how someone wants to demonstrate and if it is a protest or if it is supportive, whatever the reasons, I have no problem with that and I support it. And if that is our path as a club, I will stand firm behind whoever has a strong feeling about it in one way or another. “
Judge hit 52 home runs, had 114 RBIs and won the AL Rookie of the Year in 2017, then suffered damage for much of the past two seasons. An oblique injury, a wrist broken by a Jakob Junis pitch and a rib broken by a diving catch limited him to 27 home runs each year and no more than 67 RBIs per season, and the rib was still healing at the start of spring this year. .
The judge feels healthy. He still hurts the loss to Houston in the six-game American League Championship Series, stung the Astros beat DJ LeMahieu’s two-run tie in the ninth when Jose Altuve hit a two-run drive and won the Aroldis Chapman in the lower half.
The judge revealed that he addressed the team after the loss.
“I just said, hey, guys, don’t forget this feeling. Don’t forget this emptiness,” he recalled. “You’re angry. We’re thinking about what we could have done differently, and this and that, what we could have done, what we could have done. That’s the most important thing I go back to, the missed opportunities. But you used it as fuel. I tried to tell the boys, use this as fuel while you train in the off season. As we prepare for the 2020 season, you remember. You don’t want to feel this again. What can we do? What can we do differently to prepare for the right way for the result not to happen? “
Boone had given the opening speech.
“One of the most emotional and heartbreaking moments of my sports career,” he vividly recalled. “It was such a vivid and raw moment. The closeness that existed with that team, the belief that until the end we were going to win, I felt it was how everyone felt. So the cruel end of everything – I do remember Judgy on his way, in a strong way telling us that, and I think that added to the sting, to the real thing that moment was. And I always feel that falling adds another log to the fire, and certainly that was the case, and I feel that in spring training and now in summer camp I’m witnessing the fire burning, burning hot with these guys. “
The judge thought that more needed to be said.
“Just remember this feeling, remember this silence, this emptiness, and just use it as fuel,” he told his teammates. “Don’t use it to get discouraged, stick with it, use it as fuel for next season to take care of business.”
This season will be very different from what Judge or anyone else imagined.
“It’s going to be a little suspicious, I guess, getting on a train, traveling to another city,” he said. “We’ve been in our own little bubble here in New York, our little bubble in Tampa. So I think leaving that bubble will be a little bit difficult. But this is what we signed up for. We wouldn’t have signed up for this if we weren’t at both the risk and what we would have to face in the coming months. “
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