Aaron Judge’s otherworldly season is beyond Ruthian

Is this what it was like to watch Babe Ruth play every day?

No. Really. That’s a fair question now. We know Babe Ruth was a great slugger — maybe the greatest slugger — because we can read the numbers, which seem hard to fathom if you look at them too closely. We know he was great because his contemporaries went to their graves revering him, marveling at his power, at his skill, at his flair.

For almost a hundred years, it’s been foolish to compare anyone else to him, even if there’s hardly anyone still living who saw him. Babe Ruth? I mean, Billy Joel is a terrific piano player, but does anyone ever say he was better than Ludwig van Beethoven — though there’s no one presently roaming the earth who ever heard LVB tickle the ivories?