The aforementioned Maris homered 61 times in 1961, which had been both the Yankees and American League single-season record. Sixty-one years later, Judge broke both.
It took Judge until the penultimate day of the regular season, but in the second game of a doubleheader against the Texas Rangers, he launched a 391-foot home run to surpass Maris:
Bonds (2001), McGwire (1998, 1999) and Sosa (1998, 1999, 2001) have all topped Judge’s 2022 mark in terms of single-season home runs, but those achievements were shrouded in controversy amid suspicions of performance-enhancing drug use.