Aaron Judge needs to pass 60 Home Runs in 154 games and pass a PED test. Babe Ruth is the only non PED user to hit 60 Home Runs in 154 games.

Suppose the season was shortened to 144 games. What of the Home Run record? Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED)? Saturday, September 10, 2022

... in 1961 in the American League, the first 162 game season and the one in which Roger Maris hit more Home Runs than anyone ever in the AL or NL. Babe Ruth had the previous high: 60 in 1927. Maris hit 61 but fewer than 60 in his Yankee team's first 154 games...

With all the fuss from steroid zealots making the higher totals of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa suspect, Babe Ruth is the only non PED user to hit 60 Home Runs in 154 games...

So 25% of the 1961 American League players would not have been there in 1960. That means that Maris was hitting his 61 Home Runs against watered down pitching. And Maris "broke" the record by only one and in NINE more games.

Consider this the next time you hear the unimaginative likes of Bob Costas or John Heyman state that Roger Maris is the "real" season Home Run record holder. They use Maris as a tool against the Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED) trio Bonds, McGwire and Sosa. Costas, Heyman, etc. will return Maris to the dustbin of history as soon as someone like Aaron Judge exceeds the Maris total. And they are sure that Judge has not been using PED. They're sure.

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Fair? Not fair? Aaron Judge is getting a lot of attention, not just because he has hit 55 Home Runs in his team's first 140 games but because he is not considered a user of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED), including steroids. But who knows? I seem to recall that after Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa became pariahs for their assumed use of PED, Alex Rodriguez was proclaimed a guy who did it the right way ... until he wasn't. Despite not failing a PED test, Rodriguez was suspended a full season, the biggest punishment among MLB players for PED use.

Has anyone asked Judge about this? Has anyone even brought it up? It's a house of cards waiting to fold. Aaron Judge could preempt controversy by releasing the results of his MLB tests and/or getting tested for PED and revealing the results. His surging esteem is based on his playing "clean". But who knows? Maybe Bob Costas or John Heyman, etc.