When I was a boy, Mickey Mantle was my favorite baseball player.  Truth be told he was my boyhood Idol and he wore #7 (as a Rookie he wore #6, but that's a story for another blog).  

He was the Yankees "Key Man" (last 3 letters of his first name and first 3 letters of his surname).

All these years later, I am still a die hard Yankee fan (short for Fanatic) and have a new Idol.  He is Yankee Captain Aaron Judge and he wears #99.  

99 broke the Roger Maris American League Home Run record two years ago with 62 long flies and was on pace last year until he encountered a concrete ridge in aging Dodger Stadium.  

This year he got off to a slow start and even endured Boos after a 4 Strikeout (Golden Sombrero) debacle.  

The above is all prelude to what happened next. 

99 is the personification of a well bred, fine young man who is respectful to authority, but then it happened.  On May 4th he was called out on strikes on a pitch which appeared to be out of the strike zone.  Being 6' 7", he has an oversized, ill defined, strike zone and has been "rung up" on too many questionable calls.  

This time, he kept his head down and muttered, at most, something in disagreement and was immediately ejected by the Ump.  

This was seismic because of his stardom and captaincy (past Captain Derek Jeter was never ejected during his Hall of Fame career).

Only 99 knows what went on in his mind from that moment until now, but the stats don't lie.  
Since the 5/4 ejection, 99 has been on fire!

We will never know whether the ejection was the injection that fueled the spurt, but I'm enjoying the ride!!!