Joe Judge

Joseph Ignatius Judge (May 25, 1894 – March 11, 1963) was an American professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman from through , most notably as a member of the Washington Senators team with whom he won a World Series championship in . Judge set American League records for career games (2,056), putouts (19,021), assists (1,284), total chances (20,444), double plays (1,476) and fielding percentage (.993) at first base, and led the AL in fielding average five times, then a record. He also batted over .300 nine times, and hit .385 in the 1924 World Series as the Senators won their only championship. At the time of his retirement in 1934, he ranked tenth in AL history in hits (2,328) and doubles, seventh in games played (2,129), eighth in triples (158) and at bats (7,786), and ninth in walks (958).

Career

Judge, who batted and threw left-handed, was born in Brooklyn, New York to parents from Ireland and grew up on New York's Upper East Side near 66th Street and 1st Avenue on what is now the site of Rockefeller University. He was noticed as a 12-year-old shortstop by a local postman, Bud Hannah, who bought him a first baseman's glove so that he could play at a more natural position.

Judge died at 68 after suffering a heart attack while shoveling snow outside his home in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and was buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Trivia Walter Johnson's roommate, Judge virtually ended Johnson's career in 1927 spring training when a batting practice line drive broke his ankle. The character of Joe Hardy in the 1955 Broadway musical Damn Yankees may have been based on Joe Judge. The author, Douglass Wallop, dated Judge's daughter Dorothy in the 1940s.