It's sometimes easy to take for granted the moments that change everything.
How about the time the New York Yankees first decided to call Aaron Judge up from Triple-A to the major leagues? That's a pretty significant moment in the last decade of Yanks baseball.
It was recounted a bit in a new article by MLB.com's Bryan Hoch, and the story is surely a fun one for any Yankees fans who reside in upstate New York.
Judge was on the road in Triple-A in 2016, playing in Rochester against what was then the Twins' affiliate, the Rochester Red Wings.
He was out to lunch with his parents at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a Rochester staple.
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The meal of choice, according to Hoch? A bacon cheeseburger with sides of beans and macaroni.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's then-manager, Al Pedrique, came over with the big news.
"He came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you’d better hurry up with this meal. You’ve got to be up in New York tomorrow,’” Judge told Hoch.
Judge and his parents drove overnight in a rental car to the Bronx and got in at 6 a.m.
"A fire alarm kept Judge from sleeping," Hoch writes. "He took it as a cue to keep moving."
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Judge and fellow rookie Tyler Austin were both in the lineup that day for their debuts at Yankee Stadium.
Austin, batting seventh, went deep in his first at bat.
Judge went dead central, 446 feet, to match it.
“Probably my biggest home run was my first one in the big leagues,” Judge said. “You finally make it to The Show, and you don't know if you're good enough or not. No matter what happened after that day, I could say I hit a homer in the big leagues. I think the first one is always the best one.”
A special debut, powered by Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.
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