AN EX-YANKEE SCOUT WAS WRONG ABOUT JUDGE

As baseball fans, we frequently complain about bad calls that an umpire makes in a game. We all know those calls that infuriate us when an umpire calls an obvious ball a strike, but it goes beyond just bad umpire calls.

There are bad calls made before ever hitting a big league stadium and Aaron Judge was one of them. Now before you start throwing baseballs at my head, read THIS for the details. Scouts make the first calls before an umpire ever does and one scout in particular was dead wrong about Judge.

I find it fascinating, too. Tim McIntosh spent time with great players like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera so he recognized special players, but he's human. After his playing days were over the  Steinbrenner family hired him as a minor league coach and later as a scout where he got his first look at Judge as a teenager.

McIntosh and other scouts were not impressed with Judge early on. Back in the day, McIntosh was intrigued by Judge's size even at a young age and after watching him said that despite his big build "there was nothing there" other than raw power he didn't think Judge had the "it" factor as a young teenager. He saw nothing that made him believe in Judge as a major league ball player but admitted "I just put him in the system in case something crazy happened. And then something crazy happened."

And boy something crazy did happen. Thank goodness Judge turned down the Oakland A's offer in the 2010 draft and focused on his education until the Yankees drafted him in 2013. Thank goodness McIntosh was wrong at first....otherwise we might have missed him hit 60 home runs as a Yankee and be a legitimate MVP candidate.

I love the human element of this sport, even though sometimes I want to strangle an umpire or two. Even these "experienced expert" scouts with baseball experience get it wrong. In the end, we got Judge and hopefully we keep him long term....and that would be the best result from a bad call we could ever ask for.

--Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa

BYB Senior Managing Editor

Twitter: @nyprincessj