“Oops.”
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It was the fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series. With the Yankees leading 5-0, a Dodgers runner and no outs, Los Angeles’ Tommy Edman threw a softball straight to Aaron judgesthe Yankees center fielder and one of the best baseball players of the last half century. It was the kind of ball that American high school outfielders caught easily. It was the kind of ball that Judge, who hadn’t made an error all season, probably hit thousands of times during his baseball playing life.

The ball had been thrown by Gerrit Cole, the Yankees’ ace and one of the most accomplished pitchers of his generation. By the time the ball cut through the curiously warm October air, Cole had allowed just one hit to the Dodgers, baseball’s most prolific offense. Standing in the press box, I didn’t think about the ball. The first runner was already moving backwards. And there you have it, a simple or…

Except the judge dropped it. The ball somehow slammed into his glove. There was no sun in his eyes, no wind tearing them one way or the other. He just let it go.

This is how arguably the most hellish inning in the 121-year history of the New York Yankees began. There are arguments to be made for Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, and Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. But none of them experienced such a rapid, earth-shattering collapse , nor so many absurd failures superimposed. None of them contained anything like Judge’s drop, or shortstop Anthony Volpe throwing a ball into the ground, or Cole and his first baseman, Anthony Rizzo, failing to save an output on a slowly hit grounder. None of them saw the 5-0 lead disappear because one team was awarded three additional outputs. After the Dodgers scored the victory to close the series in five games, bouncing up and down at Yankee Stadium, as Frank Sinatra New York, New York blared stupidly through the speakers, the fans’ complaints began to pour in quickly. They focused on the Cole/Rizzo debacle (“Cole needs to cover first!” “Rizzo needs to run out there and step on the bag!”) and how the Yankees need to fire manager Aaron Boone or learn themselves the basics that they never bothered to learn. learn during spring training.

Some of it — but probably not enough — was about Judge, the marvelous juggernaut who now has one of the most storied legacies of any Yankee great of the last century.

There are franchise icons who have never won a World Series ring. Don Mattingly is beloved despite only appearing in one playoff series, a 1995 ALDS loss to the Seattle Mariners. Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield were famous Yankees who won their rings elsewhere. Bobby Murcer and Mel Stottlemyer, two stars of the 1960s and 1970s, were popular with fans even though they didn’t reach the promised land. Yankees fans, for all their pride and entitlement, have a long and happy history of embracing those who never win a title.

And yet, there is no Yankee like Judge, who was so good for so long and largely failed to perform when it counted. Judge has now played in 58 career playoff games and has come to the plate 262 times. That’s a little more than a third of a baseball season. His OPS over that span is .768, which is 242 points shy of his career mark during the regular season. Batting average matters a lot less than it used to, but he’s hitting an abysmal .205. He struck out an impressive 86 times.

Mattingly never had all those chances to fail. Neither did Murcer or Winfield. The closest analog might be Alex Rodriguez, who was, in his prime, a superstar of Judge’s caliber and who struggled mightily through several postseason runs. A-Rod’s relationship with fans was increasingly strained, due to his huge contract, his endless string of media controversies, and his use of performance-enhancing drugs. Unlike Judge, he will probably never enter the Hall of Fame. Where the judge is unfailingly polite and upright, a Muscular Christian of the first order, A-Rod was hard-hitting and sleazy, the kind of man who shirtless tanning in Central Park and keeps paintings of himself like a centaur. When he failed, fans could rejoice.

Still, Rodriguez found redemption. In 2009, he was miraculous and carried the Yankees to their last championship. During his career, he was a good playoff performer, the stuffy artist narrative that remained belied by the numbers. His OPS was a respectable .822 in 330 plate appearances. He struck out less than Judge. Judge was looking for playoff-defining moments in October. He nearly got one in the ALCS, hitting a game-tying home run against the best closer in baseball. During that same series, he hit a long home run at Yankee Stadium that could have sparked a turnaround. And he made a marvelous catch that shattered the wall in Game 5, just an inning before the drop that undid it all.

For Judge, the tragedy of the World Series was that he seemed to have it figured out just before the end. In the first inning of Game 5, he smashed a two-run homer to right field and the anxiety-riddled Yankee Stadium crowd erupted. Later in the match, he scored a double. At the plate, he began to resemble the colossus who hit 58 home runs and produced more offensive value than any Yankee in a single season since Babe Ruth. The Dodgers undoubtedly feared facing a resurgent Judge at Dodger Stadium for a Game 6 Friday night — a game that seemed, for about an hour, inevitable. It wasn’t to be, as Judge dropped a ball. A ball that, had it been caught, would have preceded two Cole strikeouts, which would have ended the fifth inning and maintained the Yankees’ comfortable lead.

There’s no serious way to compare Judge’s fall to the ground ball that rolled between Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series, but allow me this judge-unfriendly distinction: An error triggered a a collapse that the other, in retrospect, did not cause. At the time of Buckner’s historic error, the Mets had already tied the game, coming back from a 2-run deficit that the Red Sox had missed with two outs in the bottom of the tenth. If Buckner had fielded the ball and walked to first, the game would have simply gone to the 11th inning, when the Mets, the home team, could have won anyway. Bucker didn’t get the Red Sox to give up three straight two-out singles or throw a wild pitch to score a run.

The judge will have to think hard this winter about what his fumble meant: the abandonment of a secure lead in Game 5, and ultimately the abandonment of what could have been: a Game 6 in Los Angeles, with the Yankees led 3-2. but create momentum for plausible upheaval. If Judge wants to be particularly hard on himself, he can dwell on the rest of that Dodgers series: what it meant to have only one hit in a game that reached extra innings, or none in the next two. For three games of the five-game World Series, he was an albatross. This failure came when his teammate, Giancarlo Stanton, imitated Reggie Jackson on the biggest stage, and Juan Sotoseeking a $700 million contract, brought his regular-season talents to the table in October.

In April, Judge will be 33 years old and he still has genius ahead of him. If the Yankees win the World Series next year, no one will remember the horrors of October 30. When Rodriguez carried the Yankees to the championship in 2009, fans stopped talking about 2004, 2005 and 2006. Redemption is still possible for a future Hall of Famer.