OAKLAND, Calif. -- Yankees phenom Aaron Judge couldn't help himself and broke into a laugh sharing of a story of his Little League days before his first big-league game close to his Northern California hometown.
He was the biggest kid on his team and copying the batting stance of his favorite major leaguer ... a bit of an obscure one for a slugger who played first base as a kid.
Long before No. 99 grew to a 6-foot-7, 282-pounder that would become the talk of baseball as a rookie, he was a big kid from Linden, Calif.