Language modelling. Natural language processing (nlp)
I'll be honest with you โ the first time I went digging into Aaron Judge's background, I wasn't expecting to stumble across such a touching family story. Like a lot of baseball fans, I knew him as the towering slugger for the New York Yankees, the man who smashed 62 home runs in 2022 to break Roger Maris's long-standing American League record. But when it came to his ethnicity and where he came from, I realised I knew next to nothing. So I did a bit of reading, and what I found genuinely stayed with me.
Aaron Judge was born on 26 April 1992 in Linden, California, and adopted just one day later by Wayne and Patty Judge, a couple who had deep roots in the area. His adoptive parents are white, of European-American descent, while Aaron himself is African American. His biological parents' exact heritage has never been laid out in detail publicly, but it's widely understood that his ethnicity is Black. What struck me most was how openly he has spoken about being adopted โ he has said he knew from a young age, and that it never felt like some big secret hanging over the household. There was no dramatic reveal, just an ordinary part of his ordinary Californian childhood, which I find rather lovely.
What really resonated with me was Judge's own reflection on his identity. He grew up in a household with his parents and his older brother John, who was also adopted, and he has said that questions about race simply weren't a source of tension at home. In interviews, he's explained that while he noticed he looked different from his parents, his upbringing was filled with love, faith and support. His parents were both teachers, and that emphasis on education and humility seems to have shaped the calm, grounded manner we see on the pitch today. As someone who believes family is what you make it, not just what you're born into, I found his story affirming.
Of course, in the modern sporting world, players of mixed or transracial backgrounds often get asked to define themselves in neat little boxes, and I don't think Judge fits that mould. He's a Black man raised by white parents in a multiracial America, and he seems entirely comfortable holding both truths at once. He's spoken respectfully about being a role model for young fans of all backgrounds, without ever making his ethnicity the centrepiece of his public persona. To me, that restraint says a lot about the man.
So yes, Aaron Judge is African American by ethnicity and was adopted into a white family โ but reducing him to that one line does him a disservice. His story is really about belonging, and I think that's why it appeals to so many of us. When I watch him step up to the plate now, I see not just a home run machine, but the product of a family that chose him. And honestly, that's the part of his story I'll remember long after the records are broken.
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Language Modelling
The Illustrated Transformer โ Jay Alammar โ Visualizing machine ...
Natural Language Processing
Natural Language Processing
NLP GLOSSARY: February 2010
Natural Language Processing (NLP)