All Rise In Miami

The heaviest hitters in the game of baseball gathered at Marlins Park in Miami. Some of the games Elite Sluggers took their best swings to be crowned champion of the long ball. Last year's winner Giancarlo Stanton, New York's Gary Sanchez, the Marlins' Justin Bour, the Rockies' Charlie Blackmon, the Dodgers' Cody Bellinger, the Royals' Mike Moustakas and the Twins Miguel Sano all took their best shots at the fences. All of them came up short to the ultimate winner, Yankees rookie star, and the Majors home runs leader at the all star break (he has 30) in Aaron Judge.

Every round in this years derby was decided by one swing. It all got going with Miguel Sano beating Mike Moustakas 11-10, followed by Gary Sanchez beating the defending champion Giancarlo Station 17-16. Then we had Aaron Judge beat the other Marlin in the Derby, Justin Bour, in a real sluggfest, with Judge winning 23-22. Finally, the first round concluded with a Cody Bellinger 15-14 win over Charlie Blackman. The second round saw Sano beat Sanchez, by an 11-10 final. And in the other semifinal, Judge beat Bellinger 13-12. In the finals it didn't take Judge very long to finish the job, beating Sano 11-10 to claim the first crown of his career, and the first home run derby ever by a rookie.

He finished off Sano with 1:53 on the clock And the dream matchup that everybody wanted to see in the finals, the one between Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, never came to be. The reason? Gary Sanchez took care of Stanton in the opening round. For those of you who are fans of exit velocity (I'm not one of those people but I know a few who are), Judge hit 16 homers with exit velocities of 115 mph or harder, and to all fields of the ballpark. By the time the night was over, Judge had hit four home runs over 500 feet. 501 feet, 504 feet, 507 feet and 513 feet. In total, the distance of Aaron Judge's baseballs flew, if stacked end to end, a total distance of 3.9 miles. It was a total of 37 home runs hit by Judge in this Derby, which is the 2nd most all time in the contest, behind only the 61 that Giancarlo Stanton last year. Hell, the 23 home runs that Judge hit in the opening round marked the third-best round in Home Run Derby history, trailing only Josh Hamilton's 28 in 2008 and Bobby Abreu's 24 in 2005.

Judge becomes the 4th Yankee ever to win the Home Run Derby, joining Tino Martinez in 1997, Jason Giambi in 2002 and Robinson Cano in 2011. So congratulations teo Aaron Judge on dominating the home run derby!