What does the Yankees’ Aaron Judge think about returning to Dodger Stadium following his toe injury?

Los Angeles— With just over 24 hours until the first pitch of the World Series on Thursday evening, Aaron Judge was about to throw out a game. YankeesFielding practice at Dodger Stadium, live batting practice.

Yankees pitching prospect Clayton Beeter was on the mound. Judge and Giancarlo Stanton took turns and started to move out of the empty field.

In one of Judge’s final at-bats, the slugger swung a ball deep into right field. It leapt towards the wall, stayed in the courtyard, and floated across the warning track towards the visitor park.

He stood in nearly the same spot at Dodger Stadium last year where Judge crashed into the fence and hurt his toe, marking the beginning of a long stint on the injured list.

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Judge suffered a tear in his right big toe when he hit that part of the right field fence in last year’s game. As he did a somersault, his foot kicked into the concrete slab at the base of the arena gate, robbing J.D. Martinez of what would have been an extra-base hit.

The superstar slugger was away from the field for 42 games. He was injured on 3 June and did not play again until 28 July. When the umpire returned from the IL, the Yankees fell from third to last in the AL East.

Asked about the condition of the toe and its return to the site of the injury a year and a half later, Judge said he hadn’t thought much about it since the incident. He sees it as just another injury, associating Dodger Stadium not with his collision with the right field fence but with “the legends that have ever stepped foot on this field.”

“I felt like we had a great club last year,” Judge said. “I seem to have been subjected to a difficult spell there. Nobody likes to get hurt. I really don’t think about it. I tore off the bent parts. I pulled the muscles. I’ve done this and that, that’s another thing you have to experience.

The judge continued: “You can’t dwell on that. I haven’t really thought about it since we recovered and got back on the field. I love playing here. It’s an exciting atmosphere, a fun place to play.

Now that the umpire is no longer playing right field — himself in center, fellow superstar Juan Soto in right — he won’t need to keep that fence in the back of his mind while defending. In both cases, the Dodgers added backfill to the previously exposed concrete portion of the wall to prevent something like this from happening again.

Judge was able to joke about his injury when talking about his toe this spring.

“I keep getting hurt in right field, so I guess they moved me to center field so I wouldn’t get hurt there,” Judge said. “There’s definitely a gear, I think it’s just about playing smarter, understanding the pitch, understanding the dimensions. I thought I had an extra step in this situation, but I didn’t. This always seems off to me. I need to be a little smarter there. Just like this year, we need to play smart. I don’t think the bases of the walls in the midfield will be made of cement. I think we’ll be fine.”