Sí señor! Meet the Jersey guy who called Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run on Spanish radio

As happy as I am as a Yankees fan that Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run breaking the Roger Maris American league record, I couldn't be happier that my friend, colleague and fellow Jersey guy Rickie Ricardo got to make the historic call in Spanish on Univision radio.

Rickie has also filled in this year for John Sterling calling Yankee games on WFAN.

Ricardo, who like me was born in Newark and lived in Union City, as well as West New York and Elizabeth, came on my New Jersey 101.5 show to talk about his historic call and how he came to make it.

"You know, in a rather unfortunate turn of events, my broadcast partner, Francisco Rivera, had a heart attack. It must have been in between 59 and 60 on the Judge scale, so these last couple of weeks I've been flying solo," says Ricardo.

"I just had an analyst but he does no play-by-play, so I was guaranteed to get all 3 of the calls, 60 to tie Babe Ruth, 61 to tie Roger Maris and last night 62 to break Maris record, and the American League record. I got them all and hopefully the good news is Francisco will be back for the playoffs."

Rickie talked about how the record couldn't be broken by a better guy and the similarities between Judge and Maris:

"If you had to handpick a guy to be the one to break this record, number one they're both Yankee right fielders. They both wear the number nine on the uniform, Maris wore 9 and Judge wears 99. It's just amazing how there are a lot of similarities between these two guys, the salt of the earth from small towns, you know, Judge is from a little town called Linden California, where the biggest thing every year is the cherry pie eating contest during the cherry blossom festival."

How did Rickie prepare for his historic home run call?

"Well, there were only a couple of elements that I wanted to make sure that I used in the call. I didn't want to deviate from my natural, regular home run calls because I think I've done about 55 of them. And I've never deviated from my call. Remember I filled in for John Sterling on several occasions this year. I called a few of his home runs on the English side too. So I didn't want to deviate from what my usual call is."

"But there were a couple of elements that I wanted to make sure I included. The fact that first, it was Babe Ruth. Next, it was Roger Maris, and now all alone the king of homeruns in the American League, the king of home runs for the New York Yankees, the most hallowed franchise in all the professional sports is this fine young man. Aaron judge. So those elements I wanted to make sure I used in the call. I mentioned both Ruth and Maris and his name in the same call and I was blessed."

I have known and worked with Rickie for many years. After hearing him fill in for John Sterling, I'm thinking there should be more blessings in his future.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise only. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.

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