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Meet Aaron Judge’s wife Samantha Bracksieck: She and the New York Yankees star were high school sweethearts and share a love of sports — she also advised a fellow Wag on the NYC Marathon

Vaseline October 31, 2024

In October 2022New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge set the baseball world on fire when he hit his 62nd home run near the end of the season. His efforts broke the previous record of 61 home runs set by Yankees slugger Roger Maris in 1961.

Just two months earlier, during the offseason, the Yankees announced that they had finalized a new contract with Judge. In the third-largest deal in baseball history, Judge would take home $360 million over nine years.

Aaron Judge prepares to take a swing during batting practice at Yankee Stadium this month. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

At the press conference announcing Judge’s new contract, the Yankees shared that he would also become team captain, a position that had been vacant since becoming a team veteran. Derek Jeter left in 2014. Judge later revealed that Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner had floated the captaincy idea during contract negotiations in November. Despite being courted by other teams, including the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres, Judge said he and his wife, Samantha Bracksieck, decided they needed to be in “New York or nowhere.”

Samantha Bracksieck and Aaron Judge at an event during the 2022 MLB All Star Game in Los Angeles. Photo: @thejudge44/Instagram

It was also Bracksieck who gave Judge the advice he needed to finalize the deal for his new contract. As the couple headed to Hawaii to celebrate their anniversary, she suggested that Judge call the team and lay his cards on the table, telling them he wanted to stay but had a few years left on his contract to wait. Steinbrenner quickly agreed, adding that he planned to make judge Yankees captain.

So what do we know about Samantha Bracksieck, the woman who helped her husband land one of the most lucrative contracts in baseball history?

The couple grew up together

Aaron Judge and Samantha Bracksieck attend the New York Knicks season opener at Madison Square Garden in October 2023. Photo: @mlb.fits/Instagram

Bracksieck and Judge met at Linden High School in Linden, California, and were high school sweethearts. They later attended Fresno State University in California together.

While Judge was busy hitting home runs for the Fresno State Bulldogs, Bracksieck was studying kinesiology. Her focus was on sports injuries, while her master’s thesis focused on elbow ligament injuries Major League Baseball players.