Yankees' Aaron Judge Talks Playing Catch With His Dad as a Kid: 'He's Still the Hero in My Eyes'

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Aaron Judge is his dad's number one fan.

The New York Yankees' right fielder opened up to PEOPLE Friday afternoon about his relationship with his father, Wayne, and the longtime support he's received from him since he was a kid.

"He's always been my hero, always a guy I looked up to," Judge, 30, says of his dad during Yankees HOPE Week — an annual team initiative that highlights a different individual, family or organization worthy of recognition and support.

Judge — who is in the running for the American League MVP this season as he dominates the league with 33 homers in 89 games — says that playing catch with his father growing up left a major impact on his life.

"Looking back on those childhood memories, I could tell he didn't want to do it. I could tell he was tired. He'd had a long day of work," the slugger says. "But he never said no. He never complained, nothing. So for me, that's why he's still the hero in my eyes."

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And while it wasn't with his own dad, Judge got to play catch with another father for HOPE Week. This year, the team honored diehard Yankees fan Dan Reischel, who in the depths of the pandemic, embarked on a project to play catch with 162 different people — the number of games in a baseball season — to create a sense of community and continue to build relationships at a time when it was safer to stay 6 feet apart.

While Judge's dad "takes the top of [his] list" as the greatest person he's ever played catch with, the MLB All-Star played catch with Reischel on Friday, along with Reischel's father and kids, on the Yankee Stadium field to finish out the 162-game pandemic project.

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Judge's Yankees teammates Gerrit Cole, Anthony Rizzo, Aroldis Chapman, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, Aaron Hicks, Michael King and Lucas Luetge — along with local youth baseball players — also joined in for a fun-filled day centered around catch and conversation.

"It's just a really special opportunity to share something so simple with a stranger," Cole tells PEOPLE of Reischel's project. "Catch is just a wonderful way to get to know different people and amazing stories."

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Meanwhile, Rizzo tells PEOPLE, "It's so simple and fun. You see the joy that they have and that's the way we try to play this game all the time and sometimes we get lost in that in our own sense."

"It's so refreshing to just see the smiles," he adds.

In recognition of the spirit of Reischel's mission, the Yankees donated $10,000 to the New York City Parks Department for upkeep and improvements to Heritage Field, the site of the original Yankee Stadium.