He’s the all time leader in a single season for baseball period.
The 8.5 hat sized monster that hit 73 as well as the runner ups Sosa and McGuire didn’t do it the right way. Everyone has an opinion but baseball is it worst own hypocrite. You can’t say “yes” to ones record for HRs but then keep that same guy out of the HOF for cheating, can you?r
Judge has his own advantages over Maris and Ruth in terms of training, supplements, and whatnot. And he's a behemoth to begin with. He never had to go through what Maris did (or Aaron for career HRs) regarding death threats for attempting to break Ruth's record and for not being the fan favorite Mantle was in '61.
Bonds won 4 MVPs during his big head period. The BBWWA votes for MVP. It also votes for HoF. So there are your hypocrites, not MLB powers that be. if you'd like more hypocrisy, Bud Selig is in the HoF and he basically sanctioned the whole steroid era.
So, records are what records are. But personally, I still find Maris's record more impressive because of the personal cost to him. And Ruth's for that matter, as it was fewer games.
Fwiw, Bonds was on track for HoF even before steroids. He was on pace for 51 dingers during the strike season of 1994. And he wasn't going out of his way to try for HRs until after seeing other roiders get paid. It's certainly within reason Bonds could've challenged 61 w/o PEDs if he made that his goal.
Even with the PEDs, looking at just 2001, Bonds averaged a HR every 6.52 abs. Judge averaged a HR every 9.19. PEDs improve recovery and maybe increase muscle mass. But you still need to get bat on ball. And Bonds did that like no other.
Lastly, if you really think Bonds was a fraud when he'd already had multiple 40+ HR seasons before PEDs, let's remember that Judge only hit 39 last year.
One thing Judge has going for him is the cosmos. The Yankees record today is 99-62. So maybe achieving the record last night was in the stars.
But you believe what you want, I'm not going to stop you. But you do sound like a homer in doing so.