In the final days before October baseball begins, the New York Yankees find themselves caught between the will of their franchise player and the caution of those who must plan for his absence. Aaron Judge, three-time MVP and the gravitational center of the Yankees' hopes, is racing against a calf injury and the unforgiving calendar of the postseason. It is a story as old as sport itself — the tension between a competitor's belief in his own body and the cold arithmetic of what a team can afford to assume.