He’s been called by some the face of baseball’s future. It’s not that far in the past that the University of Hawaii Rainbows faced him on a regular basis.

Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees won the Home Run Derby on Monday and started in right field for the American League All-Star team Tuesday. In 2011 and 2012, he played for Fresno State when the Bulldogs and Rainbows competed in the Western Athletic Conference. The teams also played once in 2013 after Fresno left for the Mountain West and Hawaii for the Big West.

In the first game UH went up against Judge, Hawaii beat Fresno State 6-5. But the gargantuan freshman outfielder went 3-for-5. Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso knew right away he was watching a special player.

“He was one of those guys who when you’re trying to figure out how to get him out at the same time you’re having a fun time watching him play,” Trapasso said. “He’s one of those guys that from the first time you saw him you had to take a step back. You saw it coming, from his freshman year. We were saying this kid’s a lock for a first-round pick, just because of the combination of size and athleticism. He didn’t hit 30 homers in college, but you saw the way the ball came off the bat was different. And he was a 6-foot-7 guy who played center field in college because he’s so athletic.”

Judge, now in his first full season with the Yankees, went 0-for-3 in his first All-Star Game, but he leads the majors with 30 homers at the break and is third in the American League in batting at .329 and second with 66 RBI. Trapasso is not surprised.

“Obviously it’s still a small sample size at the major league level, but he’s been about as impressive as you’ll ever see,” the UH coach said. “The sample size we have is a little bigger, the three years when he was at Fresno.

“The thing you always saw with Aaron Judge in college was a tremendous even keel and the poise he had. The humility you see now you saw it even in college. I’m sure it comes from the parents, the upbringing. That very professional approach. He was always a very classy guy in how he went about his business.”

Similar to Kolten Wong, the UH star whose college career overlapped with his, Judge wasn’t drafted high enough out of high school to merit going pro right away. He wasn’t picked until the 31st round by the Oakland A’s. He’d put up big numbers in high school baseball, but was also a standout in basketball and football. His size and school record of 17 touchdowns at Linden High near Stockton, Calif., garnered him scholarship offers to play tight end at Notre Dame, Stanford and UCLA, among other colleges.

That same size scared away some pro baseball scouts. Tall batters have big strike zones and holes in their swings. So far, though, Judge — who now weighs around 280 pounds — could be an even stronger version of Dave Winfield, the 6-foot-6, 220-pound Hall of Fame outfielder who was drafted by the NBA, ABA and NFL as well as MLB out of Minnesota.

“A lot of times when an athlete excels in so many sports it’s no surprise that when he does devote his time to one he skyrockets,” Trapasso said. “You could see he was a tremendous athlete, and he was with a great program with a great coach.”

While some feared Judge might be too big for baseball, baseball at its highest level and in its largest market hasn’t been too big for him so far.

At 25, Judge is actually older than the previous latest greatest, Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper. Harper, 24, made his big league debut when Judge was a sophomore at Fresno State. He played in his fifth All-Star Game on Tuesday.

Harper was interviewed while playing in the outfield, during the game (I don’t know about you, but that’s the first time I’ve seen that).

He was asked about the buzz around Judge.

“There’s about 20 (new) faces, it’s an exciting time,” he said.

It’s true — there’s a fresh pack of intriguing young talent; it’s reminiscent of the early 1990s, when Ken Griffey, Jr., led a similar wave when baseball needed a boost.

And it’s not too late for Wong, 26. The Big Island product is hitting .301 at the break; it’s the St. Louis second baseman’s best batting average in his five big league seasons — by a whopping 39 percentage points.

If the Cardinals’ first-round draft pick of 2011 continues to improve his walk-to-strikeout ratio and can stay off the disabled list, maybe we’ll be talking about him as the first Rainbow to make it to the All-Star Game one of these years — rather than a guy who played against him in college.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quickreads.