NEW YORK — Anthony Volpe never saw Derek Jeter hit a World Series home run.
Or, at the very least, he has no real memory of such things.
Jeter, the legendary Yankee famously dubbed Mr. October, went yard three times in the Fall Classic. Two came in 2000, before Volpe existed on this earthly plane. And the other, Jeter’s iconic walk-off in Game 4 of the 2001 World Series, happened when the current Yankees shortstop was 176 days old.
But to Volpe, a lifelong Yankees fan born in New York and raised in New Jersey, those moments feel like memories.
And with his boyhood idol — the idol of so many baseball lovers of a certain age — in the building for Game 4 of this World Series, Volpe delivered an unforgettable postseason highlight of his own in his team’s 11-4 victory. With a single swing, the kid who crammed his childhood bedroom with all things Yankee lived out his wildest dream while simultaneously keeping his team’s season alive.
With the bases juiced in the bottom of the third inning and the hosts down a run, Volpe thumped a first-pitch slider from Dodgers reliever Daniel Hudson into the left-field bleachers for a game-changing, energy-changing and potentially series-changing grand slam. The crowd, which had nothing to cheer about across the first 11.5 Fall Classic innings they witnessed, exploded.
“It felt like the fans were so ready to erupt last night,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after the game. “And we just got behind and couldn’t punch things in. It’s like you finally got to see the top blow off Yankee Stadium in a World Series game.”
Volpe, too, blew his top.
As the ball crested over the wall, the baby-faced 23-year-old let out a cathartic roar. Upon reaching home plate, a trio of teammates awaited him, smiles plastered on their faces. Again, Volpe couldn’t stop screaming, understandably so. He had given the Yankees, down 3-0 in the series, a 5-2 lead — their first lead of the series since Freddie Freeman walked off Game 1 with a grand slam of his own.
“I think I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw it go over the fence,” Volpe, who attended the 2009 World Series parade as a pipsqueak with his family, revealed in his postgame media conference.
Most importantly, Volpe provided the team, the crowd and this entire series a much-needed jolt.
This championship showdown, billed as a classic between the sport’s two biggest behemoths, looked to be in serious danger of sputtering out before it could even catch fire. Game 1 was an all-timer, but the Dodgers’ comfortable victories in Games 2 and 3 presented the Yankees with a historic, never-accomplished task: Come back from a 3-0 World Series deficit. It felt as imposing as it was unlikely. Accordingly, the energy around Yankee Stadium before Game 4 on Tuesday was noticeably more subdued. Fewer people clogged the concourse outside the yard ahead of first pitch. Ticket prices had plummeted. Hope was somewhere else, already enjoying its vacation.
But Volpe gave his fellow Yankees fans a reason to believe.
“Getting the lead early was important tonight,” said catcher Austin Wells, who cranked a homer of his own in the sixth inning. “And [Volpe] gave us that with that one swing, and that was huge.”
It was, far and away, the biggest Yankees swing of this World Series — and the biggest moment of the young shortstop’s career.
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After making the big-league team out of spring training last year as a 21-year-old, Volpe went on to start 308 games across 2023 and 2024, the third-most games ever started by a player in his first two MLB seasons. The two players ahead of him on that list are Hideki Matsui, who debuted stateside as a 29-year-old with immense pro ball experience in Japan, and Albert Pujols. That shows how heavily this franchise has relied upon this player and what the Yankees think about his chances to develop into a foundational piece. Because while Volpe has provided defensive stability at the infield’s most important position, his offensive game has been more what-if than what-is.
A single swing in late October will not, on its own, turn Volpe into a dynamic offensive player. Some combination of work, patience, good coaching, experience and physical maturation could eventually help Volpe reach his ceiling. He is still only 23; there is ample time. And Jeter’s shadow is unfair yet unavoidable. But Volpe’s massive, energy-shifting smash on Tuesday was a perfect reminder that this kid might yet have magic in his bones.
“We’ve seen it the whole time, even last year as a rookie — he’s a Yankee through and through,” Yankees captain Aaron Judge told Yahoo Sports.
“It’s in his blood,” outfielder Alex Verdugo added.
The Volpe family’s Yankees fandom dates back generations, to when Anthony’s great-grandfather returned from World War II and connected with his son by listening to Yankees games together on the radio. That love was then passed down to Anthony’s dad, Michael, and to Anthony himself.
“It is pretty crazy to think about,” the Game 4 hero admitted when asked how it felt to be living out his dream. “It’s my dream, but it was all my friends’ dreams, all my cousins’ dreams, probably my sister’s dream, too.”
In the end, Volpe’s swing might end up as a small blip in a Dodgers landslide, a footnote overshadowed by royal blue confetti. The odds, for the Yankees, remain formidable. But even if the Yankees don’t pull off the impossible and defeat the Dodgers, Volpe’s swing should stand the test of time.
It’s too good of a story not to.
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