Anthony Volpe Lives Out a Childhood Dream to Revive Yankees’ World Series Hopes

The shortstop became the first player to hit a go-ahead grand slam in the World Series with his team facing elimination, saving the ballclub he grew up rooting for.

Volpe hits the grand slam that gave the Yankees the lead for good in Game 4. / Erick Rasco/Sports Illustrated

How many times did a grade-school Anthony Volpe dream of this moment, lying in his childhood bed an hour southwest of Yankee Stadium, Yankees posters covering his walls, Yankees mailbox at the end of the driveway, Yankees game on the radio? How often did he imagine striding to the plate in a World Series game, two outs, bases loaded, winter one loss away, and coming through, clobbering a ball into the left field stands?

He grins. “Probably every night,” he says. 

Volpe, 23, could not have imagined what came next. By the ninth inning, the New York Yankees’ slumbering offense had finally awakened enough to provide an 11–4 lead, one secure enough that the 49,354 fans rocking the stands spent the top of the ninth chanting his name. 

Among the coolest moments of his life, he says, that ranks, “Number one. Definitely number one.”

A FULL CIRCLE MOMENT FOR ANTHONY VOLPE!

GRAND SLAM. @YANKEES LEAD! #WORLDSERIES pic.twitter.com/X754vjoPGe

— MLB (@MLB) October 30, 2024

BACCELLIERI: World Series Game 4 Takeaways: Yankees Roar Back to Life Behind Volpe’s Grand Slam

Three hours earlier, the Yankees seemed to be living a nightmare. They had lost the first three games of the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in routs belied by their close scores. The Dodgers had outplayed them on every corner of the diamond: Los Angeles hitters slugged more home runs, stranded fewer runners and ran the bases better. Los Angeles fielders turned more balls into outs. Los Angeles starting pitchers went deeper into games and Los Angeles relievers allowed fewer runs. 

Through two innings, Game 4 seemed to be more of the same. In the first, Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman hit his daily home run to put L.A. up, 2–0. (That’s four for the series and, dating back to 2021, six in six straight World Series games, a major league record.) Before Tuesday, the Dodgers were 8–1 this postseason when scoring first. In the regular season, that figure was 68–15, best in the majors. In the second, the Yankees committed their daily blunder. With one out, Volpe walked and stole second. Up came catcher Austin Wells, who banged a double off the center field wall. But Volpe, believing the ball would be caught, made it only as far as third base. He slapped his thigh in frustration and grimaced.

“That’s completely on me,” he says. “It’s not a hard read, one we practice, one that Little Leaguers make.”

Then something surprising happened: The next hitter, in this case Alex Verdugo, pushed him home with a grounder to the right side. Through the first three games, the Yankees had put 13 men in scoring position. Only two had made it home, one on a homer, one on a misplay by Dodgers shortstop Tommy Edman. 

But on Tuesday, the Yankees strung together good at bats. The Dodgers, devastated by pitching injuries, had to resort to their fourth bullpen game of the playoffs. 

Opener Ben Casparius went two frames, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts summoned righty Daniel Hudson for the heart of the order in the third. He struck out right fielder Juan Soto but hit center fielder Aaron Judge with a four-seamer. Third baseman Jazz Chisholm singled, and DH Giancarlo Stanton, down 1–2, worked a walk. First baseman Anthony Rizzo popped to shortstop. Volpe strode to the plate more confident than you might expect. 

Volpe had zero homers and 2 RBIs in the Yankees’ previous 12 postseason games. / Erick Rasco/Sports Illustrated

His team was down 3–0, a Fall Classic deficit from which no club has ever recovered. He had just made a stupid mistake in a crucial moment. And after dominating the American League Championship Series, he had only one hit in the first three games of the World Series. 

But he says he had flushed all that. And the rest of the Yankees have insisted all week that his approach has been good. “He’s just totally locked in,” says Rizzo. “Swinging easy.” Even his foul balls, Rizzo says, indicate that he is timing the pitchers up well. 

“He’s definitely hit better than his numbers would even suggest,” Boone says. “I think everyone that’s watched every one of our games, you see his at bats game in, game out have been excellent.”

Volpe had seen Hudson a night earlier; the righty had struck him out on a slider followed by six fastballs. Volpe wasn’t exactly sitting slider, he says, but he had an idea one might be coming. He got a flat one inside, and he hammered it. 

“I think I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw it go over the fence,” he says. 

In some ways, Volpe is still the 8-year-old who attended the 2009 World Series parade, crushed between a metal barrier and a Duane Reade, hoping to catch a glimpse of Derek Jeter. His locker at Yankee Stadium sports a bat decorated like a piece of pizza, an Eli Manning New York Giants bobblehead, his dirty spikes. Rizzo, 35, calls him “polite” and “respectful.” 

Volpe’s love for the Yankees traces back generations. His grandfather, also named Anthony, was only 4 when his father went off to fight in World War II. When the older man returned three years later, his son did not recognize him. 

“The way he got to know his father was he sat on his lap every single night and they listened to the Yankees together,” says the shortstop. “So for him, it’s more than sports.” 

It felt like more than sports for the sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, especially after a pitiful Game 3 loss gave them little to cheer about. But they erupted when Volpe did. 

“I felt the ground literally shaking,” says Wells. “These fans, they expect wins, and when you have a big home run like that to kind of spark the team like Volpe did, he got some well-deserved praise there.”

He got more later, when his one-out double keyed an eighth-inning outburst that plated five runs and allowed closer Luke Weaver, who had collected four outs against the heart of the Dodgers’ order, to sit out the ninth. Volpe and Wells, who walked, executed a double steal and Volpe, going on contact, scored when Verdugo hit a grounder up the middle. L.A. second baseman Gavin Lux threw home; Volpe slid in ahead of the tag. The sequence made him the first player in World Series history to collect four RBIs and two stolen bases in a game.

“The jump by Anthony there, a little tack-on run, now they go home, they don’t get the out,” says Boone. “Those are the little things that happen there that turn into big things.”

Second baseman Gleyber Torres followed with a three-run homer to put the game out of reach. 

“Just a nice job of tacking on there,” says Boone. “It allowed me to get Weave out of there that final inning because I was going to go with him—if we’re up two, three there, I’m sticking with him, which kind of puts him in jeopardy going into tomorrow.”

Ah yes, tomorrow. Game 4 was a big game, but it was just one game. If the Yankees are lucky, three more elimination games await. New York will send ace Gerrit Cole to the mound; the Dodgers will counter with Jack Flaherty. And because Game 4 got out of hand, L.A. was able to rest all its high-leverage relievers—and prevent the Yankees from getting another look at them. The odds remain in the Dodgers’ favor. No team down 3–0 in the World Series has even forced a Game 6. But the Yankees can’t think that way. They must try to win just one game. And they will sleep well tonight.