Volpe's historic game 'a dream come true' for the lifelong Yankee fan

NEW YORK -- Long after the deafening jet-engine roar of a Yankee Stadium crowd propelled his grand slam journey around the basepaths, the realization of a lifelong dream propelling beers, sodas and who-knows-what-else into the evening sky, Anthony Volpe savored a quiet moment at his locker deep underneath the first-base grandstands.

His pinstripes caked with dirt, earthy evidence of the best game of his life, Volpe grinned shyly as he read a note identifying him as the first player ever to register four RBIs and two stolen bases in a World Series game. He’ll never forget this night, and if the Yankees rally to do the impossible, no one else will, either.

“It is pretty crazy to think about,” Volpe said after the Yankees’ 11-4 victory over the Dodgers on Tuesday night in Game 4 of the World Series. “It’s my dream, but it was all my friends’ dreams, all my cousins’ dreams, probably my sister’s dream, too. But winning the World Series was first and foremost, by far. Nothing else compares, so we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

Born and raised a Yankee fan by way of Manhattan’s Upper East Side and greener parts of New Jersey, Volpe crafted his moment in the third inning, barreling a Daniel Hudson slider over the left-field wall. It was the ninth World Series grand slam hit by a Yankee, and the first since Tino Martinez in Game 1 of the 1998 Fall Classic.

The drive boosted the Yankees to their first lead since Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam ended Game 1 at Dodger Stadium, providing a sellout audience of 49,354 with a chance to see their team ahead in a home World Series game for the first time since Nov. 4, 2009.

“It was pretty cool,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I was just glad, because it felt like the fans were so ready to erupt [in Game 4]. 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.”

That ’09 season, of course, is special to Volpe. He’d been an 8-year-old at the World Series parade, pressing against a steel barricade in front of a Duane Reade pharmacy on Broadway to peek at passing players like CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez and his idol, Derek Jeter.

Now he helped give his favorite team new life in an elimination game (Los Angeles leads the best-of-seven Series, 3-1). It also marked the sixth grand slam overall this postseason, a Major League record.

• 5 biggest storylines as Yanks try to keep chipping away

“I can’t even imagine, honestly,” said catcher Austin Wells. “Just his whole family going way back to being Yankee fans, him being at the parade in '09, growing up a Yankees fan, now being the shortstop, hit a grand slam in the World Series in a must-win game. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that.”

For Volpe’s paternal grandfather -- also named Anthony -- the Yankees were more than just another team, and rooting for them proved more than a mere pastime. The elder Anthony Volpe’s father (the great-grandfather of the second-year Yanks shortstop) served overseas in World War II, and he returned as a stranger to his young son.

“His mom basically told him, like, ‘This is your dad,’” Volpe recalled during Tuesday’s postgame press conference. “He didn't know him, didn't recognize him, didn't anything.”

Forging a bond was tough. But one can always count on baseball to bring people together, and for father and son, it was no exception.

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

This is the first World Series since 1987 with multiple grand slams (Kent Hrbek and Dan Gladden for the Twins) and the first since ‘64 with a slam on each side (Ken Boyer for the Cardinals, Joe Pepitone for the Yankees).

• Astonishing stats made Game 4 an historic offensive show

The energy built as Hudson plunked Aaron Judge with one out in the third, mounted as Jazz Chisholm Jr. rocketed a single off the right-field wall and rose to a fever pitch when Giancarlo Stanton took a walk to load the bases.

Following a frustrating series of missed opportunities in big moments for these Yankees, Volpe’s first-pitch swing on a down-and-in slider to left-center sent the ball 390 feet into the euphoric left-field bleachers, lifting the mounting tension on his and his teammates' shoulders.

• Teams that overcame 3-1 deficits in the postseason

“I think I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw it go over the fence,” Volpe said. “We just wanted to keep putting pressure on them, and I think everyone had confidence in everyone in the lineup that someone was going to get the big hit. We've been having such good at-bats and putting such good swings on the ball, that we just felt like it was only a matter of time.”

That cut was an opportunity to atone for Volpe, who had held on the basepaths in the second inning, only making it to third base when Wells banged a long double off the center-field wall. Though Volpe scored on an Alex Verdugo groundout, the Yanks were limited to one run in the frame.

Volpe made a few nifty plays on defense and capped his night with a double, steal and run scored in the Yanks’ five-run eighth inning. It had been “surreal,” Volpe said, to hear the Stadium chanting his name in the ninth inning -- and even more so to be interviewed by Jeter on the field after the Yanks’ victory.

“It’s a dream come true for him,” Verdugo said. “Hitting a grand slam in Game 4, a must-win game -- that guy, he’s serious and he really cares about this team. I mean, it’s in his blood.”

Perhaps taking inspiration from his idol, Volpe spoke with the measured conviction that there was still more to do. A World Series grand slam is wonderful; a championship ring would be even better.

“Hopefully when we win the World Series and I’m with family, we can all reflect on everything,” Volpe said.