There have been great Yankees who were born in New York City, of course. Lou Gehrig, one of the greatest Yankees of them all, was born in upper Manhattan. Whitey Ford, who won more games as a Yankee (236) than any pitcher in their history, was born in Manhattan before moving to Astoria in Queens. And Joe Torre, as important a manager as the Yankees ever had, was born in Brooklyn.

But in all of their history -- the grandest in baseball -- and as improbable as it seems, the Yankees have never had a player who was born and raised in the Bronx. Until now, that is, with a scrappy young guy out of the Morris Park section of the borough and Fordham Prep named Andrew Velazquez.

Henry Cotto, an outfielder with the Yankees between 1985-87, was born in the Bronx, but his family moved to Puerto Rico when Cotto was three months old. Andrew Velazquez, who has become such a wonderful New York story and baseball story since being called up from Scranton/Wilkes Barre on Aug. 9 after Gleyber Torres injured his thumb, is the son of a Bronx policemen, a child of his borough, and now he has been the shortstop for the Yankees as they continue to be the hottest team in baseball.

No one knows how long this will last. Torres, the team’s regular shortstop, is getting healthy. Third baseman Gio Urshela is on his way back to the lineup. But Yankees fans have to be rooting that the kid from the Bronx, who was drafted by the D-backs and played briefly for the Rays, Orioles and Indians before the Yankees decided to give him a look last fall, gets to stay around and be a part of whatever the Yankees can become the rest of the way.

Everybody ought to be rooting that way.

The reason is simple enough: Velazquez absolutely has been a part of what they’ve been doing since he played his first game in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago. The Yankees have played 14 games with the kid from Morris Park at short. They have won 12 of them. He has chipped in big hits and managed a .243 batting average and hit his first Yankees home run the other day with what looked to be his entire family in the stands, turning their section into a Bronx block party.

“There was crying,” Velazquez said afterward.

He has made just two errors since coming up from Triple-A, solidifying a makeshift infield. Last week against the Red Sox, he made a slide and stop and throw across the diamond to end a game as the Yankees were sweeping the Red Sox and passing them in the standings. Now the Yankees have gone 32-11 since being 41-41 seven weeks after losing the first game of a doubleheader against the Mets.

And lately, their shortstop has been a kid from the neighborhood, the first from the neighborhood to ever play for the Yankees, catching this kind of ride with the kind of team that the Yankees are these days.

After he hit his home run the other day, he sat for his postgame interview with his Yankees cap turned around backward, looking more than ever like a kid from the neighborhood, and was asked what he was thinking as he rounded the bases.

“Get home as quick as I can,” Velazquez said, “so I could celebrate with the boys in the dugout.”

Then he was asked about the emotions of his family and his own emotions as he did round the bases.

He smiled and said, “It was like all the other home runs I’ve hit in my career didn’t count.”

Finally he was asked about his family, and talked about how his mother and father and grandmother and brother were at the game.

“I saw the video, and there were some [family] that I didn’t even know were in town,” he said.

And where has he been sleeping after home games? At his parents’ house. We did a lot of talking about the Field of Dreams Game between the Yankees and White Sox in Iowa, one of the two the Yankees have lost since Velazquez went to short. But what about the Field of Dreams story Andrew Velazquez has gotten to live out this month, especially at Yankee Stadium, maybe a 20-minute subway ride from where he grew up?

He is 5-foot-9. You see him standing next to Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton or Joey Gallo, all of whom are nearly a foot taller than he is, and he looks like a batboy. Only he’s not. He’s a Yankee. He’s the Yankees shortstop for as long as this lasts for him, trying to “stay in the moment,” as he said the other day, “trying to keep my feet where they are.”

Even 6-foot-4 DJ LeMahieu, playing next to Velazquez right now in the middle of the Yankees infield, seems to tower over him.

Except: The moment hasn’t been too big for the Bronx kid, still just 27 years old. You would say there have been other baseball Bronx tales like this. Except there never has been one like this for the New York Yankees.