Cowboys inflatables tiny player5/7/2023 ![]() ![]() Fellow top infield prospect Oswald Peraza had the consensus better glove, while Volpe had defensive question marks. ![]() No one beyond Volpe and his family expected him to be the Yankees’ starting shortstop on Opening Day. "Whether it’s the stars and stripes or now playing for the Yankees, you’re playing for something bigger than yourself." "Those experiences playing for Team USA taught me so much about what’s important about the game," Volpe told FOX Sports early on in Spring Training. Volpe first learned, at age 12 while the rest of us were at sleepaway camp, how to maintain his composure in front of thousands of people hoping and praying for him and his teammates to fail. He understands what it's like to play with a target on his back as an overwhelming favorite, as despised public enemy No. The tiny kid from Watchung, New Jersey who became the first player (alongside Cubs prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong) to play for USA Baseball at the 12U, 15U and 18U levels, will now draw upon that journey as he prepares to face the ultimate challenge of playing shortstop for the most famous sports franchise in America.Īnd unlike most MLB rookies, Volpe has felt the pressure of representing his country and its pastime in front of hostile, deafening crowds in places like Taiwan, Japan and Panama. Volpe’s exceptional blend of self-assuredness, boundless energy, raw talent and poise, which has since propelled him all the way to breaking camp with the Yankees this spring against all expectations, were manifested during his summers with USA Baseball. "A young kid with braces and a million dollar smile who feared nothing and had the bat speed and ability to back up the confidence that he had in himself." "I’ll never forget that play," reminisced Terrance Freeman, an assistant coach on that 12U team. Volpe coasted into second base, turned to face his dugout, where a hoard of baseballing American pre-teens were going berserk, and proudly held up the embroidered logo across his chest for the world to see: U.S.A. ![]() Numerous coaches and teammates remember exactly what happened next. The 2023 Yankees’ Opening Day shortstop pulled his hands inside a hair-raising heater and roped a line-drive double into the corner. As the spark plug and heartbeat of USA Baseball’s original 12U national team, Volpe was carrying oversized expectations on his undersized shoulders at the 2013 International Baseball Federation World Cup in Taipei.įifty feet away, a goliathan post-pubescent Venezuelan fireballer, who, according to one of Team USA’s coaches, was throwing a fastball equivalent at that level to one in the upper 90s while sporting "an actual mustache." But Volpe, listed at a diminutive 5-foot-nothing, 95 pounds, didn’t flinch. Beneath the clattering rumble of 10,000 inflatable thundersticks, 7,700 miles from The Bronx, a 12-year-old brace-faced Anthony Volpe dug his spikes into the batter’s box at Tianmu Stadium in Taiwan and readied himself for glory. ![]()
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