Anthony Volpe will soon take the field at Yankee Stadium as the Opening Day shortstop with plenty of friends and family among the roaring crowd.
Some of those friends are from a place Volpe knows all too well. Brendan Kuty of The Athletic reported the Delbarton School canceled a planned scrimmage to attend Opening Day and watch Volpe. The prestigious New Jersey private school is where Volpe starred on the baseball team before getting drafted by the Yankees. Texas Rangers prospect Jack Leiter is also a Delbarton alum, as well as Volpe’s good friend.
Was there any other solution? Delbarton is in Morristown, deep in the heart of North Jersey. Yankee Stadium is about an hour a way, maybe 10-15 minutes extra with Opening Day traffic. The school surely had no problem chartering a bus for the whole baseball team and coaching staff.
Such is the impact of this Yankees Opening Day. It’s rare for a rookie to crack the roster from the start, let alone the lineup. Volpe is doing both while also in line to be the greatest Yankees shortstop since the Captain himself, Derek Jeter.
The Watchung native bats ninth when his New York Yankees take on the San Francisco Giants at 1:05 p.m. Yankee Stadium will already be a madhouse for the first game of the season. The whole Volpe Family’s cheers will be small fish in the pond at the big ballpark in the Bronx.
Delbarton baseball’s, however, will ring a little louder that day. One of their own is taking the field and living the dream of probably countless Delbarton baseball alumni. Volpe made that dream a reality.
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