WHEN ISABELLE DE LEON and Michael Volpe drive to and from work in Manhattan, New York, each day, turning on sports talk radio is automatic: WFAN’s Boomer Esiason in the morning, ESPN New York’s Michael Kay on the way home. When the couple met at SUNY Downstate Medical School in Brooklyn in 1990, they bonded over their New York Yankees fandom, trading trivia questions and going on dates in the bleachers. They were the couple who would sleep outside Yankee Stadium when playoff tickets went on sale. And when Isabelle went into labor on April 27, 2001, the couple watched the Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics on television at Mount Sinai Hospital before she gave birth to their son the next morning.
For years, Michael called into those local shows to give his take on the team, one of countless callers discussing who the Yankees should pursue in free agency or whether GM Brian Cashman was doing enough at the trade deadline. But recently, there’s been a new topic to discuss.
“Now it’s like, ‘Oh my god, they’re talking about my son,'” Isabelle says. “We just kind of look at each other like, ‘Wow.'”
Their son — shortstop Anthony Volpe — is indeed the talk of the town. On Thursday, he will become the youngest Yankee to start on Opening Day since Derek Jeter, his childhood hero growing up in Manhattan and later Watchung, New Jersey. The Yankees entered spring training calling the shortstop job an open competition — and Volpe was so impressive, he earned the leap to the majors after just 22 games in Triple-A.
Imagine this back page story: A kid born in New York City who grew up rooting for the Yankees helps lead his favorite team to its first World Series title since 2009. After losing to the Houston Astros in the playoffs three of the past six seasons, the Yankees and their fans hope Volpe will make it happen.
The Yankees have always been careful about managing expectations for their players, knowing the hype can get out of hand. As Volpe’s parents are well aware, New York can turn a Yankee into a superhero among mere mortals. But it can just as easily make him a villain — just ask Joey Gallo, Clint Frazier or Gary Sanchez, among the most recent examples.
That’s particularly true at shortstop, where for multiple offseasons, Yankees fans have grumbled about production, the shadow of Jeter’s legacy always looming over the position. Didi Gregorius, who lasted five seasons in New York after Jeter’s retirement, was a good player and generally well-liked, but he wasn’t the Captain. Since Sir Didi departed as a free agent after the 2019 season, 10 different players have manned shortstop. Most notably, the Yankees tried Gleyber Torres there for a season and a half before moving him back to second base in 2021 after he struggled defensively.
The team passed, just as it passed on trade offers involving Volpe over the past few years. And now, with Volpe earning his spot in the big leagues so quickly, all those decisions seem to point to one conclusion: This shortstop prospect must be special. Volpe’s background, his upbringing, his confidence at 21 years old, his work ethic, his relationships with his teammates, all draw comparisons to Jeter, giving the team plenty of reason to believe he can handle the spotlight. For many within the organization, Volpe — the No. 3 prospect in baseball, according to ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel — seems like he was made in a Yankee lab.
“Even some veteran players, it’s like, ‘Wow,'” says manager Aaron Boone. “It’s the energy and the intensity and the effort — the little things — that get your attention. You get excited about it.”
To this point, all of it seems like a fairy tale, even to those living it. When Volpe shares stories of taking batting practice with some of the biggest names in baseball, like Giancarlo Stanton and newly minted captain Aaron Judge, his die-hard Yankees fan parents know exactly how cool it is — and how high the stakes are.
“There are moments where I talk to family and tell them about my day,” Volpe says. “I’ll say stuff off the cuff and their jaws drop.”
IT’S EARLY MARCH during batting practice before a spring training game with the rival Boston Red Sox at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida. Yankees legend Lou Piniella is standing around the batting cage, chatting up Cashman. The two men catch the eye of Volpe, who shuffles over. As the rookie prepares to meet Piniella for the first time, he makes a move that would later send earthquake tremors throughout the Yankees faithful: He takes off his cap before shaking Piniella’s hand.
“Volpe did something today that just kind of choked me up,” said Kay on the game broadcast on the YES Network. “Someone introduced him to Lou Piniella and out of respect, he took his hat off. This kid just gets it.”
The clip of Volpe meeting Piniella went viral. It’s the type of thing that floods his father’s phone these days. Texts from friends sending screenshots of stories and tweets praising Anthony’s performances. Sometimes it’s highlights of his latest snag in the field. Other times, it’s videos of fans and analysts speculating on Volpe’s future.
Isabelle and Michael — an anesthesiologist and urologist, respectively — never pushed their son into the sport. It was always Anthony asking. For the first 10 years of Anthony’s life, the Volpes lived in Murray Hill and the Upper West Side, and they would bring him to The Baseball Center — a training facility nearby — because he wanted to play as much as possible. Often after school, Michael and Anthony would go to the park and field ground balls for hours, trying to field 100 in a row. If Anthony dropped even the 99th ball, they would start over, often to Anthony’s delight.
“It’s going to be a late night for you, Dad,” Anthony would say with a smile.
Being a Yankees fan was more than a backdrop. In the mornings before school, Anthony would lay out his Yankees shirseys, sometimes choosing Jeter, sometimes Jorge Posada, sometimes another favorite player. When Jeter played his last home game as a Yankee, Anthony and Michael were there to see the Captain’s walk-off single.
“It’s like fate, the way it happened,” Anthony says of that moment
Memories like that fueled his desire to get better on the diamond. As he got older, Anthony played for travel teams, eventually driving with his dad from New Jersey to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to play with better competition. There could be a snowstorm brewing or homework piling up. Still, he was at practice every weekend.
That homework always got done, by the way, thanks to how Isabelle ran the house. Growing up, Anthony begged his parents for a dog, but his mother resisted. Anthony showed Isabelle videos of cute pups, for days on end, until she relented. But there was a major condition: From August through Christmas, he needed to make his bed every day, with no slipups. Every dish must be put away. No socks on the floor. No toothpaste caps left off. He was to keep his room pristine, as if a photoshoot for House & Garden magazine could break out at any moment.
By November, Isabelle had seen enough.
Anthony had a perfect record — and the Volpes welcomed Jedi into the house.
“We have a dog because of him,” Michael says. “He did all of those things, and he kept up with making his bed and stuff after we got the dog, too.”
After Volpe was selected 30th in the 2019 draft, Yankees head of minor league operations Kevin Reese noticed that his intensity around doing the small things, the reps that often bore others, would become contagious. Quickly, minor leaguers older than Volpe started treating him like a veteran.
“I had 12 years in the game, he’s 12 years younger than me and we were having not just professional conversations about pitchers and game situations, but about life,” says Derek Dietrich, an eight-year major league veteran who played in the Yankees farm system the past two seasons.
Volpe credits his confidence, maturity and perspective on life to the many nights he spends with his grandparents. Isabelle’s parents live with the Volpes, while Michael’s parents’ house is across the street. It’s a family tradition to gather around the dinner table and tell stories.
Volpe’s great-grandfather on his father’s side moved to the United States from Italy with a third-grade education. While trying to build a foundation in America, he sold fruit from a pushcart on Mott Street in downtown Manhattan. He later served in World War II, where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge, receiving shrapnel injuries to his leg before returning to work at the post office. Volpe’s paternal grandfather served in the Marines in Japan from 1958 through 1962.
Isabelle’s parents, Benjamin and Concepcion de Leon, came to the United States in the 1960s due to the political landscape in the Philippines. Isabelle’s grandfather served as the mayor of Paranaque and, as a colonel in the army, was in the Bataan Death March, the transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war by the Imperial Japanese Army. After Isabelle’s father, Benjamin, lost a race for vice mayor of Paranaque, the family decided to leave the country. They arrived with no money and just two of their seven children, the rest of whom they brought over five and a half years later when they were more settled.
“I’m old enough now to register and understand the context, but everyone, my aunts, uncles, everyone just worked,” Volpe says. “They always put their heads down and never asked for anything.”
THESE DAYS, MICHAEL doesn’t call in to sports radio anymore. The excitement around his son is impossible to avoid, and with all the positives come the negatives. A few years back, Michael turned his Twitter account anonymous after he got into a back-and-forth with some fans criticizing Anthony’s fielding.
“I made some comments to the effect of, ‘Who do you scout for? How do you know so much about fielding?'” Michael says. “That was such a bad look, so I promised my wife and my family that I would never make any comment in any kind of social media or anything like that again.”
Right now, Yankees fans criticizing his son are on a lonely corner of the internet. There’s a palpable excitement over one of the team’s most hyped prospects ever, particularly one compared to Jeter. In front of the cameras and microphones, Volpe deflects those comparisons, pointing out he has a long way to go before he approaches the Hall of Famer’s résumé.
In private, he admits, it can weigh on him.
“Why are there comparisons to Jeter?” Volpe sometimes asks his mom. “I haven’t accomplished anything close to him. There’s never going to be another Jeter.”
And while Isabelle views the comparisons as a bit detached from reality, she understands where people are coming from.
“He just wants to be Anthony,” Isabelle says. “But he will do whatever it takes to help the Yankees win.”
The press is positive, for now, but as Yankees fans, the Volpes know as well as anyone that a tabloid back page criticizing their son is inevitable. Right now, everyone dreams of whether Volpe can live up to Jeter, but just wait until he has his first slump.
“He usually handles that well,” Michael says. “My wife and I don’t handle it as well. We’re always freaking out.”
When Volpe is home in New Jersey, the family avoids talking about his future and what might be in store. Both Michael and Isabelle know it’s the last thing he wants to talk about. Instead, Michael spends hours on the phone with his brother talking about what Anthony’s future could look like. Anthony and his younger sister Olivia, meanwhile, prefer talking about her life at Georgetown, Taylor Swift or politics. Instead of dreaming of glory or dreading failure, Anthony would rather be spending time playing golf, eating his grandma’s sinigang or playing with Jedi.
“I really am trying to stay present,” he says.
Volpe will have a clubhouse full of teammates who can relate. When Judge burst onto the scene as a superstar rookie in 2017, hitting 52 homers, earning rookie of the year honors and finishing second in the MVP race, then-manager Joe Girardi compared the slugger to Jeter, noting his attitude, presence and smile. Judge hears the same thrusted on Volpe, and has shared advice.
“It happens quick,” Judge says. “But all of it is nerve-wracking and exciting. You don’t want to make a mistake. You want to show people you belong here. I can see it in the way they walk around, how they’re in the cages. They’re a little nervous but they’re showing, this is where I belong.”
It wasn’t that long ago when Volpe was worshiping Judge as a teenager in New Jersey. Even last year, as Judge approached Roger Maris’ home run mark, the Volpes watched the towering slugger in awe, enjoying the moment as fans, with no way of knowing Anthony would share a spot with Judge in the next year’s Opening Day lineup.
“It can get overwhelming for Anthony because he’s so shy,” Isabelle says. “In the back of his mind, he’s always thinking, he’s there, he’s there, he’s there. ‘I’m in the same room as Aaron Judge.'”
Now it’s Volpe who garners that reaction from both fans and aspiring ballplayers, and his father grapples with the possibility that Volpe could fall short of expectations, and that the fan base that brought him and his wife together could turn on their son.
“I try to remind myself that even if Anthony doesn’t make it, he will be successful at whatever he wants to do in life,” Michael says. “That’s who he is.”
He’s made it this far, to Opening Day at Yankee Stadium. Those around Volpe note he always stayed after his minor league games for as long as possible to sign autographs, half an hour after the lights were turned off, the fireworks ended and his teammates had returned to the locker room.
It’s not something Isabelle tells him to do, but she makes it a point to remind him that with this opportunity comes a responsibility to others. His parents used to do for Jeter and the Core Four the way so many will do for him on Opening Day and during his debut season in the Bronx. There will be strangers asking for his attention, many of whom will be critical or disappointed at times. The chance to succeed or fail at his childhood dreams is a privilege. So Volpe will continue to heed his mom’s advice.
“Never turn away,” Isabelle always tells him, “because Mom was one of those people.”
Jeff Legwold covers the Denver Broncos at ESPN. He has covered the Broncos for more than 20 years and also assists with NFL draft coverage, joining ESPN in 2013. He has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 1999, too. Jeff previously covered the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans at previous stops prior to ESPN.
BOULDER, Colo. — For the horde of NFL talent evaluators and some bleachers full of fans, Colorado coach Deion Sanders said Friday that they all got to see the top two players available in this year’s NFL draft.
Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter were among the 16 Colorado players who took part in the school’s showcase event for scouts, coaches and personnel executives from every NFL team. And Deion Sanders said the two marquee players confirmed what he has known for a long time.
“It’s tremendous,” Sanders said. “… They should be going 1-2 [in the draft], that’s the way I feel about it. They are the two best players in this draft. … The surest bets in this draft are those two young men, and I didn’t stutter or stammer when I said that.”
Neither Shedeur Sanders nor Hunter took part in most of the position drills or physical testing, but Sanders had a throwing session for just under an hour and Hunter was one of the wide receivers who participated. Neither player worked out at the scouting combine earlier this year, so it was the first time Sanders had thrown in such a setting since the end of the season. He showed some full seven-step drops and play-action from the shotgun and under center.
“I think I did pretty good, to my expectations,” said Sanders, who set the career FBS accuracy mark in his two years at Colorado (71.8%) to go with his 4,134 passing yards and 37 touchdowns last season. “I know I did the best in college football right now, for sure.”
Asked after the throwing session whether he believed he was the best quarterback in the draft, Sanders said: “I feel like I’m the No. 1 quarterback, and that’s what I know. But at the end of the day, I’m not stuck on that because it’s about the situation, so whatever situation, whatever franchise believes in me, I’m excited to go. … I’m comfortable in any situation.”
Players Hunter, who did not speak to the media after the workout, and Sanders met with the Cleveland Browns contingent, including team co-owner Jimmy Haslam, on Thursday night in Boulder.
“They got me really full,” Sanders said. “I definitely needed to go to the sauna after that. … It was a good vibe.”
Said Deion Sanders said: “[I] spoke to the owner, truly delightful. He was engaging. … I think one of those guys is going to be there [at No. 2].”
Hunter, the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, did not do any defensive drills Friday, but he ran a full assortment of routes.
Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, Shedeur’s brother, offered plenty of encouragement, shouting commentary and clapping after each throw, including “not a lot of quarterbacks can make that throw” after one deep completion.
The highly attended event — by NFL representatives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” complete with a large lighted “The Showcase” sign next to the drills.
Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Fred Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he will primarily be a wide receiver or a cornerback in the NFL depends “on the team that picks me.”
On Friday, Deion Sanders said “ain’t nobody like Travis.”
Hunter had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and 4 interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.
He played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.
Shilo Sanders, who hoped to show teams more speed than expected, ran a 4.52 40-yard dash after he measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds. He did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.
With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Shedeur Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard. Sheppard, who measured 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran the 40 in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 broad jump.
Henderson has been sidelined with a right intercostal strain and missed the first seven games of the big league campaign.
The 23-year-old Henderson will lead off and play shortstop against the host Royals.
Henderson was injured during a spring training game Feb. 27. He was fourth in American League MVP voting last season when he batted .281 and racked up career bests of 37 homers and 92 RBIs.
Henderson completed a five-game rehab stint at Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday. He batted .263 (5-for-19) with two homers and four RBIs and played four games at shortstop and one as the designated hitter. He did commit three errors.
“I think everybody’s looking forward to having Gunnar back on the team,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday. “The rehab went really, really well. I talked to him a couple days ago, he feels great swinging the bat. The timing came, especially the last few days. He just had to get out there and get some reps defensively and get some games in, and it all went well.”
Baltimore optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to Triple-A Norfolk to open up a roster spot. The 26-year-old was 0-for-4 with a run and RBI in two games this season.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.
Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.
“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.
Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.
But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?
“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”
For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.
“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”
Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.
There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.
“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”
For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.
That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.
This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.
“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”
Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.
The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.
In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.
“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”
Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.
“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”