The Pinacle of fandom
Being a fan of something, especially a sports team, is a sureal experience. The highs and lows of a game, a season, even a decade can wrench your emotions in a ways that nothing else that has no material impact on your life can. You cheer, you cry, you ponder, you dial in, you give up. That cycle can happen over the course of a year or you can experince all of those emotions in a single night.
I have been a fan of the New York Yankees as long as I can remember. My dad is a Yankees fan, his Dad was a Yankees fan. I had posters of Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield hanging on my childhood bedroom wall. I've sat in the bleachers, pregamed at Stan's, hung on every pitch as they won their third world series in a row and held my head in my hands in disbelief when they fell to the Red Sox in 2004. But for all the highs and all the lows, nothing the Yankees have ever done has affected my fate, and I have never had the fortune to affect theirs.
But imagine being a kid raised as a Yankees fan. Imagine being 8 years old and watching the Bombers win the World Series. Imagine being at the parade with your family and thinking, one day I am going to play for my favorite team. It's not hard to imagine, because many kids have been there.
Now imagine being a fan not only of the team, but of the game. Imagine dedicating your life to baseball all through High School. Still not hard. Then imagine being drafted by the New York Yankees when you turn 18. Now we're getting somewhere.
You scratch and crawl your way through the minor leagues, some successes, some failures, but in both cases a lot of comeptition along the way. You're favorite player growing up was the last great short stop they employed, and that is your position. Big shoes to fill. And then you get the call. You're invited to spring training.
As a 'superfan', but someone who never played baseball, I desperately want to know what that feeling must have been when the manager called Anthony Volpe in to his office to say "You got the job." We have all interviewed for a job before, but chances are that job wasn't with an organization whose logo was on a hat you wore to a parade when you were eight.
Then the inevitable happens. Reality does its thing, and you are slapped in the face with just how hard this 'job' really is. You have some ups, you have some downs, but all along the way you try to remember that you are living out your dream, even if you didn't know just how hard it was going to be.
Its cold, its October. It's Yankee stadium, and its the World Series. You are playing in the World freakin' Series! And you are losing. The other team is destined. Your team is down three games to none, and the best players, the veterans, the guys who have been there before are all stugglng. You walk to the plate, the bases are loaded, and the bright lights dim and you are a kid again.
"Imagine hitting a grand slam in the World Series!" Him and his friends probably played out that scenario dozens of times.
You're down, everyone is slumping, you have nothing to lose.
Pitch. Swing. Hit. Gone.
Imagine the eight year old inside of you having their wildest fantasy fullfilled. Imagine being 23 years old when it happened.
It sounds impossible to imagine, even more improbably to happen. But for one young man in the Bronx this October. the impossible became reality, the improbably became inevitable, and the eight year old inside of him does not need to imagine anymore. That is the pinacle of fandom. That is Anthony Volpe.
