Inside the dinner that led Anthony Volpe on path to Yankees
It was one dinner that put Anthony Volpe on the path to be the Yankees’ starting shortstop this season.
nypost.com
Jim Hendry, Yankees executive, took Anthony Volpe and his parents out for dinner a few weeks before the 2019 major league draft. Volpe was a passionate Yankees fan and, more importantly, a star high school shortstop out of New Jersey who was about to help Delbarton win its second state title in three years.
Hendry wanted his employers to take the teenager with their first-round pick, No. 30 overall, and yet a considerable hurdle needed to be cleared before that was even possible because Volpe had verbally committed to go to Vanderbilt. If ever a kid seemed a perfect match for the academic and athletic rigors of a prestigious Division I university, it was Anthony Michael Volpe, the son of a urologist and an anesthesiologist who put a high value on higher education.
“Anthony profiled from Day 1 to be on the campus of Vanderbilt University,” his Delbarton coach, Bruce Shatel, told The Post. “He was a very high-end academic young man. He never got a B at Delbarton, and we are a very good school.
“Anthony was always on time for class and always presented himself well. His shirts were tucked in, his hair was always combed, he was bright-eyed and always ready to learn and enthusiastic about school, baseball, everything. He was all squared away.”
Oh, and his dear friend, teammate, and fellow top prospect Jack Leiter was heading to Vanderbilt. They planned on winning more championships together.
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Hendry’s communication skills paid off that night in the steakhouse. As the former coach at Creighton, who had taken his team to the 1991 College World Series, Hendry had only positive things to tell Volpe, his mother, Isabelle, and his father, Michael, about the college baseball experience.
Anthony VolpeCharles Wenzelberg / New York PostBut Hendry compared Volpe to one of the prospect’s favorite players, Astros All-Star Alex Bregman, who had played three years at LSU before being drafted second overall in 2015.
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“So this is probably your only chance to be a Yankee,” Hendry told Volpe. “If we’re right and you become what we think you’ll become, then when you come out of Vanderbilt you’re going to be drafted way too high to be picked by the Yankees. We’re not going to be picking where Bregman was drafted.”
