It wasn’t enough that Freddie Freeman had introduced himself to the short porch in right field again, muffling a rabid crowd before it could even clear its throat. And it wasn’t enough that despite the best efforts of the dudes down the right field line to swipe a baseball out of Mookie Betts’ glove that the Yankees couldn’t get a run right back.
No. Then, almost as one, an inning later, there were 49,354 people who, it seemed, were all yelling the same question at once:
“WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING?!?!?”
That particular interrogation was aimed at Anthony Volpe, who’d been standing on second base yet somehow managed to advance only to third on a one-out drive by Austin Wells that came a few inches from clearing the wall. Volpe stood on third base and understood the pleas perfectly. He punched his thigh.
“I’ve got to be better,” he thought to himself.
He scored a few minutes later, on an Alex Verdugo grounder, so the damage was minimal. Still: A day after the Yankees had stalled their momentum by sending a runner they shouldn’t have, in Giancarlo Stanton, a moment when the third base coach was just a little too reckless, they’d now been imperiled by Volpe being just a little too careful.
Now, Volpe walked to the plate an inning later. The bases were loaded, bottom of the third. They’d been juiced three days earlier, too, top of the ninth inning, Dodger Stadium, when just a single could’ve tied Game 2 at 4-4. He’d flailed at a Blake Treinen pitch instead, a ball that ended up about two feet wide of the strike zone.
“He’s still learning some things,” Aaron Boone had said a day later. “But he learns them pretty quickly.”
Anthony Rizzo had just popped up for the second out. The Yankees had clogged the bases all night so far and only had the one run to show for it. Daniel Hudson was one pitch away from pulling another plug out of the wall, shoving everyone a little bit closer to the winter.
“Keep it simple,” Volpe said to himself. “And be on time for the heater.”
Hudson didn’t go with the heater. He went with a slider, which curled into the hitting zone at 89 miles per hour. Volpe took a full cut. And watched it fly.
“Honestly, I was just hustling,” he would say, “and then I kind of blacked out.”
Everyone else was able to savor every second of the ball’s 390-foot path over the wall right where the red Budweiser sign meets the red State Farm sign in left-center field. The crowd — so nervous so tense, so full of anxiety and unease — let loose a roar that was audible out by the Montauk Point lighthouse. The Yankees dugout was Delta House.
“That was sick,” said Wells, who would have a game himself, too, adding a home run to his earlier double, joining forces with his old minor-league running buddy to push the Yankees to an 11-4 win in Game 4 of this 120th World Series, keep the season alive for at least another 20 hours, keep a whisper of summer alive.
“When he hit that ball, I knew it was hit hard and I knew we were going to score some runs,” Wells said. “But it when it went over the wall … that was pretty cool, watching from the on-deck circle.”
They scored four of them with that one swing, and suddenly 2-1 down was 5-2 up and suddenly, for the first time since the 10th inning of Game 1, it was the Dodgers chasing the Yankees and not the other way around. Suddenly, the fans scrapped plans for an Irish wake and instead went about the business of trying to shake the unshakeable Dodgers.
And for one night, they did.
And so for at least one more night, the Yankees survive, still understanding the stiff odds facing them but also needing to know: While it’s true that no team has ever recovered from a 3-0 deficit to win the World Series, there have been six of them who’ve come back from 3-1 down.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the Yankees in the postseason:
- Yankees keep season alive as offense finally breaks out in big way
- Rookie’s first World Series outing was just enough for the Yankees
- Heyman: Yankees finally showed some signs to believe in as Bombers keep title hopes alive
- Vaccaro: The Yankees were at rock bottom before Anthony Volpe’s heroics
And that’s where the Yankees are now. Thanks to the one guy in the room who knows what the Canyon of Heroes looks like, and feels like. Fifteen years ago, he was a kid playing hooky (with parental permission). Now, it’s still in play that he’ll get a float all his own, all thanks to seizing a moment and delivering for the team he worshipped as a kid
“He loves being a Yankee, and he loves the guys he gets to go do it with every day,” Boone said. “What they have in that room is real.”
And what they have in front of them is also real: One more night at Yankee Stadium, to which they’ll bring their luggage fully expecting a cross-country flight right after. Their ace on the mound, Gerrit Cole.
And a full tank of gas, thanks mostly to a Yankees fan who grew up to be the Yankees shortstop, and an October Yankees hero of the first order. Sometimes, real life really does beat the movies.