In most walks of life, the realization of a dream usually coincides with the end of a long journey. More often than not, it happens after quite a few years -- decades, even -- of doing one thing, of pursuing a single goal.

The narrative surrounding Anthony Volpe during the early part of the 2023 baseball season was that he achieved his lifelong dream by taking the field for the New York Yankees. The 21-year-old from Watchung, New Jersey -- who grew up with similar aspirations to those of Hall of Fame shortstop Derek Jeter and who fell in love with the Yankees at an early age, who frequented Yankee Stadium with his family and told anyone who asked that his goal was to one day wear the pinstripes -- lived out that fantasy. The kid who spent his childhood less than 50 miles from the town where Jeter was born and who proudly posed for a photo with the perennial All-Star when he was 8 years old was suddenly right where always envisioned himself.

In the last year, the Yankees’ first-round Draft choice in 2019 picked up the pace in his climb to the big leagues, ascending from Double-A Somerset to the exact position that Jeter held for two decades. On Opening Day of the 2023 season, Volpe made his Major League debut as the starting shortstop of the New York Yankees.

This was no longer Volpe’s dream; it was his reality.

Having learned that he made the team a few days prior to the March 30 opener in the Bronx, Volpe took stock of how special the day was, hours before he took the field.

“I drove in from the city, got here at around 8:45 in the morning,” he said during his first postgame press conference at Yankee Stadium. “I sent my parents pictures from the outside of the Stadium as I was pulling up. It’s all pretty surreal. Moments like that help it all sink in.”

As the hours passed and the game drew closer, Volpe’s emotions gradually changed, with the excitement he felt reaching its zenith just before the 1:05 p.m. first pitch.

“I had a lot of adrenaline when I was in the dugout,” he said. “But what was cool about it being Opening Day is that it wasn’t just me that felt that way. I thought everyone was pretty excited to get out there and start playing.”

Volpe’s smile stretched from ear to ear as he was introduced by Yankee Stadium public address announcer Paul Olden. Batting ninth in a lineup that featured the reigning American League MVP, Aaron Judge, who authored one of the most epic seasons in baseball history and who then signed a nine-year contract, Volpe still garnered the loudest ovation during the baseline introductions.

“That was probably the most fun day of my entire life,” Volpe said. “I had goosebumps from the time the pregame festivities started until the first pitch of the game. To get welcomed by the fans the way I did and then be able to just go out there and play baseball, that was the best part.”

Not long after the warm welcome, Volpe sprinted to the place on the field from which Jeter had captivated his attention all those years ago.

This day was about a lot of things for Volpe, and one of them was his love for the Yankees and his off-the-charts pride in wearing the pinstripes. It didn’t take long for the shortstop to show the world exactly how he felt about the team he grew up rooting for.

When his name was called during the traditional roll call from the Stadium’s passionate Bleacher Creatures in Section 203, he waved his glove in the direction of right field and then -- accepting some advice and a little nudging from Judge -- kissed the interlocking NY logo on his chest.

“I was kind of ragging him a little bit,” Judge said, referring to a conversation the two had a day earlier. “I basically told him, ‘I know you’re a big Yankees fan, but you have to have something special for those Bleacher Creatures. You’re the shortstop for the New York Yankees, so you’ve got to have something.’ He was throwing out a couple of ideas; I didn’t know which one he was going to go with.”

When Volpe remembered that Judge had made a similar gesture in the Yankees’ dugout last season, it didn’t take him much time to realize that taking a page out of the Captain’s book made sense as a symbol to match his feelings.

“Aaron was asking me about what I was going to do when we were in the tubs,” said Volpe, who had about 50 friends and family members scattered throughout the seats on the 39-degree afternoon, along with a group of players from his high school. “I thought about it on the spot in that conversation. When I brought up that specific idea, he gave me a thumbs-up, so that’s what I felt like I should do.”

The applause for Volpe in the wake of his first roll call extended far beyond the bleachers.

“He got a pretty good roar out of that one,” Judge said. “Usually, it’s a quick burst of cheers that players get during roll call, but this one was definitely a little different and a lot more special.”

Two innings later, Volpe’s first career plate appearance to lead off the bottom of the third drew rapt attention.

“I almost felt like he was chasing 62 there,” said Judge, whose history-chasing at-bats last September captivated home and road crowds alike. “That’s how the crowd was reacting.”

Facing San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb, the rookie fought off a pitch and worked the count full before drawing a walk in his first plate appearance.

“That’s who he is,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s an incredible thing to do that on Opening Day for the team you grew up watching and that you’re now playing shortstop for. He was aggressive early. He fouled the first pitch off and took some close pitches.”

Volpe added another memory to his special day when he recorded the first steal of his career four pitches after reaching first base. Although he didn’t get a hit in his debut -- he went 0-for-3 in the Yankees’ 5-0 victory -- Volpe took baseball’s biggest stage with the look of a veteran, which only enhanced his standing in a clubhouse filled with superstars.

“He had great at-bats,” Judge said. “He was aggressive and smart at the plate. In that first at-bat, with the fans on their feet, he worked a good walk. Then, he steals a few pitches into the next at-bat, and the fans appreciated that, as well. He had a lot of poise, a lot of patience. He’s a competitor. He made some great plays on defense, and it was an all-around good day for him. I know that he didn’t get the hits he wanted or that we’ve seen all spring, but those will come.”

“Opening Days are filled with pageantry and excitement and different emotions for everybody,” said Gerrit Cole, who struck out 11 batters over six scoreless innings. “It’s really cool that Volpe got to experience it, that he got called up and made the Opening Day roster as his debut. Whenever a player makes his debut, it reminds the rest of us of our first game. It brings you back to a fond memory of when your career started. That has an infectious energy; it’s hard not to have a smile on your face when you watch a guy like Volpe do what he did today.”

Volpe’s rise through the team’s Minor League system was fast -- especially over the last 12 months -- and the idea that he would be the team’s starting shortstop at the start of the 2023 season didn’t seem very likely last spring.

Following a productive campaign in which he made the jump from Single-A to High-A in 2021, Volpe began the 2022 season with Double-A Somerset. But his first two months with the Patriots were filled with challenges. At the end of May, Volpe, then ranked 10th among prospects by Baseball America, was batting .203 with five home runs. Through that cold stretch, though, he remained calm, a trait that will no doubt serve him well in the Majors.

“The struggles lasted longer than I would have ever wanted them to last season,” Volpe said at the beginning of Spring Training this year in Tampa, Fla. “The hardest part was that I felt like I hurt the team in Somerset, and that I wasn’t the player that I was expected to be. Walking back to my locker without any dirt on my jersey was hard on me mentally, especially when we lost. But even in those times, I was adamant about not freaking out, not changing anything or not making a bigger deal about it than it deserved. To this day, I’m confident in the training I put in during the offseason and during my in-season routine. Because of the results I already had, I felt like making any significant changes would have caused an even bigger problem for me.”

Volpe fought his way out of the slump. By the beginning of September 2022, he was batting .251 with 18 home runs, 60 RBIs, 31 doubles and 44 stolen bases.

“Going through the early season struggles gave me even more confidence,” Volpe said. “Knowing that I didn’t change anything, and mentally, I was able to have the same approach and get myself out of it, that went a long way. I woke up every morning knowing that I was going to work hard and do the same stuff. I knew that I wouldn’t ultimately become the player who was struggling.”

As things improved for Volpe on the field in Somerset, he was able to relish the uniqueness of playing professional baseball practically in his backyard. With TD Bank Ballpark located about 10 miles from his hometown, Volpe usually took the field in front of a slew of his most passionate supporters. In addition to Volpe’s younger sister, his friends and more distant family members, it was rare not to find either his parents or his paternal grandfather -- who had begun rooting for the Yankees when his father returned from World War II -- in the seats.

“It was amazing,” Volpe said. “It was a unique opportunity and season. It was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience, getting to play in my hometown for the New York Yankees organization. Getting to reconnect with people who I would see at the ballpark made it even more special. There were so many people who took the time to support me. Just being a hometown kid, I have already garnered more attention than I could have ever imagined.”

As the calendar flipped to September, the Yankees promoted Volpe to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he batted .236 with three home runs and six stolen bases in 22 games. Even though Volpe had less than a month’s worth of at-bats in the highest level of the minors, he felt that the timing of the promotion provided him with a valuable experience.

“The majority of the pitchers had already gotten called up to the majors,” Volpe said. “But even though there were a lot of younger pitchers in Triple-A at that time, there were a lot of veteran catchers, so I definitely noticed the way that pitches were being called and the way the game flowed. The more experienced catchers were picking up on certain things I was doing in my approach. That forced me to make adjustments just about every day.”

When the 2022 season came to a close, Volpe had smashed 21 home runs and stolen 50 bases between Double-A and Triple-A. Andruw Jones, who came up in the Atlanta Braves organization before bursting onto the big league scene in 1996, was the last player to achieve those lofty totals in a Minor League season.

“It’s pretty cool to think about,” said Volpe, who is listed at 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds. “But I didn’t know about that stat until after the fact. Our staff deserves a lot of credit for that; we definitely work on the fundamentals and momentum that [Yankees director of speed development and baserunning] Matt Talarico has taught us. We work on the technique of getting good jumps and decreasing the risk of getting caught.

“I’m proud that I got to 50 bags because even when I was wasn’t producing at the plate early in the season, I still felt like I was able to impact the game when I got on the bases. If I got on base once a game, I stayed locked in enough and was able to get into scoring position pretty frequently. It’s about being a complete player and being dependable, and I think I was able to do that.”

When the baseball world began to focus on the 2023 season sometime after last year’s postseason, there was definite buzz surrounding Volpe. Could he actually win the big league shortstop job at just 21 years old? Or, with only a month spent in Triple-A, would he need more time in the Minors?

True to form, Volpe wasted no time in controlling what he could control, arriving in Tampa at the beginning of December, much earlier than he had in previous years. He was at the Yankees’ Minor League facility every weekday, doing strength training in the mornings and then getting on the field for hitting and fielding.

“I had a good relationship with the hitting staff and the fielding staff, and there were a few things that I wanted to work out,” he said. “I wanted to really figure out what my bad habits were, and I wanted to work them out before Spring Training. I felt like being in Tampa was the best place to challenge myself. The culture that the hitting and defensive staffs have put together welcomes failure in training. It helps you figure out how you can build yourself back up.”

Volpe also felt that being in an atmosphere that somewhat mirrored the one he would be in when camp broke would be helpful.

“We had warm weather and a long schedule each day,” he said. “It was a great time to get acclimated to Tampa and to the type of days that we were going to be having in spring training.”

By the time Volpe began his first big league camp, the outside noise surrounding his chances to make the team had been amplified. But when asked about his perspective on the important subject, Volpe offered a response that only reinforced his long-term perspective.

“Making the roster is a lifelong goal that I want to accomplish,” Volpe said. But the young shortstop in his first big league camp knew that the story of his career would not be written entirely based on whether he headed north with the club. “Even though it’s my goal, there is still so much that is out of my control. It’s easy to compartmentalize things to an extent. I feel like if I do what I have to do every day, everything will work out in time. Making the team is not the end goal. I want to accomplish a lot after I make it to the big leagues.”

Volpe’s words may have indicated that making the big league club this spring was not paramount to his career aspirations, but his play certainly proved that he belonged in the Bronx. With his grandfather, also named Anthony, in Tampa for the whole spring season, Volpe batted .309 with three home runs. He made just about every routine play at shortstop, and at times recorded the seemingly impossible outs -- reminding fans of a young Jeter.

A few days before the team left for Washington, D.C., to take on the Nationals in its final exhibition game before the March 30 opener at Yankee Stadium, Volpe was summoned to the manager’s office.

With general manager Brian Cashman in the room, Boone began the conversation in a way that made it seem as if Volpe would be headed back to Scranton. But the manager was actually playing a joke on the young shortstop; he would ultimately give up the prank and tell Volpe that he would be heading north with the big club.

“He showed up early this winter,” Cashman said. “He showed up here in Tampa, on his own, voluntarily. He knew there was a competition, and he was intent on winning it from the defensive side and the offensive side. He was one of the first to get here in the morning, pregame or pre-practice, and one of the last to leave. He just dominated all sides of the ball from February through March, and that bodes well for him as we move forward, as well as us.”

Before he could take the field on Opening Day, Volpe had one more important task. Having worn No. 77 during Spring Training as a tribute to his grandfather’s all-time favorite Yankee, Mickey Mantle, Volpe had to decide whether to keep a double version of The Mick’s No. 7 or to switch to a lower number. After contemplating it for a day and speaking with a few family members, Volpe decided to ask the team for No. 11, which was last worn by Brett Gardner.

Before he would make it official, Volpe made a first-class move. Out of respect to the highly regarded outfielder, who wore the number from 2008 through 2021, Volpe reached out to Gardner, asking for his blessing.

“I got to talk to him on the phone, and it was a really good conversation,” Volpe said. “I really appreciate him taking the time. Most of the conversation wasn’t even about wearing No. 11; it was about his experiences. His impact on the clubhouse to this day is ginormous. Obviously, we have leaders in the clubhouse, but I think that he played a significant role in turning those players into leaders by taking them under his wing, the same way they have now taken me under their wing. I couldn’t thank him enough for the things he did and for the impact that he still has.”

Volpe has been on the receiving end of some incredible praise since first turning pro and taking the field with the Pulaski Yankees of the Appalachian League in 2019. But it’s hard to imagine any words being more profound than those of the Yankees’ captain following Volpe’s first game in pinstripes.

“Getting a chance to see 11 back on the field was nice,” Judge said. “I don’t know a better guy to keep the legacy of Gardy going on than Volpe. He’s got that same tenacity and excitement, and I’m hoping he can steal 50 bases just like Gardy did. That’s going to be something special.”

As Volpe said on a hot February day in Tampa, simply making the team was only one part of a much bigger plan. There are more accomplishments for Volpe to achieve.

Two days after the opener, Volpe collected the first and second hits of his career, and by the end of a three-game series against the Giants, he had three stolen bases to his name.

With his Major League career just a few days old, Volpe was reminded of a conversation he had early in Spring Training. His response was as consistent as his play had been during that stretch.

“When I was growing up, I dreamed of being a player who could help a team win a World Series,” he said while standing at his locker at Yankee Stadium. “That’s what I’m still working toward.”

Alfred Santasiere III is the editor-in-chief of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the May 2023 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.