How Anthony Volpe's rebound sparked the Yankees and extended the World Series

NEW YORK — The bigger the spotlight on his individual efforts, the softer Anthony Volpe's voice gets.

When the Yankees shortstop is asked about his performance in a given game, he tends to brush off the magnitude of his heroics before redirecting the spotlight onto his teammates. That's how it went late Tuesday night, moments after he hit a grand slam for his first career playoff home run and was brought into the Yankees press conference room to discuss it.

Even though this wasn't just a typical grand slam — it gave the Yankees a much-needed early lead over the Dodgers in an elimination Game 4 of the World Series — Volpe sat at the podium with the same shy demeanor and soft-spoken voice that he's exhibited since his major-league debut last year. Only when he was asked to trace his Yankees fandom did the 23-year-old sit up a little straighter and look more confident, more self-assured, in front of the cameras and bright lights.

"My grandfather, the Yankees are more than just a team or an organization for him," Volpe said. "Because his father fought in World War II when he was little, and by the time he got back, his mom basically told him, ‘This is your dad.' He didn't know him, didn't recognize him, didn't know anything. The way he says it, the way he got to know and get to know his father was, he sat on his lap every single night, and they listened to the Yankees together. So, for him, it's more than sports."

It's a story he's told before, but never on the grandest national stage, when there are more eyeballs and attention on the second-year shortstop than he's ever experienced. Volpe's shy nature means we might never know, at least not for a while, how much this grand slam that sparked an 11-4 blowout actually meant to