It\u2019s never a sure thing as to who will lead off for the 2025 Yankees. But those watching the YES network know that Little League teams always introduce the lineup on Sundays, and it\u2019s Long Island\u2019s turn to join the fun.<\/p>\n
Glen Cove\u2019s 9U team will introduce the Yankees\u2019 starting lineup on the YES Network in the bottom of the first inning Sunday against the St. Louis Cardinals. Port Washington\u2019s 8U team will do the same next Sunday on Aug. 24 against the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always love to highlight kids,\u201d YES Network\u2019s senior director of creative content Blayke Scheer said. \u201cWe\u2019re big fans of the Little League World Series here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethpage\u2019s 10U team introduced the Yankees a week ago against the Houston Astros on Aug. 10. Nicole Brisette had emailed YES to see if her son, Anthony, and his Bethpage teammates could participate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a great experience,\u201d Brisette said. \u201cWe were away at a tournament in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, when we got to do the lineup so we were filming in between innings. The boys were very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next up is Glen Cove, with parent Vanessa Ruggeri reaching out to the network having been a longtime Yankee fan herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI already had my son saying, \u2018Mom, you\u2019re the one who set it up, so do I get to choose my player?\u2019\u201d Ruggeri said with a laugh. \u201cThese boys are pretty easygoing \u2026 I think they\u2019re just excited to have this opportunity in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
YES lead producer Troy Benjamin thought of the idea in 2022, with Scheer \u2014 a class of 2000 Port Washington graduate \u2014 taking point in making the concept a reality. Teams applied through an email address, which soon was inundated with replies and pitches as Scheer had to close applications by mid-July.<\/p>\n
Scheer said that while Aaron Judge is an obvious favorite to introduce, Anthony Volpe was another highly sought-after name to introduce.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s some of the kids\u2019 favorite memories,\u201d Scheer said. \u201cThey get to have that moment for the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Port Washington gets the chance to do the same on Aug. 24 in the finale of the Yankees-Red Sox series, there\u2019ll be an extra level of pride burning from Scheer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of my greatest pleasures, to give back to my town,\u201d Scheer said. \u201cTo be able to now be in this position where I can offer kids from Port Washington the opportunity to do it, I feel great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master\u2019s degree in sports journalism in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s never a sure thing as to who will lead off for the 2025 Yankees. But those watching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,17224,5292,4,1690,62,2548,2547,142,23254,7200],"class_list":{"0":"post-252606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-li-athletes","10":"tag-little-league","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-yankees","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkyankees","16":"tag-yankees","17":"tag-yes-network","18":"tag-youth-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115040358532804039","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}