SURPRISE, Ariz. _ Here goes the whirlwind that is Mike Matheny, roaming the outfield, bat in hand.
One instant the Royals' new manager is pointing it up and miming aim at a baseball going overhead; the next he's bunting down stray fly balls as he moves to mingle among players shagging flies.
Over the course of days, he could be crouching down with catchers he looks like he could still thrive among.
Across the way, he might be talking with the pitchers he's felt a connection with since he was 10 years old and became enamored of catching on the way to earning four Gold Gloves.
Catching and leadership, he believes, are "synonymous," starting with the fundamental idea of learning to ask good questions and listen well as he sought to make pitchers "truly trust me."
Something that seems to be accruing here in any number of ways: For instance, in the seriousness with which prospect Jackson Kowar has taken an emphasis on reducing delivery time to the plate _ so much so that it was perhaps at the expense of his mechanics.
"'I so respect the fact that you're listening to what we're saying,'" Matheny recalled telling him last week. "'But you don't need to be that quick.'"
Across the Valley of the Sun in Scottsdale against Colorado on Thursday, Matheny is listening in on hitting coach Terry Bradshaw tutoring slugger Ryan O'Hearn between a few off-kilter at-bats and an O'Hearn home run.
And he's taking notes from the top step of the dugout. And throwing batting practice.
The latter is a habit he developed when he was managing the St. Louis Cardinals from 2012 to mid-2018. He resumed it last year as he roved and audited the KC organization as special adviser for player development, a position that ultimately morphed into manager-in-waiting after Ned Yost retired.
"If they like (his pitching), you just do it," he said. "I just want to be available for what anybody needs."
So much so that the other day before playing the Rockies, he went overtime on an interview with The Star, looked at his watch and said, "Oooh, I've got to get out there." Then he ran from his office to the field.
