KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Early Friday, as Major League Baseball officially resumed with what it's calling "Summer Camp," Royals manager Mike Matheny considered the "giddy" vibe of the last few days as players reported and informal workouts were conducted at Kauffman Stadium.
"Getting out there and hearing a ball off the bat," he said, "it was like music to your ears."
And, really, it was just that during the 90-minute period the stadium was open to the media.
The sharp crack of the bat reverberated around the hollow stadium, particularly when defending American League home-run king Jorge Soler was at the plate.
It never sounded so good. Or maybe I just never listened as hard for it.
For that matter, the rhythmic thwack of baseballs on gloves resounded. And the banter of players resonated yards and yards away on a day that Matheny later would call "fabulous" because his team was so ready to go. Even veterans entering the stadium the last few days, he said, walked onto the field and looked around with a certain sense of exhilaration about returning to the game in earnest.
"Until it's been taken away," he said, "sometimes you don't realize just how much you need it, how much you live it, how much you miss it."
The sort of stuff we took for granted for so long was, in fact, invigorating and reassuring and encouraging just because it seemed so ... normal.
Especially if you didn't dwell on what caused the 10-week hiatus ... or look too closely ... or take into account that this was spring training reprised not in Surprise, Ariz., but Kansas City.
But even before the news Saturday that star catcher Salvador Perez had the coronavirus (thankfully, he's asymptomatic and the testing was a prerequisite to him working out with the team) and Matheny's revelation that he had it complete with the symptoms about a month ago, the shadow of the pandemic indeed lurked:
From what we could observe in masks worn by coaches on the field, and social-distance efforts during stretching (some more so than others), or doing Zoom interviews with players while we're all at the stadium, and even the limited number of players convening here at any time ...
To what we don't see behind the scenes, where the 60 players in camp were tested in advance and will have their temperatures taken every morning and are spread out in the home and visitors clubhouses with extra spacing between lockers and meals are pre-packaged and physical contact highly discouraged.
When he was asked about throwing live, pitcher Ian Kennedy first alluded to sorting out "the new normal" all around him. Asked what stood out to him, outfielder Hunter Dozier lamented not being able to hug close friends he hasn't seen in nearly three months.
He hadn't even seen everyone yet because of the staggered workouts and entry times.
"I could go a couple days without seeing some guys," he said.
So there are a lot of oddities and inconveniences, and it's all quite precarious ... as the Perez news dramatically reinforces.
MLB and the MLB Players Association announced Friday that 31 players and seven staff members on 19 teams had tested positive among the 3,185 samples taken in the "Intake Screening process under MLB's COVID-19 Health Monitoring & Testing Plan."
And with the pandemic surging, no one can say with certainty that this enterprise won't collapse between now and the revised opening days (set for later this month and expected to be announced next week). Baseball and everyone involved could be cast back into limbo.
In other words, it's a lot like real life right now.
And that's the takeaway here in so many different ways.
None of this is ideal, perhaps particularly for a team with a new manager seeking to cultivate relationships and chemistry and camaraderie.
He knows that trust is paramount, and that it is developed best through time spent in the immediate presence of people ... constructive as all the Zooming has been.
But, what's that expression, don't let perfection be the enemy of the good?
These are the wild cards in this particular opportunity, and how you see them and play them is up to you.
And here's what the situation looks like through the instructive and thought-provoking lens of Matheny, whose perspective has worthy broader ramifications.
For one, it's about what he calls "the urgency of right now" in terms of wringing out all that can be gotten from each day and being ready for a season that will be more sprint (60 games) than marathon.
And, hey, everything is equal as of July 3, which is more than the Royals could say 26 games down on this date a year ago and 22.5 back in 2018.
It's about seizing the moment, like top prospect Bobby Witt Jr. (the overall No. 2 selection in the 2019 MLB draft) did in his first major league camp plate appearance with a 12-pitch at-bat that ended with a one-hopper off the right-field wall and left Matheny, well, giggling with how cool it was.
It's about not fearing the virus but respecting it. And shrugging off, or even embracing, the potential nuisances like the mask mandates for all when inside. The "toughest teams," Matheny said, will be the ones who don't let that stuff turn into distractions ... and thus excuses.
Toward that end, Matheny said he already has gotten so used to the mask even in this context that he forgets he has it on from time to time.
"It's not that big a deal," he said. "And ... I think it's also time to put the rubber to the road. Because (we all) talked about, 'Hey, we will do whatever we've got to do to get back out on the field.'
"You know, that's easy to say. Let's get in here and prove it."
It's also about what Matheny said general manager Dayton Moore has said a number of times recently: " 'We're just going to need some grace here for a while.' "
Speaking of which, the virus ravaging the world and flourishing here somehow, absurdly, has become politicized.
Not here, where Matheny says it's all about "best practices" and "how can we take the best shot at this possible?"
Never mind that the demographics indicate very few players would be on a high-risk level.
Nobody should fall into the trap of feeling like just because they are young and healthy and tested that they somehow are "10-(feet)-tall and bullet-proof," Matheny said.
Following the protocols is so crucial that Matheny is planning to be "non-stop" and "overbearing, probably" and make it a "sermon that these poor guys are going to get beat over the head with."
Somebody may want to complain about that in general or, in this case, about having to wake up at 6 a.m. daily to have your temperature taken and fill out a questionnaire.
Heck, he added, maybe all of us would want to complain about that.
But is it really so awful to think of it as both doing yourself a favor and extending a potentially life-saving courtesy to others?
And to simply think, as Matheny put it, "This isn't about me; this is about us."
It's one thing, of course, to batten down everything at the stadium. It will be another to impress upon a young and sociable group that how they spend their time off the field will be vital.
As Dozier notes, there would be no shame in getting the virus while taking all due precautions. But it would be quite the stigma if it's contracted with reckless behavior.
"I think it's all just part of the sacrifice that we need to do for each other, that we need to do for this community (and) for our fans and for the good of the game," Matheny said. "We've got to do our part."
Day by day ... even if there's no way to know what's coming tomorrow.
Adapting as they are with their heads down but not in the ground.
"Keep going until somebody shuts us down," Dozier said, "or we get to opening day."
