Do you think your office is interesting? Most people probably would disagree. Maybe parts of your job are interesting, but the office-y parts? The ones where you’re answering emails or getting a Gatorade from the fridge or politely asking your coworker if they had a good weekend while you pass each other in the hallway? Probably not.
I would argue that the clubhouse is the baseball office. It shouldn’t be interesting. And it’s really not. But there is some intrigue in the mundane. The following are
some scenes from the Royals clubhouse. Some of them important. Some less so.
Sam Mellinger, VP of communication, waves at the reporters and TV camera operators in the room: Stephen Cruz is ready for his interview. We crowd around Cruz, the cameras turn on, and questions are sent his way, taking a short detour through a translator. Cruz answers in Spanish, the translator responding to the rest of us in English. Cruz threw all of one (1) inning in Triple-A Omaha before being summoned to Kansas City, Cruz ostensibly making the trip down the well-trod I-29 thoroughfare like so many before—including himself.
Cruz is excited about his slider, which he worked on in the offseason. He wasn’t worried about getting called up, because that was outside his control. He was just ready to pitch, and pitch he did, and pitch he will in Kansas City. Maybe even that night. Cruz seems ready.
That Cruz is here at all is because the Royals decided to send Carlos Estevez to the injured list due to his foot bruise. Er, “contusion,” manager Matt Quatraro clarifies a little later in his daily dugout interview. But Q used “bruise” first, and this is one of those situations where the technical term removes some of the teeth of what actually happens. A contusion is clinical, specific. A bruise is that nasty purplish-orange-green thing that happens when you accidentally slam your knee into the corner of the table and try to say every curse word you personally know all at once.
Estevez seemed to be in good spirits. He was walking around without much of a limp and without a boot. But, man, he has to be going through it. Imagine if you had a bad day at work and then someone threw a 90-something mile per hour fastball at your foot.
I’ve been in the clubhouse when the Royals have been blasting music before. Today is quiet. There’s some muffled sound coming from a few of the televisions, which are playing sports shows and varying baseball-related content.
But there was one TV that is just playing, you know, Bluey, as you do. The press gets clubhouse access for 45 minutes to an hour, give or take. And during that whole time, just like, constant Disney Jr., a marathon of children’s television. It’s the sort of thing I’d do as a joke, just to see how long it would stay on before someone did a double-take. No one did.
As I walked in, my eyes narrowed and I wonder what’s different about the room. I’m only there a dozen times a year, but something is different. I compile my memory and eventually ask Jake Eisenberg, who I know won’t mock me for asking a potentially dumb question: “New carpet?” “Yes, new carpet,” he replies. It’s got a new blue pattern in it and two very large Royals logos that weren’t there before.
Also new: some locker locations. Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen, besties, are now together on the right side. Tyler Tolbert is now by Vinnie Pasquantino. And Maikel Garcia got an upgrade, moving by one of the empty lockers in the back by his Team Venezuela teammate Salvador Perez.
It’s an upgrade because having an empty locker next to yours means more space, and that privilege is granted to the best players. Which two Royals have an empty locker on either side? You can probably guess: Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez.
Boredom can strike anywhere. For Carter Jensen and Lane Thomas, they decide to pass the time by doing something as old as time: playing cards.
Now, what kind of cards? I don’t know, I prefer not to loom over players who are doing something in their own space, in which I am a guest. But Noah Cameron looms. He is invested in the card game, which is funny because he will start on the mound of a Major League Baseball game in a few hours. Some pitchers keep to themselves during their starting day. But not Cameron, who seems lose—an embrace of the doldrums of work that even baseball players go through.
