Triston Casas arrived for his first day of work Sunday morning.
He got a quick tour of the facilities and was immediately struck by the size and scope of the kitchen available to new employees. That and the fact that the kitchen houses a personal chef, eager to prepare food to order. Casas went with the avocado toast, some eggs and some ground turkey.
After a short debriefing with local media, Casas prepared for his day on the job.
Never one to consume much caffeine or energy drinks, he found a more holistic way to get ready for the workday. He went outside, casually removed his shirt and stretched out on the grass to do some stretching and yoga exercises, repeating a daily ritual he undertook at his old job, the one he had in Worcester before earning his latest promotion.
At some more modern workplaces, ping pong tables and video games are available as diversions. Here, sunbathing was the preferred leisurely activity of the day. While his co-workers went about their preparation for the work at hand, Casas was focused on getting his daily intake of Vitamin D.
This struck some more experienced co-workers as, well, different. For them, such displays are unusual.
"Are you (expletive) kidding me?'' exclaimed one, as he came upon the scene on the grass.
Casas' first day was probably unlike the experience of most. It's not often that 32,422 cheered you on your first day -- and that was just for showing up.
For that matter, Casas is unlike most 22-year-olds. He's a power-hitting, slick-fielding, mountain of a man. The Red Sox haven't specified what their policy is on retention bonuses, but it's evident that they would like the new guys to stay on the job for a while.
"He's going to play pretty much every day,'' said the boss, Alex Cora.
Casas had spent Saturday night predictably excited about his new position. Having been given the news by Worcester manager Chad Tracy, he called his father, and choked up as he revealed the details of his latest promotion. Fighting back tears of joy, Casas told him: "It's all coming true.''
In his first at-bat, in the first inning, Casas drove a ball deep to right, but because he made contact at the end of the bat, was surprised at how far the ball traveled, caught on the warning track in the right field corner. The crowd, anticipating the potential for a first at-bat homer in the majors, groaned in disappointment.
In his second trip, he pulled a ball to first and was easily retired. Finally, in his third at-bat, he shot a grounder to the shortstop hole. Corey Seager, shifted toward second for the lefty hitter, glided over, but as he was backhanding the ball, it came up on him a bit and struck the heel of his glove. There were some anxious moments until the official scorer declared that it was, indeed, a hit.
It may not have been the double high off The Wall he had dreamed of, or a ball sailing over the bullpen. But a first hit is a first hit, and Casas wasn't one to dismiss the honor.
"You don't choose how they come,'' he said. "I'll take all of them. I don't know how that one popped up on (Seager), but I'm going to take it. First one in the books.''
Defensively, he had two chances in the first inning, and the second of which came at him on an in-between hop. He fielded it flawlessly, and the ease with which he gloved the tough chance and recorded the out settled his nerves some, to say nothing of the fans who, let's face it, have stopped taking much for granted when it comes to glove work by their first basemen this season.
Cora was impressed at how much The New Guy talked the game in the dugout. A few teammates were struck by his placid demeanor in the face of all the hype.
But to those who felt he was preternaturally relaxed for a newcomer, Casas assured that he wasn't as calm as he may have appeared.
"I was definitely nervous,'' he insisted. "This is everything I've ever dreamed of, all culminating in one day. But throughout all that,I felt prepared. I was confident. I've been working for this for a really long time. I was nervous, but I wasn't too scared. I felt like I was ready for the moment and I tried my best. I did what I could and we won the game.''
With that, Casas was off to pack. Sunday night presented his first business trip with the new company. Having made a good impression on his first day, there is more work to do.