As Drew Waters ran out to right field on the long-anticipated day that he also knew may never have come, he absorbed a sensation he’d never experienced before.
“Couldn’t feel my legs,” he said, laughing, after making his major-league debut for the Royals on Monday at Kauffman Stadium. “So that was definitely a first.”
Among many such milestones … and a few aptly compelling quirks of the day that we’ll get back to.
So he was still trying to process it all, including driving in the game-winning run by drawing a bases-loaded walk in the eighth inning of the Royals’ 6-4 victory over the White Sox.
“I think once I get back to the hotel tonight,” he said, “I’ll really start to understand what just happened.”
If he sounded emotional for a guy who says he’s not, well, “understanding what just happened” meant well beyond this moment. Because this day wasn’t just about his arrival but about emerging from the pitfalls of the journey since being drafted in the second round by the Atlanta Braves in 2017.
Waters, now 23, was in Triple A by 2019 before getting stranded and seeming to stagnate.
“I was a young kid, hadn’t really dealt with failure,” he said, “(and) didn’t really know how to handle it.”
So if you’d told him a year ago he’d be in a big-league clubhouse by now, he’d have called you a liar.
But here he was, about six weeks since the Royals acquired him and two other prospects for their competitive-balance round pick in the MLB Draft thanks to notable strides with Triple-A Omaha since starting the year resuming top prospect status with the Braves.
Now, he’s the latest member of a Royals’ youth movement as one of seven rookies among their 13 position players and the 13th player this season to make his major-league debut.
“We’ve had so many this year that, you know, not to use a pun, but it’s a little bit ‘Watered-down,’ ” rookie Vinnie Pasquantino deadpanned.
Reflect the trend as he might, though, Waters took his own distinct route here.
So, appropriately enough, that also was the case on Monday.
Even when he’d finally arrived … he was nearly late.
For reasons that are unclear but seem based on a misconception that this make-up game was to be at night, Waters initially was told to be at Kauffman at 2 p.m. and figured he wouldn’t be in the lineup until Tuesday.
Trouble was, the starting time was 1:10. And … he was in the lineup.
When he got a text around 10 a.m. from a longtime Royals employee who prefers anonymity, he was lying in bed at the team hotel ordering Chick-fil-A through DoorDash.
“ ‘Where are you?’ ” Waters recalled the text saying. “I was, like, ‘Um, still at the hotel. Am I in the lineup?’ ”
Told he was, he went from waiting on DoorDash into a mad dash. He took a quick shower, dressed and caught an Uber to Kauffman. (And, yes, he got his Chick-fil-A order before he left).
Then, when the Uber neared the stadium, he had another momentary concern: The driver told him, “I don’t know if we can turn in here; they have it blocked.”
“I’m like, ‘I think we can get in here,’ ” he said, smiling.
Turned out he was right.
And he felt like he belonged from the moment he walked into the room, where Bobby Witt Jr. was the first to introduce himself and he was soon being hugged by MJ Melendez and greeted by many others.
That surge wasn’t necessarily to be anticipated: Unlike most of those called up this year, Waters had played with few in the Royals system.
Amid the welcoming and his pre-game preparation, someone asked him if he’d eaten.
Waters mentioned that he had his Chick-fil-A order with him but fretted that it had gone cold in the 90 minutes or so since it was delivered.
“ ‘You’re in the big leagues; (food) spread’s pretty good,’ ” someone told him. “So I went and got my first big-league spread. And to say the least, it was pretty good.”
So was the rest of the day, even if it started with grounding into a double play with the bases loaded in his first at-bat and being 0-3 overall into the eighth inning.
The discipline on that walk made him the second Royals rookie (after Witt on opening day) to register a game-winning RBI in his major-league debut this season.
It also left him getting splashed down on the field by Witt and Melendez as he was being interviewed by broadcaster Joel Goldberg and enjoying a happy family reunion on the field.
He even became the focal point of the postgame clubhouse celebration, to which he referred when asked what the coolest thing about the day was.
“Honestly, coming back in here,” he said. “The lights were out, guys were huddled up, just having that special moment with teammates and really feeling like you’re kind of coming into the family.”
With that came a certain nudge to give a “speech,” which he recalled expressing thusly:
“Just how grateful I was for them to be a part of this special day for me and how excited I was to be here,” he said. “Obviously, every journey’s a little different. And there’s definitely been the peaks and valleys of my journey. But I would say this definitely tops it all, just being here and being here with the guys who are now my teammates …”
A long time coming, to be sure.
But now with a story that will never get old.
Only time will tell how it goes from here and what its context will be for the Royals, who have expectations that Waters will become a part of their outfield of the future.
In the meantime, we can figure that the earnest kid who used to lie to his mom about summer league game times so he could be first in the batting cage will arrive in plenty of time going forward.
Because now he’ll seek to show he’s arrived right on time in the big leagues at last.
