Royals’ Mike Matheny battled the coronavirus during the MLB delay
A little less than two hours after Kansas City Royals manager Dayton Moore explained that he wasn’t at liberty to divulge specifics about COVID-19 test results, his club’s manager Mike Matheny divulged information of his own on Saturday afternoon.
Matheny, in the middle of an extraordinarily long and unprecedented first spring training with the Royals, revealed he’d recovered from a bout with the coronavirus a month ago while MLB and the MLB Players Association were negotiating to play this season.
The Royals began spring training 2.0 at Kauffman Stadium on Friday, more than three months after the pandemic forced MLB to suspend its initial spring training camps.
Upon contracting the virus, Matheny quarantined alongside his wife, Kristin, who didn’t have symptoms or test positive.
“I did have symptoms,” Matheny said. “We knew. We had a family member test positive, so we knew even before the test because we had exposure, so my wife and I took off and we quarantined just the two of us. And it was kind of exactly the way they said, about three days later, I started feeling it.
“But we laid low and quarantined and stayed away from people and it ran its course. Fortunately I’ve been tested with the right antibody and looking forward to talking with our medical team about being able to donate some plasma and help out however we can in that regard.”
Matheny lauded All-Star catcher Salvador Perez for choosing to let the club announce his positive test and discussing his situation with reporters.
Matheny also said he thought Perez’s experience might help personalize the reason so many protocols, safety measures and precautions have been put in place this year.
“I didn’t tell all of them I’d been through it,” Matheny said. “But I did tell some, ‘Listen. This thing is for real. Let’s be cautious, but let’s also understand that we have really, really good processes in place.’ We’re going to cover each other’s back to take care as best we can.”
“I think to be able to personalize it, for them to see that’s our captain in Salvy and they know nobody out there wants to be out there more than Salvy and it’s being taken away from him. What do we have to do, and let’s do it.”
Matheny, 49, spent 13 years as a major-league catcher. He does not fall into the category of high risk of serious complications due to contracting the virus. He also realizes his players, for the most part, fall outside of the most vulnerable demographic.
That doesn’t mean he’s taking the pandemic any more lightly.
“I do realize that anyone at higher risk, they need to be extremely cautious with this,” Matheny said. “I consider myself in good shape and in good health and not at risk, not a high risk, certainly. But I felt it, and I could see somebody at a different place [health-wise] in their life, it would have knocked them pretty good.”
This story was originally published July 5, 2020 at 8:52 AM with the headline "Royals’ Mike Matheny battled the coronavirus during the MLB delay."
