ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – It was like the first day of school.
Daniel Norris entered the Detroit Tigers’ clubhouse at Tropicana Field on Monday and made the rounds. He hugged position players around a table. He said hello to his pitching mates whom he hadn’t seen since late April. And then, he went to “holler” at manager Ron Gardenhire.
“It’s like seeing everybody after summer camp,” Norris said, his hair much longer than it was when we last saw him walking off the mound in Baltimore on April 29, injured again.
Norris, 25, spent the opener of a three-game set against the Rays as one of the guys, dressing in uniform, spending time with his teammates on the field before the game and taking the loss in from the dugout.