TORONTO - Opening Day had the feel of a post-season game at Rogers Centre.
Cameras surrounded Blue Jays players as they made their way on the artificial turf under the dome Tuesday for batting practice prior to the night opener against the Cleveland Indians. More than two dozen print reporters crammed into manager John Gibbons' office for his pre-game thoughts.
Down the third-base line, bright lights illuminated a Sportsnet TV anchor as Rogers sought to take full advantage of the baseball team and stadium its owns.
The buzz is hard to miss around the Blue Jays, who have undergone an expensive makeover since finishing fourth last season in the AL East with a 73-89 record.
"We've got a good team out there," said Gibbons. "We feel good about it.
"But now the talk's over. We've been talking for how many months now? We've got to go out and do something."
Outside the Jays went through the relaxed, comfortable motions of batting practice, the southern strains of "Saturday Night Special" by Lynryd Skynyrd filling the dome as the doors were about to open to the public.
Inside the deserted Toronto clubhouse, starter R.A. Dickey sat alone on a couch watching TV.
Gibbons, as is often the case, was entertainingly dense prior to the game.
Asked what he remembered about his first Opening Day as manager in 2005, he smiled and said: "Oh gosh. To be honest with you, nothing."
"You played Tampa Bay. I looked it up," said the crestfallen beat reporter.
"Did we win?" asked Gibbons.
Yes, he was told.
"It's been a while," Gibbons offered by way of excuse for his poor memory.
He was more forthcoming when another reporter asked him where he was when Joe Carter won the 1993 World Series for Toronto with a three-run walk-off homer against Philadelphia.
The 50-year-old Gibbons recalled he watched it on TV back at home in San Antonio. Likely with his dad, when asked about who with.
Gibbons noted he was friends with several Phillies, including Lenny Dykstra and Darren Daulton.
"I don't want to say I was rooting for anybody," he said to laughter. "Little did I know."
And Gibbons did not shy away from sharing when asked whether he slept well before Opening Day.
"I've always been a pretty good sleeper," he offered, before drawing laughs with an admission. "Now that I'm a little older 鈥� I don't know what it is, nothing to do with this (baseball)鈥� I get up a couple of times. Then I go right back to sleep."
On a more serious note, he admitted the day was noteworthy.
"It's extra special because I never would have thought I would be back," said Gibbons, who managed the Jays from 2004 to 2008. "I don't think anybody really did. So that carries a little extra meaning there."
Earlier, the Jays locker-room was an oasis of calm other than the invading phalanx of reporters.
Joses Reyes and Melky Cabrera sat on a couch watching the Orioles-Rays game on TV. Adam Lind, his feet up on the back of the couch, was taking in the game from a nearby chair.
Edwin Encarnacion sat in front of his locker, headphones connected to a laptop.
Players wandered over to sign two uniform jerseys destined for charity sales, one for the Jackie Robinson Foundation and the other for the Sandy Hook School Support Fund.
Sergio Santos and Aaron Loup went through the ritual of getting their uniform pants just right, rolling them up high on the thigh to stretch them out and then pulling them down. Jeremy Jeffress then attended to his bottom of the pant leg, making sure it fell just right.
Baseball players may put their pants on one leg at time like the rest of us but apparently that's about the only similarity.
The clubhouse may be the players' domain, but Gibbons keeps an eye on what goes on there. And he likes what he sees already with the 2013 Jays.
Talent wins, he said, but good chemistry helps.
"I think the really good teams, there's something different about them. They pull together," he said. "And I sense that in there.
"We don't know for sure yet ... We haven't hit that bad stretch. You never really know how everybody's going to react. But if I was to say today, I think it's a pretty tight group in there."
