Gabe Kapler had to wait four months longer than he had hoped, but on Tuesday night he finally got his first win at Oracle Park. As Kapler watched his players jog off the field, Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" echoed through the ballpark, just as it always has.
This would ordinarily be where Kapler would hold his hand out, shaking bench coach Kai Correa's hand and then congratulating a steady stream of Giants players and coaches. But on Tuesday night it was an elbow that was extended, with Kapler getting a couple dozen elbow bumps in return.
Celebrating a big play or win is going to look different in 2020, and the Giants still are trying to adjust on the fly. Thus far, they have embraced the elbow bump, considered much cleaner than handshakes or fist bumps, as a greeting and celebratory act, but it hasn't always been easy.
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"When a guy scores I literally feel like I'm a bad teammate because I can't go give him a high five," outfielder Mike Yastrzemski said last week. "I know I'm not allowed to, but I feel selfish just sitting there even though I'm yelling to him. That's the hardest thing to deal with so far."
More than anything, a big league club is built on camaraderie, the kind that builds over a long season when players share massive hugs, come up with creative handshakes, or gather in a crowd in the dugout for whatever this is called:
But all of that is out the window in 2020. Social distancing is encouraged and every bit of hand contact comes with a spritz of sanitizer. Players aren't even throwing the ball around the horn to keep loose after a strikeout. The rules are strict, and while the Giants have inched closer and closer over time, particularly as they've been in the dugout the last two nights, they also know that celebrations are one area where they really need to be careful about gathering.
Alex Dickerson called it "that awkward stage," but he also said he was confident the Giants would find creative solutions once the team was set. For most of July, players have been split into two or three groups and come to the ballpark at different times.
"The other day I saw Trevor Gott and I hadn't seen him the entire time," Dickerson said. "I was like, 'Oh yeah, you're still here.'"
Dickerson, of course, was the center of the best celebration of 2019. The "Dick!" chant took over the dugout and was embraced by the fan base, and when the outfielder went deep Tuesday, the Giants sort of did it in the dugout, just without all the head slaps and back pats.
"We'll find it," Dickerson said of celebrations. "I don't know what it's going to look like, but we'll find it."
The Giants who have spoken to reporters in recent weeks are mostly counting on two longtime celebration-leaders to come up with a fun solution.
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"Between Pablo and Hunter, I think we have two guys that will be pretty good at figuring something out," shortstop Brandon Crawford said.
Pence and Sandoval are two of the best chemistry guys the sport has seen in recent years, but they haven't had a chance to get into the lab yet. Pence said recently that he had not spent much time with Sandoval because they were also in different groups, but they have had preliminary conversations.
"We're getting to do what we love and actually we appreciate that this is kind of the raw form of our craft, of baseball and teamwork," Pence said. "It's going to be fun and interesting and there's going to be ways to get creative with it."
Thus far, the Giants have mostly relied on yelling, air fives and bumping elbows. When a player hits a home run, he puts his hand up as he rounds third and Ron Wotus does the same, but they don't touch.
After the last couple of wins, outfielders met around second base and held their arms up for air hugs. For the veteran infielders, there might actually not be that much of a change. They generally bump gloves, and the preferred (depending on what side you're on) celebration of the Brandons still seems safe.
"I'm going to be honest, the turkey taps are going to be hard to stop," Brandon Belt said. "That's probably my favorite thing to do. I don't know if you can pass COVID that way, but if they tell us we can't touch each other then I'm going to do my best to stay away from people as much as possible so that we can get this season in and play as many games as possible."
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The first one comes Thursday, and while the Giants are facing Clayton Kershaw and the National League's best team, they're hoping they're the ones celebrating. They have their first flight Wednesday, two bus trips, and an evening where they're not supposed to leave the hotel. There's plenty of time to put the finishing touches on some creative 2020 celebrations.
"Once we start traveling and start melding as a group again, you're going to see us come up with something," Dickerson said. "I don't know what it's going to be, but you're going to see us happy to play baseball again."