SAN FRANCISCO — Patrick Bailey stopped himself in mid-sentence.
He was spending his first day as a big-league ballplayer. He met with reporters in the Giants dugout prior to Friday night’s game. He was asked: After you got the good news, who was the first person you called? Bailey started to answer. He called Giants bullpen coach and catching coordinator Craig Albernaz … but only after he tracked down his wife, Leigha, so he could tell her in person.
“Don’t worry,” Bailey said. “I didn’t mess up.”
Albernaz might not be a member of Bailey’s immediate family, but he’s been there from the start. And Bailey has been there from the very start for Albernaz, too. Bailey began his pro career in 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which wiped out his junior season at North Carolina State and then, after getting drafted in the first round (13th overall), put him in the unique circumstance of being in a quarantine bubble as a taxi-squad player at the alternate site. The 2020 season also marked a strange start for manager Gabe Kapler and his coaching staff, Albernaz included, as their inaugural season in San Francisco turned into a distilled 60 game-season played out in front of cardboard cutouts instead of living, breathing fans.
“We talk about it all the…
