Even following 104-loss season, Ned Yost still loves his job

SURPRISE, Ariz. — Ever fixated on the present, Ned Yost doesn’t linger on his near-death experience before last season when he fell some 20 feet from a tree stand in a freak accident.

So when the moment creeps into his sleep and Yost hears that ssssst sound that preceded the plunge that left him with a broken pelvis and internal bleeding and being helicoptered to trauma doctors who saved his life, he simply tells himself, “OK, stop,” to scold it out of his mind.

To further put it behind him, he also thought it worth having his son, also named Ned, cut down the dangling safety straps — which had failed — on the tree at his Georgia farm.

“‘No,’” he said, as if talking to the equipment directly, “‘you ain’t going to sit there and remind me every day.’”

This epitomizes a mindset that focuses forward, not back, and constantly is on scan to perceive everything in a positive frame.

He might not always come off as Norman Vincent Peale with the curmudgeonly facade he employs with the media, for instance, but the truth is almost all of that is the jest of a happy man with a considerable sense of humor.

Like he flashed Friday when he deflected questions about position players until they report next week and said now is the time to “celebrate the pitcher-catcher relationship.” Asked just how best that might be celebrated, he said, “I mean, you’re not out looking at other women on Valentine’s Day, are you? … Focus on what we have right here. Enjoy it. They’re here. Celebrate it.”

Spoken by a man who celebrates his fortune to have everything he ever would have wanted in life and says he’s more excited than he’s been in years — something he seems to say with sincerity every year — to be managing a Royals team that went 58-104 last year.

Between the returnees who finished the season 20-14 and additions such as Billy Hamilton, Yost can see only the makings of a group that will “take the light bulb from a 60 (watt) to a 90 then to 150. It will just keep getting brighter and brighter and brighter.”

And he wanted to be there for that, even as he will turn 65 in this 10th season managing the Royals.

With two American League titles and a World Series championship and the distinction of being the winningest manager in club history on his resume, he might well have said that’s enough after the horrific mishap.

For that matter, he might have found it preferable to stay home in Georgia now and continue basking in the joy his four grandchildren — ages 5 years to six months — brought him in the offseason.

Consider just his time spent with the elder of the group, Jordan: “He’s one of those Tasmanian devils. He hits the ground, and he’s gone,” Yost said, laughing. “’Let’s go fishing. Let’s go look for arrowheads. Let’s go to the barn and have a Coke.’ “

Yost, who proudly shared pictures and video of them on his Ipad, said his feet still hurt from walking “28 or 29 miles” at Disneyworld a few weeks ago. But his body clock still kicked in.

“The best way I can explain it is I had all the fun I could stand,” he said, smiling and adding, “You know how you get that, and then you’re ready to move on?”