Free agent Nick Adgar, left, speaks with Milwaukee Brewers minor league player Andre Nnebe during an informal workout at Willie Stargell Field in Alameda, Calif., on Friday. (AP photo)

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Andre Nnebe hollers over the breeze coming off the bay behind home plate and announces to the group, “First pitch, 2:10!”

The Milwaukee Brewers minor leaguer thanks college catcher Eamonn Lance for showing up because now there can be live batting practice, something Nnebe hasn’t done since the coronavirus put a sudden halt on sports.

“You saved the day,” Nnebe tells Lance.

For this informal simulated game last week at a noted high school field, the catcher isn’t the only player wearing a mask. Nnebe stands in wearing a protective face covering, and same with the guy waiting in the on-deck circle.

Nnebe and thousands more players like him are trying any way they can to stay ready amidst the uncertainty of whether there will even be a big league baseball season, let alone anything for the game’s lower levels. They are trying to prepare while social distancing from 6 feet apart and without drawing a crowd as California is under a shelter-in-place order.

Milwaukee Brewers minor league player Andre Nnebe warms up as he prepares to bat during an informal workout at Willie Stargell Field in Alameda, Calif., on Friday. Nnebe and thousands more players are trying any way they can to stay ready amidst the uncertainty of whether there will even be a baseball season, let alone anything for the game's lower levels. They are trying to prepare while social distancing from six feet apart and without drawing a crowd as California is under a shelter-in-place order. (AP photo)

For now, for 90 minutes anyway, Nnebe and seven others are in their element again, albeit far different than just six weeks ago.

They relish talking everything baseball — the draft, how the ball is carrying, the future. Hearing that familiar crack of the bat is both refreshing and energizing, briefly taking the players’ minds off the pressures and all that is going on in the world.

They got a tip that the gates of Encinal High School’s famous Willie Stargell Field were open, and decided to give it a try.

“This is the closest thing to a game,” says University of California senior pitcher Jack Delmore, from Alameda. “I haven’t been excited in a while.

Three Canadian geese stand in as infielders, playing the shift, no less. Dozens more continuously honk from beyond left field, next to a dirt track that has been closed because of COVID-19, providing an impromptu rooting section.

Multiple resistance bands hang from the chain link fence, cell phones perched on tripods outside the batter’s box to capture video.

After Nnebe’s first round of swings, Joey Wagman walks out to offer a squirt of hand sanitizer to Lance.

No high-fives. No handshakes. The new norm.

Wagman previously pitched in Oakland’s farm system, then spent the past two years in independent ball. The right-hander had been set to play for Israel in the Olympics this summer.