Bob Nightengale

USA TODAY Sports

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- It was an eerie feeling, keeping a secret from the man pitching the biggest game of the season for your club, and not quite sure you were doing the right thing.

The national TV audience knew it. Most of the fans at Kauffman Stadium knew it. The Kansas City Royals’ management, and even some of their players, knew it.

Edinson Volquez didn’t know a thing.

He just knew that he was upset being taken out of Game 1 of the World Series Tuesday night, and when he walked into the Royals’ clubhouse in the seventh inning -- seven full innings before the Royals would win, 5-4, in 14 innings over the New York Mets -- Royals GM Dayton Moore was awaiting him.

Royals win wild Game 1 with 14th inning walk-off

Moore ushered Volquez into manager Ned Yost’s office and closed the door. His wife Roandry and 2-year-old twin daughters were awaiting.

They broke the news to him.

Volquez’s father, Daniel, a hard-working mechanic who provided him with his first baseball glove, was dead.

He died earlier in the day in the Dominican Republic after battling a heart disease for several years. He was 63.

“The whole time I kept thinking, Eddie was out there pitching his tail off,’’ Yost said, “and I kept thinking, his dad isn't watching him. His first start in a World Series and his dad isn't watching him.

“I was really monitoring him. He was happy, upbeat. He was there talking to all of his friends. Ok, he doesn’t know anything.

“It was hard for me to know what I know, and see the way he competed. It was a sad situation. There was no road map. You just do what the family asked you to do. It was real special to them that Eddie goes out and pitches that game.’’

Volquez, who entered the game with a 1-4 record and 6.56 ERA in his postseason career, was never better in October. He yielded six hits and three runs in six strong innings.

Nightengale: Eric Hosmer sacrifice fly helps Royals beat Mets in14 innings

He was gone by the time the Royals came back into the clubhouse, but even though he wasn’t part of the celebration, he was at the forefront of everyone’s attention wearing the Royals’ uniform.

“I heard the news right now,’’ said Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar, who opened the game by hitting an inside-the-park homer run, the first in a World Series game since 1929. “Volquey sent me a text saying, ‘Thank you guys, for winning that game for me.’ "

Said Alex Gordon, who hit a one-out homer in the ninth to send the game long into the night: “Most guys didn’t know. I found out in, I think it was in the 14th inning. I was standing next to Ned, and he told me, “Lets’ win this game for Volquez,’ and explained what happened.’’

Moore told Yost of Daniel Volquez’s death an hour before the game, but was provided specific instructions by the family that Volquez would not be told until after the game. He waited his whole life for this moment, pitching his first World Series game, and they didn’t want to take it away from him.

“We said, 'What do you want us to do?’ ’’ Yost said. “The family said, 'We do not want to tell him. We want him to pitch this game.’

“We’re like, “Ok. If that’s what you want. We’ll do exactly what you want.’

“He didn’t find out until after the game.’’

It was a heartbreaking moment for this team, which has become too familiar with tragedy in recent months. Third baseman Mike Moustakas lost his mother to cancer in August. Pitcher Chris Young’s father died exactly a month ago of multiple myeloma, a cancer of blood. And now this.

Young was the only Royals player told before the game of Volquez’s father, only to prepare him for a possible start. If Volquez found out about his father’s death, the Royals wanted to be prepared. He was their emergency starter.

It turned out they badly needed him later in the game, with Young pitching the final three hitless innings, and getting the most emotional victory of his life.

Young, his eyes tearing up discussing it after the game, said he felt the presence of his father, Charles, during every pitch. He was throwing the ball harder than he has in six years, hitting 90 mph on the radar gun, with electric movement on his fastball, and depth to his slider. He struck out four batters with only David Wright able to hit the ball out of the infield.

“Every inning tonight I was thinking about my dad,’’ Young said, “hearing his voice. I’m sure Edinson is, too. Anytime I feel like I lose focus, I hear my dad in my head saying, 'Concentrate. Focus on what you need to do to help this club win.' He’s with me constantly. It’s just fresh for me, and tonight brought that back.'

“Words can’t describe my pain for Eddie tonight.’’

The Royals can’t wait to see him in person, now, hugging him with all of their might, telling him how much he means to all of them.

“I found out after I got done pitching,’’ said Royals reliever Danny Duffy, who followed Volquez. “I came up here, and he was here. I didn’t know exactly what had happened. I saw him, and said, 'Volquey, great job man.’ He kind of looked down, and I said, 'What’s going on?’

“For him to go out and do what he did today for us, kind of tells how we all feel about each other.

“He went out and absolutely put it all on the line for us. Especially as long as this game went on, that was huge for our ‘pen, that he was able to gather himself on such a day. I couldn’t even imagine.’’

The Royals, a close-knit team that vowed to come back after losing Game 7 of the World Series a year ago, huddled together again after this latest tragedy. It’s surreal. Three parents lost in three months, and each item, a heroic performance. Moustakas played for a month without telling anyone publicly about his mother’s death. Young pitched five innings of no-hit ball a day after his father’s death. And now Volquez.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been through a year when you’ve gone through something like that,’’ Yost said. “It’s hard on everybody. I lost my Dad. I know how hard it was for me. I know how hard it was for Moose. I know how hard it was for Chris.

“You see Eddie out there competing his butt off, and then you’re thinking, what’s coming next? The news is coming next. So it’s hard. It put a damper on things for us.’’

The Royals, though, are resilient. They’ve dealt with tragedy. They’ve lived with heartbreak. They’ll get through this.

“We respect each other’s families,’’ Moustakas said. “This is one huge family organization. When someone loses a family member, that takes priority over everything that happens.

“This game’s a phenomenal game. It’s the World Series. It’s phenomenal. But family takes over everything. For him to go out and pitch takes a lot of heart and takes a lot of guts.’’

It may just be what defines the Royals’ season.

9 crazy facts about the Royals and Mets' 14-inning Game 1 marathon

“I’ve never seen anything like it where you have three teammates lose a parent in a single season,’’ Royals pitcher Jeremy Guthrie said, “and all three have lost them while playing baseball. And they had to go out there and perform on the job.

“We’ll be there for our teammates, our brothers. We’re very focused.’’

Certainly, the Royals had to be focused just to endure the longest Game 1 ever played, and tied for the longest of any World Series Game in history. We had the strangest World Series delay in history, the craziest World Series homer in nearly a century, a critical error, a dramatic ninth-inning homer, a game-saving catch, and one of the most courageous pitching performances anyone can imagine.

Where else can you have a game stopped by a TV power outage, the first inside-the-park World Series homer since 1929, an error that resurrected memories of Bill Buckner, and a lights-out closer giving up a homer to the No. 8 hitter?

The victory spared Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer of replicating that Buckner moment in the 1986 World Series won by the Mets, when Wilmer Flores’ bouncer in the eighth inning skipped over his glove. He was the first batter to put his team ahead by reaching on an error in the eighth inning or later of a World Series since, yes, Mookie Wilson’s grounder went under Buckner’s glove in 1986.

Hosmer’s good buddy, Gordon, took care of that by hitting Familia’s 97-mph sinker over the center-field fence. It was the first run permitted by Familia in 10 1/3 innings this postseason.

“I was the happiest guy in the stadium,’’ Hosmer said. “When he came in, I said, 'I want to give you a hug.' ’’

By the end of the long evening, everyone was hugging one another in the Royals’ clubhouse.

It felt like much more than just a World Series victory.

Follow Nightengale on Twitter: @Bnightengale

GALLERY: METS-ROYALS CLASH IN WORLD SERIES