“I’m on business,” Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras said Friday from a podium located in the bowels of London Stadium. “I’m not thinking of something else.”

Then Contreras exited the press conference and went out onto the field with his teammates where a McLaren Formula 1 car was parked directly behind the batting cage and its driver, Lando Norris, was signing autographs for star struck baseball players.

Magician Daniel Rose was roping players in for a variety of card tricks, and seemingly more than a dozen television crews were getting their hands on anyone they could find in a uniform to describe their excitement for the weekend.

Even the coaches were taking time to forcibly bounce baseballs off the various textures of Field Turf and gawking in astonishment at the aggressive bounces off the artificial grass.

If this is business, it’s business like Contreras and the crew have very rarely seen.

The Cubs and Cardinals ran through a workout day in front of a scattering of fans who secured tickets for the event and various groups of London school children who were much less interested in the activity on the field than the antics of Fredbird and Clark the Cub.