“I saw a baseball field,” Matt Mullenbach explained, simply enough, “and figured that I’d come ask if I could throw.”

It was neither heaven nor Iowa, although Mullenbach hails from the latter location and plans to return there in a few days. For the Mets minor league pitcher, though? You’d better believe that this was a field of dreams.

This age of coronavirus jars us with daily twists, most of them frightening and upsetting. Doesn’t it seem only fair to get a few moments of levity, break up the tension? So it went Monday afternoon here at Baseball City (a complex that hosts amateur baseball tournaments), where Mullenbach, like a ghost of baseball past, present or future, played catch with a young amateur player from Atlanta for about 10 minutes from 90 feet apart, honoring the work outline he received from his Mets superiors.

Even better, Mullenbach learned from The Post, he did this work at the very place that served as the Mets’ spring training home, then known as the Payson Field Complex, for their first 26 years of existence. It was here that the legendary (and fictional) Sidd Finch dazzled Davey Johnson, Frank Cashen and others with his 168-mph fastball, only to pass on baseball and focus on the French horn.

Mullenbach had departed Port St. Lucie on Sunday, after being informed the Mets were shutting down their minor league complex. In all, less than two weeks had passed between his March 4 arrival and his departure, a disappointing turn of events after he showed some potential last year as an undrafted free agent. The 23-year-old right-hander, who pitched for Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee, clocked 19 games for Single-A Brooklyn last year, compiling a 2.84 ERA and striking out 26 against 13 walks in 25 ¹/₃ innings.

En route from Iowa to what he intended to be his first full professional season, Mullenbach stayed with an aunt in Largo, not too far from here. For the drive back, he figured he’d make the same stop and see if he could get in some warm-weather throwing before returning to the Hawkeye State’s less welcoming conditions. It turned out that his aunt, Katie Foley, is an excellent scout in addition to a fine host. After driving around the area, she recommended that Mullenbach check out Baseball City, which also served as the Cardinals’ and (then) Devil Rays’ spring training homes before becoming a nonprofit.

“I drove over and saw there were some people out here,” Mullenbach said. Two games of 16-18-year-olds were being played at adjoining fields, the crowds small enough that they honored the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s suggestion of no gatherings of more than 50 people.

Steve Nadel, the director of Baseball City (and, small world, a New Jersey native), found Mullenbach his catch partner. Ray Negron, the Yankees’ community consultant on site to support the facility and the players, provided Mullenbach with some Purell before his session. Now that he has a connection here, Mullenbach indicated, he would stick around a little longer before getting back on the road. Of course, as we’ve learned, things change very quickly with this pandemic; Nadel said he intended to shut down the complex later this week.

“It’s definitely an interesting situation,” Mullenbach said. “All of us, I know, everyone in the clubhouse, was ready to get going with spring training. [It] got cut short. Probably going to have to come back and do round two of spring training. [We] don’t know when the season will start, but I’m sure once it does, everyone will be really excited. Because it felt like a real long time from September to March.”

It’ll be another real long time from limbo to resolution, we know, with Major League Baseball acknowledging on Monday the CDC’s eight-week recommendation of limited gatherings means there’ll be nothing doing for the near future. Minor leaguers like Mullenbach will be largely left to their own devices, unmonitored and unsupervised. For one day, at least, he found some support in the greater baseball community, throwing where Mets from long ago did. As we lose so many liberties we once took for granted, it registered as a minor yet meaningful win.