TAMPA — Greg Bird was back in familiar territory Saturday afternoon, roaming around George M. Steinbrenner Field and flashing his easy power in batting practice.

But the first baseman also had long hair, a beard and good health — the first two of which he never had with the Yankees and the third not often enough.

Bird, who looked to be a Yankees cornerstone not long ago, is now trying to make his major league comeback with the Blue Jays. He signed a minor league deal with an invite to big league camp earlier this month, and appears to have a shot at making Toronto’s Opening Day roster.

“You always think [what if],” Bird said of his Yankees tenure before crushing a two-run homer in Saturday’s exhibition. “But you look back on the past and learn from it, not dwell on it. It’s fun to reminisce and talk about. I’ll forever hold memories that I had with [Aaron Judge] and other guys. But it happened the way it happened and you can’t change it. We had fun and I’m looking forward to watching him play and playing against him now.”

Judge described Bird as one of the best hitters he has played with — “I still believe that,” the Yankees slugger said Saturday — but Bird’s time in The Bronx was derailed by injuries. There was the surgery for a torn labrum that sidelined him for all of 2016, plus ankle and foot injuries that limited him to just 140 games from 2017-2019.

The Yankees had finally seen enough after the 2019 season, designating Bird for assignment, and he has not been back to the big leagues since, after signing minor league deals with the Rangers, Phillies and Rockies.

But Bird still had a “super” important year in 2021, staying healthy for a whole season while playing 112 games with a .894 OPS for the Rockies’ Triple-A affiliate.

“It sucks being a baseball player and not playing baseball,” Bird said. “Mentally, it’s like scar tissue, I guess is the way I explain it.”

Bird is hoping to use those experiences to his advantage to revive his career. After Saturday, he was batting 5-for-12 with a double, two home runs home run and five walks in six Grapefruit League games. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has the stranglehold on first base, but there’s a potential spot for Bird as his backup.

“I gotta keep going,” Bird said. “There’s still a lot of spring left. I gotta keep working hard and showing them I can do this.”

And even if he makes the Yankees’ AL East foe, Bird will have some fans in The Bronx.

“He’s a force to be reckoned with,” Judge said. “That’s one thing he never lost, he’s always been able to swing the bat when he’s healthy. I want him to do all those things, just not against us.”

— Additional reporting by Dan Martin