Another Flake in K.C.’s Tank : Bret Saberhagen Joins Quisenberry as Star on Strangest Staff in Baseball

Keep the hat, take away the baseball uniform, substitute some blue jeans and a T-shirt and Bret Saberhagen could be mistaken for half the gas station attendants in East Overshoe, S.D.

Maybe it’s his boyish grin, or his closely cropped hair style that makes him look younger than his 20 years. Maybe it’s his long legs and slight build that makes him look more like a high school high jumper than a pitcher for the Kansas City Royals.

But put Saberhagen on the mound with a ball in his hand and a game on the line and he is transformed. His marionette-like arms and legs glide together in a long, powerful, fluid windup before exploding toward the plate.

Bret Saberhagen has made a living off deception. He doesn’t look the part of a major league pitcher. His fastball doesn’t look very hard to hit. He didn’t look like much of a professional prospect at Cleveland High, and as a result wasn’t drafted until the 19th round.

But Saberhagen has managed to fool practically everyone.

Last April, less than two years after he was drafted, Saberhagen, then 19, became the youngest Kansas City player to appear in a major league game. Six months later, he was the youngest starting pitcher in American League Championship Series history.

He finished the season with a 10-11 record and 3.48 earned-run average, but he was 7-3 with a 3.45 ERA after July 18 as the Royals rallied from eight games off the pace to win the AL West going away.

Certainly no one, not even Saberhagen, had it figured that way.

“A year ago I was just trying to make the AAA team,” Saberhagen said. “When I was drafted, I thought it was probably going to take four or five years to make the major league roster. If I hadn’t made it then I was going to look at other options.

“People ask me if I’m awed, making the big leagues so fast and pitching against people who were my idols a short time ago. The answer is yes and no. Yes, I’m surprised it happened so fast, and no, I’m not awed. Sure, it was exciting to pitch against guys like a Reggie Jackson or Rod Carew, but I’m not awed by those guys. If anything, their reputation makes me want to get them out a little more.

“I guess I’m either confident, or stupid.”

It’s just past noon at the Royals’ spring training camp and the majority of the team’s pitching staff is in the outfield either finishing up their daily sprints or shagging fly balls.

One exception is Dan Quisenberry, the Royals’ resident wit, philosopher and all-star reliever, who is leaning against a chain-link fence talking to a visitor. Subject of conversation: Bret Saberhagen.

For the moment, Saberhagen is behind second base trying to flip batting practice balls into a bucket, a la Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

“Look at him,” Quisenberry says, nodding at Saberhagen. “Does that look like a nervous, 20-year-old ballplayer to you? He thinks he’s on a playground shooting hoops or something. Bret’s a little different, you know, a little on the flaky side, and I’m not sure whether it’s on purpose or not.”

Now there is a noteworthy statement: Quisenberry, the prince of the major league practical joke, calling someone else a flake.

“If I had to describe Bret to a cop or something, I’d tell ‘em to look for a guy about 6-foot, 160 pounds, looks 18 and acts 15,” Quisenberry said. “I love the man. He’s a winner.”

Saberhagen prefers not to talk about the pranks he’s pulled, but he did recall being victimized in a couple during his short stay in the minors.

Once, he said, he got taped to a table in his underwear while in Sarasota, Fla. “About five or six guys held me down and a couple of other guys strapped me to a training table using about 12 rolls of tape,” Saberhagen said.

And then there was the time he and a few teammates were sitting around drinking shots of Tequila. At least that’s what Saberhagen thought.

“The shot treatment. Turned out everyone but me was having shots of water,” he said. “I was wondering why I was the only one getting drunk. I got good and sick after that one.”

Saberhagen marched to the beat of a different pitching machine in high school, too.

Leo Castro, who was Saberhagen’s coach at Cleveland, remembers his star as a prankster as well as the team’s best all-around athlete.

“Bret was a little flaky, but I never had any real problems with him,” Castro said. “I think all good pitchers are that way a little. He was competitive, but he also liked to have a little good, clean fun once in a while.”

Such as:

“I know he used to pull his pants down and moon out the back window of the bus at girls following us in cars,” Castro said. “He also fooled around with tobacco a little bit. Every once in a while he’d chew some up and slip it into somebody’s jock, or shoes. Those were little things, but it helped keep the team loose.”

Saberhagen was more than Cleveland’s best joker, though.

He was a starter on two Cavalier teams that won City basketball championships and in baseball he was selected the City Section’s top player after leading Cleveland to another City title.

Even so, he wasn’t selected until the 19th round of the June free-agent draft because of arm trouble that bothered him early in his senior season.

“The doctors never could decide whether it was tendinitis in my shoulder or a pulled muscle,” Saberhagen said. “Whatever it was, I couldn’t throw right until about midway through the season. I played first base for a month, then I played some shortstop before I finally pitched.”

Castro, who is now a physical education teacher at Kennedy High, said that many scouts lost interest in Saberhagen because of his arm trouble.

“I think the whole problem stemmed from him playing basketball and baseball,” Castro said. “He was doing a lot of throwing during the fall and early part of winter, then basketball season came around and the coach (Greg Herrick) wouldn’t let him throw at all. When he came back out after basketball, he couldn’t make the throw from the mound or shortstop.”

So, Castro put Saberhagen at first base to keep his bat in the lineup. He responded by hitting .362 with seven home runs.

“I always thought Bret could be a big league shortstop or second baseman,” Castro said. “He was quick, he had good range, and he could hit. Scouts would call and ask if Bret was pitching, I’d say, ‘No, but he is playing shortstop.’ They never came. A year later, a Dodger scout came up to me and wanted to know why I had told him Bret was hurt and couldn’t pitch. I said, ‘Yeah, I told you he was hurt. And I also told you to come out and see him play anyway, but you didn’t.’ ”

The only scout who continued to come around was Guy Hansen of the Royals.

Hansen, who is now the pitching coach at UCLA, followed Saberhagen throughout his prep career.

“I first saw him playing American Legion ball when he was 15,” Hansen said. “He was a solid pitcher even then, and you could see all the potential just waiting to be developed.”

Because Hansen followed Saberhagen’s career so closely, he was able to detect a flaw in Saberhagen’s delivery when he was having trouble with his arm.

“He was pushing the ball,” Hansen said. “He wasn’t getting his arm up and the ball was just floating up there. I remember one game I saw him go the first three innings with nothing on his fastball. Eyeballing it, I’d say he was throwing 78 to 80 m.p.h. In the fourth inning, all of a sudden he gets his arm up, stops pushing the ball, and he’s throwing about 7 or 8 m.p.h. harder.

“After the inning, I had a kid go get my radar gun out of the car for me. The last three innings of the game, he strikes out seven of the last nine, throwing 86-88 m.p.h. That did it for me. I knew then that he was still definitely draft material.”

Hansen advised the Royals to draft Saberhagen as an infielder.

“There was still the question about his arm, so I felt he should be a position player first,” Hansen said. “Then, if he was able to continue to show good pitching form, they could always switch him back.”

Hansen rated Saberhagen a fourth or fifth-round selection, but two days after the draft had started, he was still available.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Hansen said. “On the third day I made quite a to-do about drafting him. Finally, Dick Balderson (then the Royals’ director of minor league operations) said OK.”

Less than two weeks later, Hansen and another Royals scout, Al Kubski, watched Saberhagen pitch the only no-hitter ever recorded in a City championship game.

“He just toyed with (Palisades),” Hansen said. “If he throws like that all year long he signs for close to $100,000.”

Said Castro: “That wasn’t even his best game. In the quarterfinals he shut out Grant, 5-0. Two days later we’re playing Banning and we get down, 6-0, in the first inning. I didn’t want to pitch Bret again, but I had to.

“I remember looking over at him to ask if he could pitch. He was looking right at me like, ‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ I put him in, he pitched six shutout innings and we won, 7-6. Without that performance, with only two days rest mind you, we never even reach the championship game.”

After the playoffs were over, Saberhagen was offered $27,500 to sign--”probably the biggest bonus ever for a 19th-round pick,” Hansen said--and he took it.

“It was either sign or go to USC,” Saberhagen said. “I figured since I had had an arm problem it would be better to sign because if something happened at least I got my bonus. If I had gone to college and got hurt I would have had nothing.”

Saberhagen began his professional career playing in the Florida Instructional League at Sarasota. From there, he was sent to the Royals’ Class A affiliate in Fort Myers where he posted a 10-5 record before moving on to Jacksonville and Class AA, where he was 6-1.

At the time, Gary Blaylock, the Royals’ pitching coach, was the team’s minor league pitching instructor. He recalls his first impression of Saberhagen dealt more with the youngster’s confidence then his ability.

“He had his goals set,” Hansen said. “He knew where he wanted to be and he knew what it took to get there. He has what I call an older head. The keys to his success are control and maturity. One is actually part of the other. He’s a 20-year old who pitches like he’s 30.”

Blaylock said Saberhagen’s best pitch is his fastball.

“He’s deceiving in that he’s not overpowering, but his fastball moves and when it gets to the plate it seems to jump at you. What’s most impressive, though, is his control. Anytime a pitcher makes the batters beat him and doesn’t beat himself, he’s a leg up.”

Saberhagen made his major league debut last year against the New York Yankees. In 4 innings of relief, he allowed three hits. His first major league win came in his first start, a 5-2 decision over the then-undefeated Detroit Tigers. Saberhagen went six innings, allowing six hits and one earned run.

“By that time he had already convinced us that he belonged in the major leagues,” Blaylock said. “He had done well in the ‘pen, so we decided to give him a start and he knocks off the hottest team in baseball.”

Tough going was ahead, however.

After beating the Tigers, Saberhagen lost seven of his next eight decisions. At the all-star game break his record was 3-7.

“If we would have had a little more depth in the bullpen, he might have been sent down at the all-star break,” Blaylock said. “What kept him alive was his performance in the bullpen during the season’s first couple of months. We simply didn’t have anyone better, so we kept him.

“Lucky us.”

His exhibition season ERA is 6.60. He has allowed 24 hits in 15 innings. Statistically, it has not been a good spring for Saberhagen.

But he is not worried.

“This is a lot different than last year in that I feel no pressure at all,” Saberhagen said. “I’m here to work on my pitches. Sure, I’d like to have a great outing every time out, but the most important thing is to get ready for the regular season.”

For Saberhagen, there is no job to be won this spring.

“He’s in the rotation solidly now,” Blaylock said. “He’s staying there until he proves he doesn’t belong, and I’m sure he’s not going to do that. Barring injury, he’s going to be a premier pitcher in this league.

“He’s one longshot who’s going to make it big.”