CLASS OF ’85 IS BACK : Saberhagen Shows Cy Young Form With 5-0 Start

There were whispers about an alleged change in life style, skepticism regarding his injuries, and conjecture that he might have been a one-year wonder.

The dream season of 1985 led to a nightmare for Kansas City Royals’ pitcher Bret Saberhagen in 1986.

Now 23 and smarter, stronger and a winner of his first five starts, Saberhagen is dedicated to rebuilding the legend.

“He took a lot of (bleep) last year for the demise of the Royals and he wants to show people that he can throw as well as he did in ‘85,” said his father, Bob, a Woodland Hills computer salesman. “There’ve been significant improvements in the person and pitcher.”

Said Jamie Quirk, the veteran Kansas City catcher and utility man: “He’s throwing as well as he did in ’85 and a hell of a lot better than he did last year. Bret kept saying he was hurt, but no one really believed that--not the writers, the fans or the players either.

“We thought it was an excuse,” Quirk said. “Now when we see what he’s doing when healthy, we know he was telling the truth.”

Saberhagen isn’t sure why he was doubted last year and isn’t happy about it. He knows, too, that he contributed to it, failing to properly prepare for the 1986 season while attempting to cash in on his spectacular success of 1985.

Call it a painful and costly lesson that is now producing dividends.

“I know that there were a lot of skeptics last year and that I’ve already changed some minds,” he said, sitting in front of his locker the other day.

“I’ve been told by a few people that I’m throwing better than I did in ’85. Now I have to establish the consistency I had. A 4-0 April is great, but it’s one month. I want to do it for six. I want to have the same kind of year I had in ’85. I want people to know that was the real Bret Saberhagen.”

The Saberhagen of 1985 was 2-2 in April. Only two Kansas City pitchers--Larry Gura and Al Fitzmorris--have ever opened a season 5-0. Neither made it 6-0.

Saberhagen is again stopper and bellwether. He has pitched eight innings or more in all five of his starts, four of which followed Kansas City defeats. His earned-run average is 1.93. He has walked only seven in the five starts, has permitted just two homers in the 42 innings and has struck out 20.

In 1985, at 21, just 2 1/2 years after pitching Cleveland High of Reseda to the Los Angeles City championship with a no-hitter in the final game at Dodger Stadium and being named City Player of the Year, Saberhagen fashioned a 20-6 record and 2.87 ERA for the Royals, becoming the youngest pitcher in American League history to win the Cy Young Award.

That wasn’t all, of course. Saberhagen won two starts in the Royals’ World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, allowing 1 run in 18 innings and becoming the Series MVP.

He and wife Janeane also became America’s sweethearts as the nation’s media spotlighted the birth of their first child, Drew William, on the eve of his victory in Game 7.

Saberhagen made $160,000 that year. He filed for salary arbitration and eventually won his bid for $925,000.

There were riches to be made elsewhere, too, and Saberhagen went from morning to night, from Bryant Gumbel to Johnny Carson, from occasional workouts at Royals Stadium to first-class flights to New York, Chicago and the guaranteed indigestion of the banquet circuit.

And why not? He was 21. King of the hill.

George Brett had traveled a similar route. He tried to warn Saberhagen.

“He was going somewhere every week,” Brett said. “He was speaking at every dinner for a grand or two. Who needs it? I told him to relax, lay back, get ready for the season, but at that age, when you’re a great athlete, it’s hard to think of yourself wearing down. . . . It’s hard coping with success at that age.”

Saberhagen is represented by the Hollywood-based Dennis Gilbert and Brian Cohen, who said that they rejected 60% to 70% of the offers, trying to protect Saberhagen from winter burnout, but that the success was as new to them as to Saberhagen.

“Everybody wanted a piece of him,” Cohen said. “A lot of sports agents don’t get a client like that in a lifetime. The opportunities come very fast in this business and you have to take advantage of them. Bret has tremendous energy. He thought he could handle it.”

Said Saberhagen: “I’d had success before, but never the glory and fame. I didn’t know any better. I’d never been in a situation where I could make a lot of money on the side.

“I jumped at the opportunity without realizing what it could do to me physically and that I could make three or four times that by pitching well again in ’86. I may have made $50,000 with appearances and ended up taking a . . . salary cut and losing more than $100,000 overall.”

He was cut 20%, the maximum allowable, to $740,000, at the end of the 1986 season, having finished with a 7-12 record and a 4.15 ERA. The pitcher who did not lose two games in a row during the 1985 season did not win two in a row in ’86. Neither did he win as a starter after mid-July. There were trips to the bullpen and the disabled list and an obvious loss of confidence, a reluctance to challenge hitters.

He complained of a strained shoulder and a mysterious pain in the arch of his right foot.

There was skepticism among some teammates and rumors that Saberhagen’s problems stemmed from too much night life, that he was jeopardizing both his career and his marriage.

Saberhagen disputed that, saying that he has matured and settled down through marriage. He and Janeane have a second child, Brittany Nicole, and live in a house they built in the fashionable community of Leawood, Kan.

“The primary reason I didn’t win last year was because of the injuries,” Saberhagen said. “I won’t name names, but there were guys in here who came to me and said I wasn’t hurt, that I was just afraid to go out there.

“That didn’t do a lot for my confidence at a time when I needed people standing behind me. It’s the type thing you tend to remember when you’re well. I don’t hold grudges, but I don’t think as highly of them either.

“Maybe they were annoyed at me for getting hurt in the first place, for not taking care of myself during the winter, not preparing like I should have. I can accept that. I was pretty much gone the whole off-season. I hit the circuit pretty hard. I can sit back now and say I made a lot of mistakes. I did too much. I wasn’t physically prepared for spring training.”

Saberhagen began to feel the pain in his shoulder in his first appearance in the spring of ‘86--March 9 against the Chicago White Sox at Sarasota. He had already experienced problems with his right foot. The discomfort would come and go, eluding diagnosis.

“I’d never dealt with the prestige of winning the Cy Young and the World Series MVP,” Saberhagen said. “They listed all those honors when I was introduced the day before (at the Royals’ training base) and I felt that I had to pick up where I left off, that I had to go out and impress people again by trying to strike everyone out.

“I just threw too hard too soon and was never right again. I mean, I threw some good games where I didn’t get any runs and I threw others where I couldn’t have made the high school team.

“I knew there were times when I wasn’t challenging hitters, but my arm wasn’t strong enough to do it. Every time I tried, I hurt it again. I got some rest for it by going to the bullpen and the disabled list, but there wasn’t enough time to build it up again.

“It was just a frustrating, miserable year, and I should have seen it coming on New Year’s Eve. Janeane and I were supposed to go to a party at George’s restaurant in El Segundo, but first I got sick, then she got sick. We spent New Year’s Eve in bed.

“That should have been the tip-off on what was to come. At least it was a learning experience. I feel fortunate to have had the year I did in ’85 and the opportunity now to come back from the adversity.”

Said Bob Saberhagen: “What I saw last year was anxiety and frustration. Bret had never had a losing season and it affected him profoundly. He learned some valuable lessons.

“The media kept asking me if I thought ’85 had been a fluke and I said, ‘If ’85 was a fluke, then ’84 was a fluke and ’83 was a fluke and his whole career has been a fluke.’ No, I think ’86 was the fluke and he’s proving it now.”

The 1986 season apparently taught Saberhagen the value of preparation. There aren’t that many requests for a 7-12 pitcher, but he rejected most of those he did get and built a fitness center in the basement of his home--a four-station exercise machine, treadmill, stationary bike, sauna and tanning machine.

He threw three times a week at Royals Stadium until the winter weather got too tough. He moved to Los Angeles in mid-January, where he played golf with his dad daily, teeing off before 6 so that he could be at Cleveland High to work out with his former high school team at noon.

Saberhagen added five pounds to his 6-foot 1-inch, 160-pound frame, and a mile or two to his fastball, now being clocked consistently at 92 to 94 m.p.h. He worked at his curve, enhancing its break.

“He came to camp like a kid looking for a job,” new manager Billy Gardner said of the ’87 Saberhagen.

Said pitching coach Gary Blaylock: “Last year, he’d miss a start or two and was always trying to catch up. This year, he’s been ahead of everyone because of the way he conditioned himself.”

In his first start of the regular season, bidding to reestablish his confidence and name, Saberhagen beat the New York Yankees with a two-hitter, throwing a no-hitter for 7 innings.

“His first four starts were picture perfect,” Gardner said.

His fifth required tenacity. He survived seven singles in the first two innings, a 65-minute rain delay before the third inning and back-to-back homers in the eighth before defeating Cleveland Saturday night, 5-4.

“Sometimes, it’s better to be more lucky than good,” Saberhagen said, having usually been good enough to create his luck.

He reflected on the mistakes of ’86 and said:

“There was a lot of pressure because of the labels I was carrying, but I like the labels and want them again--former Cy Young winner, former MVP of the World Series. Everybody wants to be known as a superstar and to have to live up to it. You have to put the pressure on yourself. You have to want it. I mean, it’s no different than any other business. You have to deal with it or you’re out of a job.”

There’s more to the 23-year-old Saberhagen now than new physical and mental frameworks. He has a new uniform, having switched from No. 31 to No. 18, which he wore at Cleveland High, where it has been retired.

Saberhagen smiled and said: “I want to be the answer to a trivia question: ‘Who was the only Royals pitcher in history to win 20 games while wearing two different numbers?’ ”

A 5-0 start as he works on the second 20 indicates that he can still deal with this numbers game.

SABERHAGEN IN ’85

W-L: 20-6

ERA: 2.87

SO: 158

IP: 235

SABERHAGEN IN ’87

W-L: 5-0

ERA: 1.93

SO: 20

IP: 42