Diamond Jubilee : Mets’ Bret Saberhagen to Return to Dodger Stadium Tonight, One Month Shy : of the 10th Anniversary of His No-Hit Gem for Cleveland in 1982 City Final

They were fastballs that could have cracked cement. Or, to hear Glen Newhouse tell it, the bones in a high school catcher’s hand.

“I remember how hard Bret was throwing that night and how much confidence he had,” Newhouse said. “It was the hardest I had ever felt him throw. His fastball was clocked at 92, 93 m.p.h. He was on that night.”

On the mound was none other than Bret Saberhagen. No, not Bret Saberhagen of the New York Mets, formerly of the Kansas City Royals. Not the two-time Cy Young Award winner and most valuable player of the 1985 World Series.

This was an 18-year-old, 6-foot-1, 160-pound Saberhagen, a skinny senior right-hander for Cleveland High with a slight trace of a mustache and a heavy dose of big league potential.

The date was June 14, 1982. Saberhagen’s meteoric rise to major league fame was about to begin.

With two out in the bottom of the seventh at Dodger Stadium and Cleveland leading Palisades, 13-0, Saberhagen was about to bring down the curtain on what still is the only no-hitter in the 53-year history of the City Section final.

The batter tapped one of Saberhagen’s offerings just in front of the plate. Newhouse shed his mask, beat Saberhagen to the ball and fired to first for the final out.

“I’ll always remember throwing out that last batter,” Newhouse said. “It’s a great thing to remember. Sometimes people say to me, ‘I hear you’re the guy who caught Saberhagen.’ I hear that a lot. It’s a great feeling.”

It is a feeling shared by many of the ’82 Cavaliers.

“I still have the team picture up on the wall in my room,” said third baseman Keneth Marden, a nephew of San Fernando High baseball Coach Steve Marden. “And a lot of my friends are getting tired of hearing how I went four for four in Dodger Stadium.”

Today, Newhouse lives in Agoura Hills and works as a production assistant for a major movie studio. Marden is an engineer in Newport Beach. First baseman Mark Markland is a financial adviser and insurance salesman living in Manhattan Beach.

Pitcher David Dale lives in Sherman Oaks and works as a transportation coordinator for a movie studio. Second baseman Anthony Doll is employed by a home-security company in Canoga Park, and outfielder Ernie Behringer is working toward a doctorate in physics at Cornell University. All graduated with Saberhagen three days after the City final.

Coach Leo Castro is baseball coach at Buchanan High in Clovis, Calif. Most have lost touch with twins John and Tom Brandt. And no one seems to know what became of shortstop Sherman Webb.

In fact, as is the case of most high school teams after a decade gone by, the oft-uttered phrase, “Whatever became of . . .?” fits like a batting glove before the name of any member of the 1982 Cleveland Cavaliers.

Except, of course, Saberhagen.

“I run into the guys periodically,” Saberhagen said. “Glen Newhouse and I were always really close in our senior year. And Keneth Marden. There were a lot of close friends, a lot of memorable experiences growing up and playing ball together--and ending up with the championship.

“It’s kind of tough to rank it right next to a World Series championship, but at the time, it’s what you dream about doing--pitching a no-hitter in the City championship.”

Saberhagen, who is 2-2 with a 4.02 earned-run average and 46 strikeouts for the Mets, will come full circle tonight at Dodger Stadium where he is scheduled to pitch as the Mets open a three-game series against the Dodgers.

It is Mets’ first appearance of the season at Dodger Stadium. For Saberhagen, the most famous member of the Cleveland High class of ’82 and now one of the most recognizable names in professional sports, it will mark his first return to the mound there since the 1982 City final.

“It’s still by far the best mound I’ve ever thrown off of,” Saberhagen said. “Doc (Met pitcher Dwight Gooden) loves it. Everyone I talk to likes this mound.”

By now, everyone has heard Saberhagen’s story. He was a 19th-round pick by the Royals in the 1982 amateur draft, then made a surprisingly rapid two-year trek to the starting rotation in Kansas City. A start in the American League Championship Series at age 20 followed. Then a World Series start at 21.

Then, of course, there was the incredible storybook climax to the 1985 season in which Saberhagen--within one week--assisted in the delivery of his first child, earned the World Series MVP award with an 11-0 Game 7 victory over the Cardinals and paid a visit with the team to the White House.

“To us,” said Dale, who was 5-2 as the Cavaliers’ No. 2 starter in 1982, “Bret epitomized someone whose dreams came true.”

It all seemed a longshot in the early spring of 1982, when Saberhagen’s right arm and the Cavaliers’ championship hopes were in sorry shape. The season began with Saberhagen still playing point guard for the school’s City 3-A champion basketball team.

As the story goes, Saberhagen injured his shoulder while making a layup and hanging on the rim. Bob Saberhagen, who took his son from specialist to specialist, said the pain more likely was the result of improper conditioning. When Saberhagen finally joined the baseball team, he was playing first base.

“His velocity went to pot,” Bob Saberhagen said. “His whole effectiveness as a pitcher went to pot.”

Things were worse from the team’s standpoint. The Cavaliers stumbled to a 2-2 start, losing to West Valley League rivals El Camino Real and Chatsworth. When several players showed up late for practice one afternoon, Castro exploded.

“He said, ‘This is the biggest game of your life coming up and this is how you guys come out?’ ” Newhouse recalled. “He told us to get out of there, to go home and think about it. We all just laughed about how we got out of practice.”

Said Saberhagen: “I remember Castro being (angry) a lot.”

The Cavaliers, by virtually all accounts, were a loose bunch. Sometimes too loose. Castro recalled one afternoon when Newhouse showed up for practice drunk, while Doll remembers Webb as the one who was under the influence. Newhouse said he doesn’t remember.

But evenings spent partying in the school parking lot or at somebody’s house are vivid in most recollections.

“There were a lot of parties back in those days,” Markland said. “And a lot of partying. It was just the time that we all had a good time.”

Saberhagen spent free time working at Universal Studios where he earned money hosing down sets in the late evening. Otherwise, he was dating his girlfriend Janeane, who in 1984 became his wife.

“The guys kind of gave Bret a hard time about that,” Marden said. “We used to tease him, ‘Don’t go out with her, go out with us.’ He tried to do both.”

Saberhagen recalls the situation differently.

“Usually, it worked out that wherever we went, everyone was there anyway,” he said.

Castro said that Saberhagen unquestionably was the team leader.

“I made everyone cut their hair at the beginning of the season,” Castro said. “Bret had long hair as a 10th-grader and he cut his. Then he would go around telling the other guys, ‘Your hair’s too long, get it cut.’ And he’d say it loud enough so I could hear it.”

Saberhagen’s sore arm, feared for a while to be the result of a torn rotator cuff, eventually healed through massages given by a chiropractor hired by Bob Saberhagen. As Saberhagen’s arm improved, so did the Cavaliers.

Cleveland won 17 of 18 games to reach the final. With Saberhagen on the mound, Cleveland defeated Chatsworth, 14-11, in the championship game of the Monroe Easter tournament.

Chatsworth defeated Cleveland in two of their first three league meetings before losing to Saberhagen, 3-2, in the second-to-last game of the season.

Chatsworth finished 13-2 and won the West Valley League title. Cleveland was 12-3. Doll batted a team-high .417. Dale batted .416. Saberhagen hit .348 and had 19 stolen bases in 20 attempts.

“On the field, we played hard and worked hard,” Marden said. “We were such great friends. There was great chemistry on that team.”

And a lot of superstition.

Just before the playoffs, Marden announced at practice that his car had been stolen from the school parking lot. Castro and the team were more concerned about Marden’s aluminum bat that he kept in the trunk.

“It was the team bat. About 90% of the team used it,” Marden said. “Castro was just freaking out. He didn’t care about my car, he cared about that bat. He had me out of classes, driving all around the Valley looking for that car so we could get that bat. They found the car about a week later, completely stripped.”

Including the bat. Unsatisfied with any other bat in the team’s arsenal, Marden phoned his uncle at San Fernando.

“Kenny called up and said, ‘Hey, Unc, can I borrow a bat for the playoffs?’ ” Steve Marden said. “They couldn’t find the right kind--something about weight distribution and shape. Castro came over with Keneth and Bret and I opened up the doors of my vault and said, ‘Help yourself.’ I guess that was my contribution to the City championship.”

Pitching, however, figured more prominently in the team’s postseason. In the opening round, Dale earned the win as Cleveland knocked off Bell, 11-5. Saberhagen followed with a 6-0 win over Grant.

Then came Banning in the semifinals. And, perhaps, the first of many stories for the Saberhagen file.

With Dale pitching, Cleveland fell behind, 5-0, in the first inning. Castro went to the mound figuring that Saberhagen, who was playing shortstop, couldn’t possibly pitch on two days’ rest. But Saberhagen wanted the ball and Castro wasn’t about to argue.

Saberhagen allowed another run then shut down Banning the rest of the way. Cleveland rallied to win, 7-6, on a seventh-inning home run by Howard Halen.

“I had, probably, the worst game of my career,” Dale said. “Balls falling in, bouncing over people’s heads, mental mistakes. Bret came in. It was amazing.”

Said Castro: “I always tell people the Banning game was the best individual performance I ever saw anybody throw. The no-hitter was just icing on the cake.”

Palisades defeated Chatsworth in the other semifinal, spoiling a rubber match with the Chancellors but sparing Chatsworth another meeting with Saberhagen. Or vice versa.

“I think the bottom line was that we were awfully glad that Chatsworth wasn’t in the final that season,” Saberhagen said.

In the championship game, Palisades’ second batter in the first inning reached first on a throwing error by second baseman Tom Brandt. From there, Saberhagen pitched a perfect game, striking out eight and earning the most-valuable-player award and, later, the City player-of-the-year award.

For the season, Saberhagen was 10-0 with a 1.65 ERA and 71 strikeouts in 72 innings. His three-year record was 24-2.

As for the rest of the gang, Newhouse went on to play baseball at Pierce College for one year. Dale pitched for College of the Canyons for two seasons, then for UCLA in 1986 and 1987, compiling a two-year record of 4-2 primarily as a reliever. Newhouse and Dale are teammates on a recreational baseball team in the Valley.

Markland graduated from USC in 1986. Marden graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1988 and lives in Newport Beach. Doll has lived in Northridge since.

A reunion? Somewhat surprisingly, nothing has been planned for the team. The Class of 1982’s 10-year reunion is slated for Oct. 10. Most of the players say they will attend. That includes Saberhagen if he’s not tied up with the Mets.

“I plan on going,” Saberhagen said. “If we’re not in postseason.”