How ex-Met Bret Saberhagen became part of baseball’s uplifting virtual choir

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PHILADELPHIA — There are times, the immensely self-deprecating Bret Saberhagen confessed earlier this week in a telephone interview, when the two-time American League Cy Young Award winner reflects on his time with the Mets — his behavior while Shea Stadium served as his office, to be more specific — and offers a rather concise assessment: …

“What an a–hole!”

Now 56, the 25th anniversary of his departure from the Mets having just passed, Saberhagen sounds fully at peace with who he is and what he has done (far more good than bad, to be clear). Retired and living in California, he watches baseball on TV, raises money for those who can’t afford their medical care and occasionally pops out his head for something fun.

Such a fun opportunity arose last month, and Saberhagen pounced. You can see him rocking a Royals cap, Royals shirt and quarantine beard, glove in his left hand and baseball in his right, during this “virtual choir” performance of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

“Thank God you really can’t hear my voice all that well,” Saberhagen cracked. “I can’t tell you what i did with the money for singing lessons.”

The triumphant video grew from the mind of Harrison Sheckler, a masters student at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music. A native of Iowa and a Cubs fan who adopted the Reds as his second team when he attended the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, Sheckler put his name on the map with a virtual choir performance of the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” that featured 300 people from 15 countries. The success of that emboldened him, in late May, to try to marry his passions of music and baseball.

“Baseball wasn’t sure it was going to come back,” Sheckler said. “We wanted to create an opportunity for fans to bring the game a little closer to them, something they could all be involved with.” And as legendary a song as “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is, Sheckler noted, there aren’t that many recorded versions of it.

Having watched Bronson Arroyo pitch many years for the Reds and being aware of Arroyo’s feats in the music world, Sheckler made a modern-day cold call, pitching the idea to the member of the 2004 Red Sox.

“I don’t check (Instagram) very often, but he caught my attention,” Arroyo said of Sheckler. “When someone is classically trained, when you’re talking about a quality musician, it always perks my ears up.”

Arroyo helped recruit former teammates like Scooter Gennett and Jonny Gomes as well as former pitcher Ryan Dempster, who performs his killer Harry Caray impersonation. Sheckler found a way to sign up many more, including Saberhagen (another cold call), former Met James Loney and former Yankee Jerry Hairston Jr. as well as some of his musician friends. They started putting it together in late June and had it ready by the coronavirus-delayed July 23 Opening Day, thanks to a pair of audio engineers named Grant Bayer and Armin Meyer who spent 21 hours mixing and mastering the 200 audio tracks. Sheckler, a pianist, spent 150 hours organizing the project, arranging the music score and editing the video.

As for Saberhagen, who said he has since tightened up the beard, his only other musical experience came when he rapped for a Kansas City automobile dealership commercial in the 1980s, a jaw-dropper that Jimmy Fallon dug up a few years ago. He wore his Royals shirt for good reason — he won both of his Cy Youngs there as well as Most Valuable Player honors in the 1985 World Series — yet he didn’t shy away from questions about his nearly four seasons with the Mets, who acquired him from the Royals during the 1991-92 offseason and traded him to the Rockies on July 31, 1995.

“Disappointment,” Saberhagen said. “If you look at our lineup on paper, in ‘92 and ‘93, our pitching staff, our hitting, we just never jelled. It was a disappointment to us, not just to the fans and the organization. It was a disappointment to each and every one of us.”

When you look at Saberhagen’s Mets numbers now, they don’t disappoint as much. He put together a 126 ERA+ as a Met, compared to 128 as a Royal. Back then, though, his 29-21 won-loss record stood out as insufficient, especially since he posted a .500 record or worse in three of his four years. Now we barely pay notice to pitcher wins and losses.

And then there were the “bunch of mistakes” that Saberhagen referenced. The two that have stood the test of time, both occurring in the Mets’ clubhouse in 1993, are hitting three reporters with bleach fired from a squirt gun and setting off firecrackers near reporters.

“Damn, what a knucklehead,” Saberhagen said. “It was stupid, I was pissed off how much publicity Anthony Young was getting (for a record losing streak). …It was pissing us all off. We were playing like s–t. They were stupid mistakes on my part.”

And that’s when he referred to himself in a profane manner.

This video “is a nice distraction to bring a little peace and comfort,” Sheckler said. “There are so many crazy things going on. You need something good during your day.”

Talking about some old times, hearing a guy own up to his past transgressions, becomes another good thing emanating from Sheckler’s creativity and diligence. All the more so since we don’t know how much longer the coronavirus will permit us to keep having ballgames.

— This week’s Pop Quiz question came from Doug Kelly of Sacramento: This former Cy Young Award winner pitched for the Giants and, after his retirement, performed at a concert at Oracle Park. Name him.

— Not a baseball book per se, but “Be All In,” by gold-medal-winning soccer player Christie Pearce Rampone and Dr. Kirstine Keane, is a terrific primer for both youngsters who participate in youth sports and their parents.

— Your Pop Quiz answer is Barry Zito. If you have a tidbit that connects baseball with popular culture, please send it to me at [email protected].