The Ace, the Heartthrob, & the Unappreciated
Cue the Ennio Morricone soundtrack...
En route to the 1985 World Championship, the Kansas City Royals put together one of the more effective and often overlooked starting rotations in modern baseball history. Consisting of Bret Saberhagen (age 21), Mark Gubicza (23), Danny Jackson (23), Bud Black (28), and Charlie Leibrandt (the old man of the staff at 29), the young, bargain-priced staff followed in the wake of Royals legends Paul Splittorf, Steve Busby, and Dennis Leonard (still technically on the team in 1985), and accomplished what their predecessors never could.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to convince you that the 1985 Royals pitching staff should be mentioned in the same breath as the 90’s Braves, or the 1988 Mets, or the 1971 Orioles, who were the last rotation to have four 20-game winners in a single season. Few people are putting them on a top ten list. But you can’t argue with what they accomplished. Let’s take a quick look at the 1985 championship numbers.
Saberhagen: 20-6, 2.87 ERA, 235.1 IP, 10 CG, 1.058 WHIP, AL Cy Young Winner and World Series MVP
Gubicza: 14-10, 4.06 ERA, 177.1 IP, 1.336 WHIP
Jackson: 14-12, 3.42 ERA, 208 IP, 4 CG, 1.370 WHIP
Black: 10-15, 4.33 ERA, 205.2 IP, 5 CG, 1.337 WHIP
Leibrandt: 17-9, 2.69, 237.2 IP, 8 CG, 1.224 WHIP
Outside of Saberhagen, and perhaps Leibrandt, there’s nothing eye-popping in the stats. But they were a solid, sometimes spectacular group of workhorses who combined for one thousand innings pitched and 27 complete games. Even Black, with the lone losing record on the staff, was a pitcher the Royals felt comfortable starting in pressure-packed games. In fact, he was Kansas City’s Opening Day starter, and Dick Howser used him as a starter and reliever throughout the 1985 postseason.
All five of them earned a spot in Royals’ lore, but with all due respect to Black and Charlie Leibrandt, I want to focus on the other three for the remainder of this post.
Sabes was my personal favorite as a kid. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Kids love a winner, and he was the best of them. If you polled a group of lifelong Royals fans from my age bracket on their favorite childhood pitcher, I would bet on Saberhagen being number one with a bullet.
This wasn’t just because he dominated the Cardinals in Games 3 and 7 of the ’85 World Series, the latter of which came one night after his wife gave birth to their first child. (And the infamous Denkinger call as well, though we won’t get into that here.) He was barely old enough to buy a drink and his mustache was about as impressive as my sixteen-year-old son’s, but he had a wife and kid, a Cy Young Award, a World Series ring, and a World Series MVP. Where was he supposed to go from there?
The natural assumption would be that he had no place to go but down, but over the course of his long career, Sabes would prove that he was anything but a flash in the pan. The trajectory of his success was not linear, however. A zig-zag would be a more accurate representation of Saberhagen’s career arc. (I’m not talking about rolling papers either, though it wouldn’t surprise me if Sabes had used a few of those over the years as well.)
Saberhagen developed an unusual even-odd year pattern of success and frustration. See for yourself.
1985: 20-6, 2.87 ERA
1986: 7-12, 4.15 ERA
1987: 18-10, 3.36 ERA
1988: 14-16, 3.80 ERA
1989: 23-6, 2.16 ERA
1990: 5-9, 3.27 ERA
1991: 13-8, 3.07 ERA
Injuries might have played some role in the inconsistency, but I don’t really have a good explanation. It’s just one of those statistical oddities, though I would also point out that even in his down years, his ERA only topped four once, so it wasn’t as if he was alternating between great and terrible. More like, great and just okay.
1989 was probably his finest overall season. A very good Royals team fell short of an absolutely loaded Oakland team in the AL West, so there was no opportunity for him to add to his postseason glory, but he did capture his second Cy Young Award. He also led the league in wins, ERA, innings pitched, complete games, WHIP, and several other statistical categories.
1989 Saberhagen stats: 23-6, 2.16 ERA, 262.1 IP, 12 CG, 0.961 WHIP
I admit I’m biased, but I’ll put that season up with just about any other Cy Young season you can throw at me. Two years later, on August 26, 1991, he added a cherry on top when he threw his first career no-hitter against the White Sox. Sadly, it’s also the last no-hitter thrown by a Royals pitcher to date, and only the fourth in franchise history, which is mildly surprising considering the number of talented pitchers who have played for the Royals over the last fifty years.
Then, on December 11, 1991, the Royals broke my heart. I know I’m not the only one, but I definitely took it hard. The team had hooked me as a fan for life by winning the title when I was six years old, and even though they had failed to make the postseason for the following six years, I never really felt like they let me down until the day they traded Sabes and Bill Pecota to the Mets for Gregg Jeffries, Kevin McReynolds, and Keith Miller.
This trade, on its own, was not responsible for the two decades of garbage baseball that followed in Kansas City, but combined with the injury to Bo Jackson on the football field roughly a month later, it sure felt like the starting point. Jeffries had once been the most coveted prospect in baseball, but he never really put it together for the Mets, and the same held true during his time in Kansas City. McReynolds was okay, but nothing special, and Keith Miller… well, I couldn’t tell you anything about Keith Miller. He never made much of an impression.
Saberhagen’s career continued its up and down trajectory, though it didn’t follow quite the same even-odd pattern after he departed Jackson County. In the strike-shortened season of 1994, he earned his third All-Star appearance, this time as a Met, and became the first pitcher since 1911 to throw at least 150 innings and post more wins than walks. He threw 177.1 innings with a 14-4 record, 2.74 ERA, and only 13 walks.
In 1995, he made it back to the postseason for the first time in a decade as a member of the Colorado Rockies, but lost his only start to Atlanta in Game 4 of the NLDS. After missing most of the 1996 and 1997 seasons to an elbow injury, he won the Comeback POY Award and the Tony Conigliaro Award (given to a player who overcomes significant obstacles) in 1998 for the Red Sox, going 15-8 with 3.96 ERA. He pitched for the Red Sox in the playoffs the next two seasons.
Saberhagen career stats: 167-117, 3.34 ERA, 2,562.2 IP, 1,715K, 76 CG, 1.141 WHIP, 58.9 WAR
The best part about Sabes, other than when he was dealing on the mound, which was pretty great too, was how much fun he was as a player and a personality. Always ready with a smartass quip for an interviewer (usually with a wad of tobacco tucked under his lip), he had a reputation as a prankster, which sometimes got him in trouble. Notably, he took it too far and once sprayed bleach on reporters while with the Mets. He apologized and made a donation to charity in an attempt to make things right.
But just in case you’re wondering if he might not be such a great guy after all, let me enter this into evidence. In 2013, he auctioned off his World Series ring and other awards for charity, basically noting that he didn’t need the mementos because he had the memories. So why not help some people out and put the items in the hands of people who would truly appreciate them?
One more thing I want to add about Sabes before I move on. Married… with Children was my dad’s favorite show back in the day, which meant that our TV was always tuned to Fox every Sunday night, and I’ll never forget the episode when Saberhagen knocked on Al Bundy’s front door. It was a gag during the 1994 Strike, and he was playing himself as a pizza delivery boy, trying to earn ends-meet while baseball was on hiatus. If I hadn’t already loved the guy, his self-deprecating comedic turn would have surely won me over.
My dad has never been much of a sports fan, but we’ll always have that episode. Sports were more my mom’s thing. She often watched baseball games with me, and her appreciation for John Wathan fostered in me an early respect for the Royals’ backup catcher and future manager. She was also a Broncos fan in Chiefs country, and she, along with my cousin Phil, converted me at a young age. This worked out great for the first thirty-five years or so of my life, but it’s really been kicking my ass the last eight. About the only thing we didn’t agree on was basketball. She thought it was boring. I love it.
My mom had two crushes that I recall her being vocal about. The first was the magician, David Copperfield. To be fair, I think this was mandatory for women of her age in the 80’s, just as it was mandatory for kids my age to have a Michael Jordan poster on the wall. And the second was Mark Gubicza.
Gubicza might not have been the most talented pitcher on the 1985 Royals staff— though he was hardly a scrub— but he was easily the most attractive. Sabes and Leibrandt had dirty redneck mustaches that probably limited their appeal among the ladies, Danny Jackson had Pete Rose hair, and Bud Black always kind of looked like a high school geography teacher. But Gubicza, with his curly brown locks and perfect smile, was a natural born poster boy.
None of this should lead you to believe he couldn’t pitch, however. Because he most certainly could. A two-time All-Star (1988-89) and member of the Royals HOF, he was the odd man out in the 1985 World Series, despite winning Game 6 of the ALCS and helping the Royals win the AL West as a rookie the year before. Here is his career statline:
132-136, 3.96 ERA, 2,223.1 IP, 42 CG, 1,371 K, 1.361 WHIP, 37.4 WAR
After being drafted into a Royals organization that offered pitching mentors like Dennis Leonard, Vida Blue, Gaylord Perry, and Dan Quisenberry, he was a consistently good pitcher for Kansas City throughout the latter half of the 80’s, often playing second fiddle to Saberhagen. Ironically, the two would later coach against each at the high school level in California, after their playing days were complete.
Gubicza’s strongest season was 1988, when he finished third in the AL Cy Young voting with this statline:
20-8, 2.70 ERA, 269.2 IP, 8 CG, 1.187 WHIP
Almost every season he pitched in the 80’s was comparable, if not quite as good. Unfortunately, injuries began to take their toll in the early 90’s, and the Royals briefly transitioned him to the bullpen in 1993. He returned to the rotation the following year, and even led the AL in starts and innings pitched in 1995, but this was his last hurrah. After the 1996 season, he was traded to the Angels for Chili Davis. In his one season in Anaheim, he put up mediocre numbers, but the deal worked out for him in the long term. After retiring, he eventually caught on with the Angels broadcast team, and has been their color analyst for nearly two decades.
About a year or so ago, he tweeted a picture of himself in the hideous pinstriped uniforms the Angels briefly wore during the 90’s, asking how he looked. I replied with a picture of him in his KC uniform, telling him I preferred that look, especially with the blue glove he wore.
That blue baseball glove was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. I was jealous of it. I wanted one so badly, but it was impossible to find one for sale. Nowadays, the shelves of sporting goods stores are filled with gloves of all kinds of colors. It’s like a damn rainbow. But back then, it was just brown, and maybe black, if you were lucky.
I never did get a blue glove, but Gubie did like the tweet. My mom died nearly twenty years ago, so I didn’t get to share this development with her, but I think she’d be proud that Mark Gubicza and I are now best friends. At least that’s how I’m choosing to interpret the interaction. Don’t judge me!
And now, finally, we come to Danny Jackson, almost as an afterthought. In a way, that seems fitting, if not entirely fair. I know plenty of Royals fans who hold Jackson in high regard, but I’ve never heard anyone say he was their favorite pitcher. He is generally the most overlooked member of the 1985 Royals rotation, and his career numbers are the weakest.
Jackson’s career stats: 112-131, 4.01 ERA, 2,072 IP, 44 CG, 1.412 WHIP, 17.0 WAR
That said, the Royals would not have won the World Series without him. Saberhagen was the better overall pitcher and was a deserving recipient of the World Series MVP, but Danny Jackson won the most important games of that postseason. If he hadn’t come up clutch in two elimination games, Saberhagen would never have had a chance to show off his stuff.
The first classic Jackson performance came in Game 5 of the ALCS in Toronto, with the Royals trailing the Blue Jays three games to one. Facing elimination, Jackson hurled a shutout to keep the Royals alive and pave the way for their unlikely comeback to a World Series berth.
Amazingly enough, Kansas City found themselves in the exact same situation versus the Cardinals in the World Series. Again, Dick Howser put the ball in Jackson’s hand. He fell short of a shutout this time, giving up one run, but pitched another complete game to keep the Royals on life support. Along the way, he also pitched the only immaculate inning in World Series history, mowing down the Cardinals in nine pitches in the bottom of the seventh.
All told, he started four games for the Royals in the postseason, finishing with a 2-1 record and 1.04 ERA, the lowest in Royals postseason history.
A two-time All-Star (1988, 1994), Jackson’s career followed the path of a journeyman pitcher, albeit one with exceptionally high peaks. He was out of Kansas City long before the Saberhagen trade, joining the Cincinnati Reds in 1988.
His first season with the Reds was his strongest, posting a 23-8 W-L record with a 2.73 ERA and a league leading 15 complete games, but the biggest highlight came in 1990 when he helped the Reds upset the favored A’s and win the World Series. He and Leibrandt are the only two members of the ’85 staff to make it back to a World Series, and Jackson is the only one to earn another ring. As a player anyway— Bud Black has one as a coach.
Jackson was his usual clutch self in the 1990 NLCS, winning Game 3 and earning a no-decision in the series-clinching Game 6. His lone World Series start (Game 2) was not his strongest outing, but the Reds were not counting on him in the same way the Royals were in 1985. They won the game, and went on to sweep Oakland in dominant fashion.
Most pitchers would be more than happy to retire with a resume like that, but Jackson found his way back to the spotlight one more time. Following a couple of decidedly average seasons, he signed with Philadelphia in 1993 and experienced a kind of renaissance.
In 1994, he went 14-6 with a 3.26 ERA and earned his second All-Star appearance, but 1993 was the really wild part of the ride. The burly, unkempt Phillies shocked the baseball world and won the NL East, setting the stage for the last truly great performance of Jackson’s career. Trailing the Braves 2-1 in the NLCS, Jackson outdueled future Hall-of-Famer John Smoltz in Game 4, earning a 2-1 victory and evening the series. He went 7.2 innings, sprinkling 9 hits for 1 run with 6 K and 2 BB.
The Phillies advanced to the Worlds Series, losing on Joe Carter’s iconic walk-off home run in Game 6. They turned to Jackson for another big Game 5 performance, but by then the magic was gone. He went 5 innings and gave up 4 runs. The Phillies lost 10-3.
After the Strike, Jackson’s career sputtered on for a few more seasons in St. Louis and San Diego, but he never again reached the heights of his prime. Not that he had anything to be ashamed about. Sure, he might not have been the flashiest pitcher— kids weren’t fighting over his cards and women weren’t swooning over him in the stands— but he consistently performed at the highest level when it mattered most. In the kinds of games and moments that kids dream about when they’re playing in the backyard, Jackson came through and did it for real.
Gimme that kind of pitcher on the mound any day.
Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. If you enjoyed it, do me a favor and hit the like button, and don’t forget to subscribe and share. And if you have any memories of Sabes, Gubie, or Jackson, leave a comment below.
I remember exactly where I was when I learned about the Saberhagen trade. That's how traumatic it was. And injuries definitely contributed to Sabes' zig-zags. It felt like he had shoulder issues every other year, although he did pitch a full season in 1988 (it was fine, just not as good as the ones surrounding it).