Quote Originally Posted by MichaelofSF View Post
1989 Bret Saberhagen game used road jersey

1989 was an odd numbered year, so it was a great year for Sabes. He went 23-6 with a 2.16 ERA. As a kid this was one of my favorite seasons as the Royals were still competitive and Sabes was battling Dave Stewart for the Cy Young.

I obtained this jersey from the 2012 Hunt All Star game auction. We had previously discussed this jersey here . I had missed out on this jersey on ebay but it had had it's name restored and auctioned off for me to win it. Some pilling is present near the chest velcro.

The interesting thing about this jersey is that in 1989 Rawlings was the jersey supplier for the Royals, but this jersey is a Wilson made jersey. An easy way to spot the Wilson and Rawlings jerseys is by the number fonts. Sabes wore both Wilson and Rawlings that year. He was wearing the Wilson when he won his Royals record 23rd win in Oakland. Unfortunately I didn't win the SCP auction for the 1989 Saberhagen glove as that was a beauty. The two baseball cards show the Wilson and Rawlings styles
So I was talking to Sabes this year at Royals Fantasy Camp about the whole Wilson/Rawlings 1989 jersey thing to know what the reason why was. He didn't remember or even notice. I did pick his brain some about his equipment. Sabes remembered that he started hemming his jerseys because he said he hated the front tail. He couldn't exactly remember when this started. In his Royals days he didn't do this but some time around 1994 in my observations his jerseys start to show this.

Sabes also said that he used to change undershirts every inning because he would sweat alot. I missed out on his 1989 game used glove that he auctioned off with SCP last year but started talking with him about his gloves. He said that he started having his gloves made with sweat bands because of his profuse sweating. He said the first year the band smelled so bad from use that in subsequent years they started making the glove so that the band could be changed out. He also said he used to tip his curveball by extending his finger on his glove so he started having a finger hood placed on his glove. This was all pretty interesting stuff to me to hear from the source.