SABERHAGEN WILL SAVOR IT.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Bret Saberhagen stood on enemy turf Friday night and threw hand signals to Mark Gubicza between pitches.

The Angels pitcher held his response until after Saberhagen's Red Sox were dispatched 8-5 in Saberhagen's first major-league start in nearly two years.

Then, through an intermediary, Gubicza sent a cold bottle of beer to the one-time Cleveland High standout in the visitors' clubhouse at Anaheim Stadium.

It was a warm gesture from one player still thirsting for relief to another who found it in front of 24,977 fans that included his parents and three children.

``I'm happy to be out there again. I'm happy the first test is over,'' said Saberhagen, 33, who received numerous good-luck missives before the game.

One of them came from Rockies outfielder Larry Walker, with whom Saberhagen played alongside in Colorado before his right shoulder exploded in pain during an off-day workout in August 1995.

Saberhagen, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, submitted to radical surgery 15 months ago to repair some tendons and tighten others, then set about working feverishly to make Friday's miracle happen.

After pulling it off, Saberhagen fingered the frosty gift from Gubicza, talked about Walker and said, ``It's nice to know I'm in people's thoughts.''

Saberhagen and Gubicza also were teammates once, in Kansas City. They may wear different colors now but they belong to the same club, their membership sealed by their surgically repaired throwing shoulders.

Their numbers are growing but so, too, is their reason for optimism. Exactly two weeks before Saberhagen made his first big-league start since Oct. 1, 1995, another former Cy Young Award winner, Mark Davis, pitched against the Angels in his first appearance in the majors in three seasons.

Davis, now with the Brewers, has endured two surgeries on his pitching arm. Like an investor checking on his stocks, Saberhagen said he has followed closely the progress made by the likes of Davis, the Orioles' Jimmy Key and Gubicza.

``We're kind of like a fraternity of guys pulling for one another,'' Gubicza said.

It's not easy to retrain your body and will your mind to repeat the very motion that caused your arm to blow up in the first place. Gubicza, on the mend after undergoing rotator-cuff surgery, understood better than most that the loss Saberhagen absorbed Friday was really a victory to be shared by modern science and the human spirit.

``It's incredible what Bret's done,'' Gubicza said. ``Not very long ago there still were some doubts as to whether he was going to get it back. Then it started to click in for him. (Friday), his changeup was excellent. He looked good out there.''

With 685 days between major-league starts, Saberhagen was bound to be a little rusty. But neither Saberhagen nor Red Sox manager Jimy Williams was prepared for what unfolded in the first: a walk, a hit batter, an errant throw to first and four runs, all earned, on 40 pitches.

``There was a lot of anxiety that first inning, a lot of overthrowing at times,'' said Saberhagen, who led the Royals to the World Series title when he was 21. ``I think the only thing I didn't accomplish in that first inning was a balk. If it was golf, I probably would have taken a mulligan.''

Told that Williams toyed with the idea of putting in another pitcher for the second inning, Saberhagen said, ``The way I was throwing in the first, I felt like taking myself out. It was a little embarrassing.''

The interminable inning wasn't all bad; it sapped Saberhagen's adrenaline, enabling him to settle down and retire the side in order in the second. He faced four batters each in the third and fourth before calling it a night. He didn't give up another run, and his 86th and final pitch was a beauty, a called strike three on Rickey Henderson.

Two pitches before that, Saberhagen had thrown a changeup that Henderson ripped foul down the third-base line. As he followed the path of the ball, Saberhagen caught Gubicza's eye in the Angels' dugout and gestured to him.

That's when Gubicza knew his friend was all right. ``He was having some fun with that,'' Gubicza said. ``That's how he used to be out there.''

Walking three batters in four innings was hardly vintage Saberhagen. A control freak, he readily admitted, ``for me to walk three guys in a game, that's not my forte.''

Saberhagen, who also struck out three batters, hopes to make seven more starts before the season's end. If Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette likes what he sees, the team can pick up the right-hander's option for the 1998 season. The contract Saberhagen signed last December was worth $500,000, with a $600,000 bonus thrown in if he made it back to the major leagues.

``If he comes back healthy for them next year,'' said Angels manager Terry Collins, ``that's a helluva signing.''

Saberhagen, who has battled injuries since 1994, has learned not to look too far ahead, lest you forget to savor the here and now.

``It's been a tough road,'' he said, ``not knowing whether I was going to come back from all this.''