Berryhill grabs spotlight with catchy tune about Minors life

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The best performance of Astros camp thus far goes to catcher Luke Berryhill, who drew wild applause on Tuesday morning after he sang and played a song he wrote about the grind of the Minor Leagues. Berryhill, an aspiring singer/songwriter and guitar player, performed his new song “Road to the Show” in the clubhouse while his teammates watched and listened.

“Dude, he’s incredibly talented,” Astros pitcher Ryan Pressly said. "That’s pretty impressive, especially that song, too. He wrote that song. I would almost pay for him to put it down on a record. I really would do that. I think it’s that good. At least, it sounded good to me. I don’t know anything about music, but he’s pretty impressive to watch.”

Berryhill, who spent last year in Triple-A Sugar Land, wrote the song while sitting in a hotel room shortly after undergoing shoulder surgery in 2021. The song mentions “cold bus, late-night trips” and going “0-for-4 so it’s going to be hard to sleep.” Berryhill released the song on Tuesday and performed it at the request of manager Joe Espada.

“Debuting a new song is always a little nerve-wracking but as soon as Joe announced me to come up there, everyone went crazy and started clapping for me and stuff, and that made me feel a little bit better,” Berryhill said. “At the end, everyone went bananas for it. That felt really nice.”

The chorus of the song is an ode to life on the diamond:

We break bats and we break bones
Like hammerin’ Hank, the Babe and Cy Young
(Like the Big Hurt, the Kid and Chipper Jones)
(Like Dave Winfield and Pete Rose)
New pitcher coming in, man, I hope he’s throwing slow
Hunting that fastball, better be ready
Diving headfirst, getting dirty and sweaty
It’s just a dusty path 'til it’s paved in solid gold
And that’s road to the show

Berryhill grew up around country music. His father, Larry, was a professional singer in the 1980s and '90s and had all kinds of bands -- blues, Southern rock and country. He played shows around Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. A young Luke would tag along, essentially serving as the roadie and helping with the equipment.

Berryhill taught himself how to play guitar as a freshman in college -- he started at George Southern and spent a year at Walters State Community College before transferring to the University of South Carolina -- by watching YouTube. It took him six months before he could sing and play at the same time. Before long, though, he was doing gigs in the offseason himself.

He said he wrote the song in about two hours, and he had a good feeling about it all along. Berryhill spent a couple of years workshopping it to make sure it flowed better. He’s played the song in offseason gigs at breweries and sports bars, but having his teammates as an audience was different.

“Especially a country song,” he said. “Hopefully they could relate to it, and it turns out a lot of them could.”

Espada, who grew to love country music while playing at the University of Mobile, played 10 years in the Minor Leagues and said he could definitely relate.

“The words that came out of his mouth resonated with a lot of people in that room,” Espada said.

Berryhill has two more songs coming out soon: “Savannah’s Not in Georgia” has a rhythm and blue feel, and “Cowboys Don’t Say Goodbye” is straight-up country.

“That guy is super talented,” pitcher Hunter Brown said. “I don’t know if he takes singing lessons or not, but I don’t think he needs any. He’s good to go.”