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.”

Espada said his key position players will be playing in Grapefruit League games from the get-go, which is a different philosophy from previous manager Dusty Baker, who eased his players into Spring Training games. The Astros open Grapefruit League play on Saturday against the Nationals at CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches.

One player who figures to get more at-bats than he’s had in past springs is slugger Yordan Alvarez, who was slowed by sore hands last year. Alvarez reported to camp healthy and he was feeling refreshed. Espada said he wants Alvarez to play more left field this year, and the big man is certainly on board with that.

“Last year I said [I wanted to play more left field] and then I got injured,” said Alvarez, who missed six weeks with an oblique strain. “I’m here to play baseball.”

Alvarez changed his diet in the offseason to get a bit leaner, and he has been working on his agility. On Tuesday, he was fielding ground balls at second base on the team’s turf field.

“I try to work on my reaction [time], try to get moving around,” he said. “Taking grounders at second helps improve the reaction time and gets my legs moving a lot more.”

Here are some recent Spring Training stories you may have missed:

• Equipped with a new swing, Jeremy Peña is looking to regain his power stroke. Read more >>

• Kyle Tucker is prioritizing another World Series run over contract talks. Read more >>

• “Glad he’s on our team:” Josh Hader dazzles in his first live bullpen session with Houston. Read more >>

Feb. 22, 1998: The Astros’ Spring Training facility at Osceola County Stadium in Kissimmee, Fla., suffered minor damage when a powerful tornado swept through Central Florida in the middle of the night. Eight people were killed at Ponderosa RV Park, which sat across the street from the Astros’ practice fields. At Osceola County Stadium, a light tower was blown down, an Astroturf field was damaged and a batting cage was tossed across the street and destroyed. Statewide, 42 people were killed in the tornado outbreak.

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