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 Perfect timing Yanks' Cone pitches perfect game with Larsen on hand
Posted: Monday July 19, 1999 02:47 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- David Cone picked a perfect day for a perfect game. With Don Larsen sitting behind home plate, Cone dazzled the Montreal Expos with a wide assortment of pitches Sunday, throwing the 14th perfect game in modern history to lead the Yankees to a 6-0 victory. On the very same field where Larsen pitched a perfect game against Brooklyn in Game 6 of the 1956 World Series -- the only one in Series history -- Cone pitched the first no-hitter in the three-year history of interleague play. "You probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than this happening," said Cone, whose career almost ended three years ago because of an aneurysm near his right armpit. After getting Orlando Cabrera to hit a popup for the final out, Cone dropped to his knees, grabbed his head in disbelief and was mobbed by his joyous teammates. It was replay of the scene from last year when David Wells pitched the only other regular-season perfect game in Yankees' history. The Yankees hoisted Cone upon their shoulders and carried him to the edge of the dugout as cheers rained down on him for several minutes. Watching and applauding from a luxury box behind the plate was Larsen, a witness along with 41,930 other fans to the 16th perfect game overall, including two in the 19th century. "I was just thinking about my day," Larsen said. "I'm sure David will think about this every day of his life." Larsen was at Yankee Stadium for Yogi Berra Day and even recreated his perfect day by throwing out the first pitch to Berra, his catcher in 1956. Right after that pitch, Cone made his only mistake of the day. "I asked him if he was going to jump into Yogi's arms again," Cone said. "He told me I got it all backwards. Yogi jumped into his arms. Mr. Yankee history got it all wrong." Cone did everything else right. He got through the first inning with the help of a diving catch in right field by Paul O'Neill to rob Terry Jones of a hit. He didn't need any more help from his fielders until the eighth inning, when Jose Vidro hit a hard grounder up the middle with one out. Second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, who has 16 errors this season, ran to his right to backhand the ball, pivoted and made a perfect throw to first baseman Tino Martinez to get Vidro. "As soon as he hit it, I said, 'There it goes,'" Cone recalled. "When Knoblauch made the great play, I decided there was some kind of Yankee aura. Maybe this was my day. Maybe there is something to this magic." Cone (10-4), who got his first shutout in exactly four years, didn't go to a three-ball count all day and struck out 10.
When Wells pitched his perfect game against Minnesota on May 17, 1998, Cone sat next to him between innings, calming his teammate. "I already talked to Boomer and he welcomed me to the club," Cone said minutes after the game ended. 'He said he wanted to fly down here and party with me all night." In Toronto, Wells said: "He's overcome a lot of obstacles in his career and for him to do it in New York, where he is well loved, he is the man of New York City. "Wow, I'm going to have a beer for Cone," he said. Cone started the ninth by striking out Chris Widger, then retiring pinch-hitter Ryan McGuire on a fly to left that Ricky Ledee almost dropped. "I really didn't want it hit to me," Ledee said. "I was having a tough time seeing the ball." Then came Cabrera, who worked the count to 1-1, then hit a popup that third baseman Scott Brosius gloved in foul territory halfway toward the plate for the final out. As Cone dropped to the ground, catcher Joe Girardi ran toward him and tried to shield him from his exuberant teammates. "I have been under a lot of piles," said Girardi, who caught Dwight Gooden's no-hitter in 1996. "I didn't want him to be at the bottom of that. He is more important than I am. I wanted to protect him." Sunday was supposed to be Berra's day, as the Yankees celebrated his return this season after a 14-year feud with owner George Steinbrenner. It was Berra who caught Larsen's perfect game. Girardi even gave Berra his own glove to catch Larsen's first pitch. "I'm glad we were both here for this," Berra said. Cone threw 88 pitches, nine fewer than Larsen needed for his no-hitter against the Dodgers. He had pitched three one-hitters in his career, the last on May 22, 1994, against the Angels. He was two outs away from a no-hitter on June 17, 1995, when Texas' Benji Gil singled to break it up. The 36-year-old Cone became the second oldest pitcher to throw a perfect game. Cy Young pitched one in 1904 at 37.
In 1996, Cone underwent surgery for the aneurysm, an illness that some thought could end his career -- or even his life. Less than four months later, he made a most amazing return, pitching seven no-hit innings at Oakland before manager Joe Torre and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre decided 85 pitches were enough. "If Joe was going to leave the decision to me, I'm going back out there and throw caution to the wind," Cone said. "I think Mel and Joe did the right thing, trying to protect me. But I didn't know if that would be my last chance at one." Fans sensed the possibility of perfection in the seventh inning. After Cone got Wilton Guerrero to ground out to third, he got ahead of James Mouton 1-2. With the fans on their feet urging Cone on, Mouton swung through a nasty slider that broke more than one foot off the plate. "I kind of fought the feeling," Cone said. "I said, 'I'm not going to try to get cute now.' I said in order to get through the game, I had to get through the sixth and seventh quickly." Cone used the same pitch to get Rondell White to end the seventh, setting off the first of many standing ovations. The free-swinging Expos made Cone's job easier, getting out early in the counts. Cone did the rest with a biting slider and a hopping fastball. "This is a club that can be aggressive," Girardi said. "We wanted to go right after the hitters to keep his pitch count down and keep him fresh." With his wide assortment of arm angles, Cone simply overwhelmed a lineup that had never faced him before. "We had no history to talk about or to help us come up with anything," Expos manager Felipe Alou said. "He hit every spot today with a lot of different pitches." Cone twice had long breaks between innings but didn't appear fazed. After a five-run second inning by the Yankees off Javier Vazquez (2-5), Cone came back and struck out the side on 12 pitches in the third. After a 33-minute rain delay with one out in the bottom of the third, Cone needed only seven pitches to get through the fourth. "He didn't leave anything over the middle of the plate," Montreal's Chris Widger said. "He didn't get away with any bad pitches. He just didn't throw any bad pitches." New York backed him with the big second inning off Vazquez, recalled from Triple-A Ottawa before the game. Chili Davis walked with one out and Ledee hit the next pitch halfway up the upper deck in right field for his third homer. Girardi added an RBI double in the inning and Derek Jeter capped the inning with a two-run homer, his 16th. Notes: The
Yankees pitched three no-hitters at Yankee Stadium from its opening in 1923
through 1982: Monte Pearson against Cleveland (1938), Allie Reynolds
against the Indians (1951) and Larsen. Since then there have been five:
Dave Righetti against Boston (1983); Jim Abbott against
Cleveland (1993); Gooden, Wells and Cone. ... It was the first perfect game
against the Expos and fourth no-hitter. Larry Dierker no-hit Montreal for
Houston on July 9, 1976; Bob Forsch did it for St. Louis on Sept. 26, 1983;
and Tommy Greene did for Philadelphia on May 23, 1991. ... It was the 651st
interleague game. ... Joe Torre turned 59 Sunday and improved to 6-8 as a
manager on his birthday.
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