The Headliner

He just wants to be careful.

As far as furniture goes, the house is empty. There's a bed, a chair and an entertainment center with a TV set in it. Lynn was here last week meeting with furniture people, wallpaper people, drape people. A real whirlwind, she was; so organized. David pretty much let her have the run of things. They decided to go with class everything, no cheap stuff like most ballplayers go for. There won't be a trophy room in this house, David'll guarantee you that. No huge portrait of the occupant over the fireplace. No scuffed-up bats in glass hanging over the John.

You'll walk into David Cone's house, and it won't say: jock. You walk in there and one word and one word only will come to mind: home.

David and Lynn have talked about marriage, that's another thing. David's not sure whether he's "quite ready to pull the trigger yet," but they have been dating for six years now, and...well, he's put her through a lot. "You either do it or get off the proverbial pot" is how he says he sees it now. Also, Lynn's sick and tired of being referred to as "pitcher David Cone's live-in girlfriend." Whenever the New York papers called her that, she resented it, and he heard about it. It made her look cheap, she said, as if they were shacking up.

True, he and Lynn were shacking up, but they could've called her by her name. It's 1993, he reminds himself, and even a strikeout king doesn't get away with anything anymore.

A guy goes looking for defining moments, and this is where he ends up: In Bret Saberhagen's old house. In the kind of place and the kind of neighborhood David Cone only dreamed about knowing as a boy. It's 10° outside and the wind is blowing snow, and Cone's all alone, wondering if maybe he should just turn this place over to his parents. Ed and Joan can come up from Florida to see him pitch, and they can have the place. His sister and brothers can stay here too. They deserve a house like this. They helped to make him, after all. And what is it he likes to say? "The worst thing you could be called in this world is someone who didn't stand up for his family."

David will rent an apartment somewhere closer to the ballpark. Or, better yet, he'll buy one. Home, it'll say, just like this place.

Two houses in one town, and he just turned 30. Now isn't that a thought! Even Oscar Madison never had it so good.