NEW YORK — The footage is standard definition and the moment brief, maybe a second or two, but look closely and you see something odd. There is David Cone, on the mound at Yankee Stadium, split screen with the legendary Don Larsen, three outs from the 16th perfect game in baseball history, throwing his final warmup pitch from the stretch.
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Cone always did this, he says. The final warmup pitch came from the stretch. The catcher threw down to second. The inning began. This was the routine. So, yes, it didn’t matter that he’d faced 24 batters and had not deviated from the windup. It didn’t matter that preparing for a base runner, any runner, should have been the last thing on his mind. He was three outs away. No changing now.
It is, perhaps, the kind of moment you’d miss unless you were looking for it. Yet when Cone sat down recently to watch his perfect game for the first time in nearly two decades, he noticed the quirk right away.
Cone, 56, was in the process of writing a book on the art of pitching, “Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher,” a project released earlier this year with longtime Yankees reporter and YES colleague Jack Curry. Surprisingly, he hadn’t watched the performance in full since July 18, 1999 — the day he retired 27 straight Montreal Expos and dropped to his knees on the infield grass. He wished to answer one question: How did he do it?
“I had good stuff that day,” Cone says, sitting in the YES Network broadcast booth earlier this week. “And yeah, I could talk to you about pitches and sliders and things I executed that day that were really good, but there’s also just like a dumb luck factor that you’re very aware of. It just kind of happened.”
Cone’s perfect game turns 20 years old on Thursday. In the days before the anniversary, we followed Cone’s lead, rewatching all 27 outs and 88 pitches across nine innings.
There are moments that Cone cannot forget, of course. Yogi Berra Day in the Bronx. The pregame words with Larsen, the World Series legend. The sensational diving catch from Paul O’Neill in the first inning. The tense minutes before the top of the ninth — as documented by Cone and Curry in Full Count — in which Cone pulled his face close to a clubhouse mirror and told himself five words: “Don’t you dare blow this.”
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Yet to spend three hours back inside Yankee Stadium on July 18, 1999 is to stumble upon the other moments lost to memory. The strike zone that is not confined by PITCHf/x technology or on-screen graphics. The youngish face of Mariano Rivera in the bullpen. The sweltering humidity and Vladimir Guerrero hacking away and Tim McCarver in the broadcast booth, tempting the baseball gods with his words.
With the help of Cone, a Baseball Reference box score and a tape of the game, we delved into the third perfect game in Yankees history. The exercise provided enlightenment on two fronts: Baseball really was different 20 years ago. And Cone, when at his best, was a master craftsman and a thinker, a pitcher who could resemble both artist and pugilist at the same time. The lesson begins now.
The top of the first
“Well, Cone has finished his warmup tosses, and we are about ready to go …”
The voice on the television belongs to Yankees broadcaster Bobby Murcer. The setting is a sweltering Yankee Stadium. The first batter of the day is Montreal’s Wilton Guerrero, who was making a rare appearance at DH in an interleague game.
It takes all of three pitches to establish two essential themes about the next three hours of baseball: Cone’s slider is moving like a Wiffle ball and home plate umpire Ted Barrett is offering a generous canvas on which to work.
After throwing a first-pitch fastball on the corner for strike one, Cone spins a breaking ball that Guerrero fights off for strike two. On the third pitch, Cone comes back with a slider on the outside corner.
The pitch freezes Guerrero. Barrett rings him up. And McCarver, handling the analyst duties on the Yankees’ local television broadcast, describes the pitch.
“It’s really a misnomer,” McCarver says. “It doesn’t come in the back door. It comes in the side door.”
Indeed it does, though upon closer inspection, you might say it came around the side door.
The call is not quite as egregious as, say, the Livan Hernandez-Eric Gregg game in the 1997 NLCS. But it’s a reminder of the liberal nature of balls and strikes before QuesTec and TrackMan ushered in a more uniform zone. The catcher could set up off the plate and get a call. The pitcher knew he had room to expand. “This was my strike zone and Greg Maddux’s strike zone in the 90s,” Cone says.
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To demonstrate, he pulls out his iPhone and holds it normally in portrait mode. In the 1970s, this was the strike zone of Jim Palmer; it offered little leniency on the corners but plenty of room north to south. By the 1990s, he says, turning his phone over, the zone was in landscape mode.
“We didn’t get the high strike called at all,” Cone says. “You could throw it right down the middle at the catcher’s mask and it was a ball. That’s a strike now, but back then, you got (six inches) off the plate.”
In a full account of his perfect game in Full Count, Cone describes his slider as “floating like a frisbee” and his fastball “nicking the corners.” Both were true in theory. And for a young team like the Expos, there was only one thing more hopeless than facing a veteran pitcher as skilled and surgical as Cone: Facing that pitcher on a day in which he knows he has an extra three to five inches on the corners.
With his command sharp and his sweeping breaking ball diving away from right-handed hitters, Cone exploited the strike zone all afternoon. But before that, he almost lost the perfect game before it began.
Watching the broadcast, it happens quickly. Down 2-0 in the count to center fielder Terry Jones, the second batter of the game, Cone pounds the zone with three straight fastballs. The third one stays middle and Jones rips a liner to right-center. And then Paul O’Neill jumps into the frame.
In hindsight, the catch takes on more meaning than it did in the moment. Transport yourself back to July 18, 1999, and it’s just a terrific sliding catch to prevent a hit in the first inning. Today, it feels like a sliding-doors moment.
“It was one of those weird day games where you’re losing a lot of balls,” O’Neill says. “First or second inning, you think: ‘Hey, I might have helped save him a run or something. You’re not thinking: ‘God, we got a perfect game going here.’ “
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Moments later, Rondell White flies out to left on the first pitch. And we’re off.
The top of the second
As the top of the second begins, we see Vladimir Guerrero digging into the box for his first at-bat. And at this moment, you realize that it really has been 20 years. Guerrero was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year. His son is a rookie in the Yankees’ division. On the standard definition picture in 1999, he looks young and thin. In a humorous bit of commentary, McCarver refers to him as “the brother of Wilton Guerrero,” which, come to think of it, has to be among the last times anyone described him as such.
In truth, McCarver appears to offering a bit of light trivia; Guerrero was already 24 and coming off a season in which he batted .324 with 38 homers and earned down-ballot MVP votes. On an Expos team that stood at 33-54 as the series began, he was by far the most dangerous hitter.
He was also a classic free swinger. Cone exploits the weakness with a quick three-pitch strikeout, the final slider more than a foot off the plate.
The final pitch was Cone’s potent sidearm slider, a weapon born from his Wiffle ball days as a kid in Kansas City. He means this literally. It was the pitch, he says, that caused friction with coaches in the Royals organization during his first years in the minors. It was a pitch built on feel, athleticism and inventiveness. It was the kind of pitch that you rationed, unleashing only in the right spots.
“I learned it as a toddler and I just kind of kept it all the way through,” Cone says. “The more you used it, the less effective it would become. You tried to save it for the right time.”
Guerrero was known as a terrific bad-ball hitter. The same could not be said about the rest of the Expos, who were the second-youngest team in baseball in 1999. In the broadcast booth, Murcer referenced the inexperienced nature of the Expos lineup, which included second baseman Jose Vidro (24), first baseman Brad Fullmer (24) and shortstop Orlando Cabrera (24). On cue, Cone retires Vidro and Fullmer on groundouts.
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The top of the third inning
Cone returns to the mound in the third inning with a 5-0 lead after the Yankees jump Expos starter Javier Vazquez for five runs in the bottom of the second. The onslaught includes a mammoth blast from Ricky Ledee, who puts a ball way up in the upper deck at old Yankee Stadium and induces this look from Bernie Williams.
Vazquez will weather the damage and last seven innings. But as Cone takes the ball in the third, he suddenly has a comfortable cushion and the bottom third of the Expos lineup coming up. The names: 7. Chris Widger, catcher; 8. Shane Andrews, third baseman; 9. Orlando Cabrera, shortstop
Cone strikes out the side on three sweeping sliders that start on the outside corner and break out of the zone — the Wiffle-ball slider in all its glory. To use an anachronistic phrase for 1999, the Expos appear sufficiently shook.
“That was the scouting report,” Cone says. “None of them had any history against me at all. Not even one at-bat. So I knew it was a good day to try to exploit that — and they kept swinging and I kept throwing it. I threw just enough fastballs to keep them honest.”
The top of the fourth
We’re fast-forwarding through the 33-minute rain delay in the bottom of the third — Cone spent the time staying loose in a small hallway adjacent to the clubhouse.
The fourth inning wasn’t all that dramatic anyway. Here is what we learn:
— It’s Joe Torre’s birthday, and before the game, he offered a prescient quote about nothing bad happening on Yogi Berra Day.
— Cone gets another borderline call on a first-pitch fastball to Wilton Guerrero, who shakes his head ever so slightly.
— Rondell White swings at another first pitch and Cone is through another quick inning.
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The top of the fifth
Here is something that’s easy to forget: The Yankees are playing in an afternoon game on a Sunday, yet it’s actually the opening game of the series, a weird scheduling quirk that came courtesy of the interleague schedule in 1999. The Expos played a game in Baltimore the previous day, arriving in New York late on Saturday night. They look like they’re in a hurry to get back to the team hotel.
The fifth inning opens with Vladimir Guerrero swinging at a breaking ball down in the zone, lifting a fly ball to left field. Broadcaster Suzyn Waldman, in the television booth, engages McCarver in a conversation that starts with Cone’s dominance … and tip-toes into awkward territory.
Waldman: “The economy of pitches is unbelievable.”
McCarver: “Yeah, I see a young lineup that has really no idea about how David Cone is trying to work them. You’re seeing experience against youthful hitters.”
Moments later, Cone works against Vidro, the Expos’ young second baseman, and we see a glimpse of the old Yankee Stadium scoreboard, which flashes zero hits.
“Let’s see, 13 in a row from the beginning of the game,” McCarver says playfully. “What is that? The line draws a nervous laugh from Waldman. “Five hits in the game,” she says, “and all of them belong to the New York Yankees.”
With the count 2-2, Waldman notes, astutely, that Cone hasn’t had a three-ball count all game. Cone retires Vidro with a breaking ball that induces a fly out and McCarver goes in even further.
McCarver: “Now that would be the coincidences of coincidences — if he pitches a perfect game on Yogi Berra Day? C’mon.”
Waldman: “With Don Larsen in the park?
McCarver: “I mean, my gosh. What? Yogi Berra, Don Larsen — no c’mon. That can’t happen. So we just won’t look for it, OK?”
Watching this exchange 20 years later, you get a strange sense: On the one hand, it feels both premature in the fifth inning. On the other, it’s a thrilling little piece of commentary that sets the stakes and ignores the unwritten rules about talking about perfect games.
After the inning, Cone returned to the Yankees clubhouse. As he changed undershirts and heard John Sterling discussing his perfect game on the radio broadcast, he started to have similar thoughts.
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“It was early,” Cone said. “But it’s funny how you start thinking about it that early. It creeps in. It’s not something I dwelled on or thought about a lot. But I was certainly aware of it. And when you get through six innings, that’s when it gets kind of interesting.”
The top of the sixth
Cone breezes through the bottom of the order on five pitches in the sixth, an inning that moves so quickly that McCarver barely has time to mention that Cone has three previous one-hitters in his career, the last coming in 1994, when he was a member of the Royals.
In fact, the last performance came on May 22, 1994, when Cone permitted just one hit against the California Angels in Anaheim. It was the same year he won his only Cy Young in a strike-shortened season. Five years — and two World Series championships later — he entered his first start after the 1999 All-Star break with a 2.86 ERA in 17 starts. Cone was 36 but still seemingly among the best starters in the AL. He’d won 20 games the year before. He’d pitched in the All-Star Game at Fenway Park five days earlier.
And now, with two outs in the sixth, the Yankees broadcast flashes a graphic that shows he’s thrown just 54 pitches to this point.
The next batter, Orlando Cabrera, pops out on the first pitch.
The top of the seventh
Now it’s getting real. You can feel the tension starting to build. Facing Wilton Guerrero to open the seventh, Cone induces a chopper to the left of third baseman Scott Brosius. In Cone’s assessment of the play, the ball would have turned into an infield hit had Brosius not cut it off and thrown a strike to first base. Having viewed it a dozen times, I think that’s correct. Yet it might have been close.
Derek Jeter was well positioned to field the ball with his momentum coming toward the play. Guerrero got up the line quickly, but Brosius still had time to shuffle his feet multiple times and casually throw it to first base. Either way, it was a defensive gem that brought up pinch hitter James Mouton with one out in the inning.
Three pitches later, Cone spins the frisbee slider, Mouton goes down swinging, McCarver screams “Got him!” and Yankee Stadium starts to sense the moment. Mariano Rivera is caught smiling in the bullpen.
Moments later, Cone strikes out Rondell White to end the inning.
“Call your friends!” McCarver says. “David Cone has a perfect game.”
The bottom of the seventh
In the bottom of the seventh, Don Larsen joins McCarver and Murcer in the broadcast booth, which quickly turns into a conversation of his World Series perfect game and the proper etiquette in the dugout during such performances.
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“I can remember after the seventh inning, I mentioned something to Mickey (Mantle) about it in the dugout,” Larsen says. “I just told him, ‘Look at the scoreboard. Wouldn’t it be something? Two more innings to go.’ “
“You did?” McCarver answers. “That’s supposed to be taboo, though, mentioning the no-hitter … ”
“I didn’t care,” Larsen says. “If it was going to happen, it was going to happen. I don’t believe in jinxes. When I said that, it was like I had the plague.”
Thirty-three years later, Cone could relate. As the outs piled up, catcher Joe Girardi ignored him in the dugout. Nobody said anything — except Chili Davis in the bottom of the seventh. As Cone and Curry write in Full Count, Davis had caught his warm-up pitches earlier in the game. Cone had taken some oomph off his pitches. Davis wasn’t having it.
“Don’t baby it with me,” he said. “I can catch your shit.”
The top of the eighth
Needing to retire Vladimir Guerrero once more, Cone coaxes a pop-up to lead off the eighth. Yet moments later, he falls behind 2-0 in the count against Vidro. Having no desire to be careful with Vidro — and in essence go for the no-hitter and not the perfect game — he hurls a fastball toward the middle of the zone.
“There was only one at-bat where I totally gave in and threw it right down the middle,” Cone says. “It was Jose Vidro in the 2-0 count.”
Vidro rips a grounder up the middle — and for a moment, Cone thinks base hit — but second baseman Chuck Knoblauch ranges to his right and fires a strike to first base.
The play is nice; it carried even more meaning given the context of the moment, Cone says. Knoblauch had already started showing signs of the throwing issues that would bloom into a full-blown crisis the next season.
“I can’t remember the last time that Knoblauch set himself and threw a seed back to Tino Martinez from second base,” Murcer says on the broadcast.
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Four outs from perfection, Cone finishes off the inning by striking out Brad Fullmer with a breaking ball on the corner.
The top of the ninth
If there is one at-bat that can explain the essence of Cone — one sequence that can explain his aesthetic and philosophy and success — it comes against Montreal’s Chris Widger with nobody out in the ninth.
First pitch: Cone throws a slider that breaks out of the zone for a swing and miss. Second pitch: Another slider that breaks into the zone for a called strike. Third pitch: he lowers his arm slot and adjusts the spin and throws a third slider that ends up sweeping a foot outside. Widger swings and misses for strike three.
“He swung at the ball, took the strike, and then swung at the ball,” Cone said. “So it was kind of that kind of day all day.”
The second out of the inning comes on an awkward basket catch in left from Ledee, who appears to momentarily lose the ball in the sun. It’s the kind of moment, even 20 years later, that feels like you might be about to witness a car crash in real life. “I was surprised that you still kind of get your dander up a little bit,” Cone says now. It would have been a disastrous way to lose a perfect game. Alas, Ledee makes the catch.
That brings up Orlando Cabrera, and Cone spins three sliders. The third one is well located. Cabrera offers at the pitch and the ball is popped harmlessly into foul territory. Here — here — is where Cone knows he has done it.
People always asked Cone about his celebration. He didn’t have a great answer. It’s not like you rehearse these things. But years ago, after the perfect game, somebody sent him a clip of Spanish tennis player Manuel Orantes beating Jimmy Connors in the 1975 U.S. Open final. The celebration looked familiar.
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“He had the same reaction,” Cone says. “I was a big tennis fan growing up. I remember watching that match. Somebody sent it to me years ago. That’s the only thing I could think of. Maybe I just saw it as a kid and it stuck with me — a flashback from childhood.”
From here, of course, we see a flash of images we’ve seen before. There is a mob on the infield grass. Cone is carried off the field on his teammates’ shoulders. Yankee Stadium is going wild. And Murcer starts to speak.
“Has this been a perfect day or what?” he says.
The answer is yes, of course. But for Cone, the moment provided another awakening of sorts. He is not a big believer in fate, he says. He prefers to think rationally, to use evidence and data. It was true as a player. It continues today as a broadcaster.
“You know I love analytics,” he says. “I try to look at it from an objective standpoint.”
But sometimes rational only goes so far. If ever there was a day that did not need explanation, if ever there was a moment to believe in something, perhaps this was it.
“Yogi Berra Day,” Cone says. “Don Larsen throwing out the first pitch. The 88 pitches. Yogi’s number was 8. The random variance of things. The luck factor.
“It’s only happened 23 times. Mine was 16. David Wells throwing his the previous year. It’s a baseball gods thing.”
(Top photo: Vincent Laforet/Getty Images)