It will be a 1-1. Pitch. He popped ’em up. He’s going to get it. Brosius down from third. Brosius makes the catch. Ballgame over. A perfect game. A perfect game for David Cone. The third time works like a charm. It is the third perfect game in Yankee Stadium history. Don Larsen in ’56. David Wells in ’98. David Cone in ’99. Twenty-seven up. Twenty-seven down. Dave Cone has attained baseball immortality. – WABC’s John Sterling Sunday describing Cone’s final out to complete his perfect game.
When Orlando Cabrera popped out, David Cone and the Yankees did it. They allowed no runs, no hits – and no jinxes.
You see while the Yankees batted in the later innings Sunday, Cone retreated to the laundry room and tuned in Sterling and Michael Kay on WABC radio.
“I’m not a big believer in jinxes, but I heard perfect game about 100 times for four or five innings,” Cone said before last night’s Expos-Yankees game. “Believe me there is nothing to that jinx.”
This is perfect news for announcers unlike Sterling, Kay and Fox 5’s Tim McCarver and Bobby Murcer, who also spoke directly about the perfect game. All four showed good judgment choosing to do their job, instead of honoring a tired, time-honored tradition.
“John has a great line about that,” Kay said of his partner yesterday. “He says, ‘If we can jinx a no-hitter then we should be paid a lot more.'”
On Sunday, Sterling and Kay, in their eighth season together, completed their fourth no-hitter (Jim Abbott in 1993, Dwight Gooden in ’96, David Wells in ’98 and Cone) and second perfect game.
“It sounds weird, but we are almost veterans of no-hitters now,” Kay said. “Until John and I had done the Jim Abbott no-hitter, I had never even seen a no-hitter, and I’m a big baseball fan. I had never even seen one on TV.”
The difference between Sunday and others was Kay went Kreskin.
“After the bottom of the second inning, we go to a commercial – there is no proof of this other than what I’m telling you – I turn to John and I say, ‘He is going to pitch a no-hitter,'” Kay said. “John says, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘The Expos aren’t very good and are very young and he has great stuff.'”
Sterling confirmed the story. The next inning, the third, the duo broached the subject on the air for the first time.
But it was what Sterling didn’t say at the end that was particular pleasing. He didn’t go to his sometimes-entertaining, but inappropriate in a 6-0 game line of saying “Thuhhh Yankees win!” The choice was not one Sterling chose beforehand.
“I just didn’t think [of it,]” Sterling said. “I went on so long that when I reached a crescendo, ‘David Cone has attained baseball immortality.’ I stopped because in my mind that is the end of my phrasing, and now Mike goes on.”
Sterling indicated he did start thinking a bit about what he might say as the innings got later Sunday, but he said he really had nothing planned.
Cone said that he heard the above call afterward and found it “eerie” that it sounded so similar to Wells’. Meanwhile, Sterling calls this his most appealing no-hitter. Why?
“This one was the best for me, because I consider myself a friend of David Cone’s,” Sterling said.
In terms of the final call, Kay subscribes to this same theory and the former Post baseball writer even lashed somewhat into some of his fellow sportscasters.
“To tell you the truth, I’d be the last guy to rip another announcer, but I just felt that last year a lot of the [Mark] McGwire calls were planned,” Kay said. “I think it took away a lot of the spontaniety. I think you should have some sort of outline of what you are going to say, I think that comes off as contrived.” *
MSG Network will rebroadcast Cone’s historic game Thursday at 7 p.m.
