YANKEE NOTES The day after his perfect game, David Cone is starting to fully realize the media crush and public reaction to his greatest feat. He is scheduled to travel to City Hall today at noon with catcher Joe Girardi to receive the key to the city.
By then he already will have done an episode with Regis and Kathie Lee at 9 a.m., and he’s slated to tape the Late Show with David Letterman tomorrow at 5:45 p.m. right from The Stadium.
It is [overwhelming]. You want to please everybody; you want to do everything. There’s a lot of media requests; I’ll get a chance to go on Letterman [and experience] the whole other side [of celebrity] that comes with this,” Cone said, adding. “I got a bone to pick with Regis, he was the hardest on me when I argued with the two umpires and two baserunners scored in Atlanta. He was the hardest on me. But I deserved it.”
Those days are long gone for New York’s perfect pitcher. Cone was – not surprisingly – named the AL Player of the Week for July 12-18. *
Infielder Jeff Manto missed most of Cone’s perfect game, but he had a legitimate excuse. He had suffered from dehydration at around noon, and was rushed to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and given fluids via IVs. He returned around the sixth inning.
“I just knew we were winning, but I didn’t know we were winning like that,” Manto said. “I didn’t find out until I saw it on TV. Then I didn’t want to get dressed. I wasn’t going to walk down that tunnel and [bring bad luck]. They’d kill me.” *
Cone’s perfect game on Sunday afternoon – the 16th regular-season perfect game in major league history – made him the second-oldest pitcher to ever perform that feat. At 36 years, six months and 16 days, Cone was younger than only Cy Young, who tossed a perfect game for Boston on May 5, 1904 against Philadelphia at the age of 37 years, one month and seven days.
Joe Torre celebrated his 59th birthday Sunday in grand style, becoming the first man to manage two perfect-game wins. Casey Stengel and Walter Alston both managed a pair of games that their teams split, while Tommy Lasorda came out on the losing end of both of the perfect games he was involved in. *
Bench coach Don Zimmer is the Yankees’ good-luck charm if there ever was one. He is the only individual to have been in uniform for all three of the perfectos in Bomber history. He was a bench coach for not only Cone’s game but David Wells’ perfect game against Minnesota last May 17, and he was an infielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers when Don Larsen tossed his perfect game against them on Oct. 8, 1956 in Game 5 of the World Series.
Right fielder Paul O’Neill has also been around three perfect games; he was with the Reds when Tom Browning threw one Sept. 16, 1988 against Los Angeles.
Left fielder Shane Spencer, on the DL with atrial fibrillation – an irregular heartbeat – is in Tampa recovering. The Yankees will make a decision today or tomorrow regarding a minor-league rehab assignment.
“Probably on Wednesday we’ll send him for a rehab, at the earliest,” said GM Brian Cashman. “Probably [Triple-A Columbus], but that’s not a definite. Depending on weather.”
