YANKEE NOTES As Scott Brosius caught Orlando Cabrera’s popup to cap David Cone’s perfect game, it touched off a wild celebration on the field at the Stadium yesterday.
But as the Bombers stormed from the dugout, Cone already was lying on the field, locked in a bearhug with catcher Joe Girardi in a celebration of their own – although Girardi clams it was more practical than emotional.
“I’ve been on the bottom of pileups before, and I didn’t want him to be on the bottom,” Girardi said. “Obviously he’s more valuable around here than I am. We’re gonna need him, so I was just trying to protect him.”
With the depth of their relationship, that’s not shocking.
Cone raves about Girardi.
“He means so much to me, not only as a player but as a person,” Cone said. “If not for him I wouldn’t have gotten through this.”
Girardi’s praise of the Yankee ace was no less effusive.
“You think all that that man has been through in his career – the career-threatening surgery, and in some ways it threatened his life,” Girardi said of Cone’s 1996 aneurysm.
“And in [1996] he comes back and throws seven innings of no-hit ball against Oakland [in his first start back after the surgery]. You think what he’s meant to New York, and what he’s meant to the Yankees, I don’t think it could’ve happened to a better guy.” *Mayor Giuliani, a rabid Yankee fan, was on hand and offered Cone the key to the city. The Mayor said he saw that Cone had no-hit stuff as early as the fourth inning.
“I was doing an interview on the radio, and [the host] said maybe I’ll see you at City Hall for a key ceremony. So we started thinking about it in the fourth,” Giuliani said.
“But you don’t get serious until the seventh inning.” *Don Larsen has some connection to all three perfect games in Yankee history.
Of course, Larsen pitched the first one himself – on Oct. 8, 1956, in Game 5 of the World Series against Brooklyn.
Larsen also attended the same San Diego high school as David Wells, who pitched a perfectgame against the Twins on May 17, 1998.
And yesterday, Larsen was on hand to throw out the ceremonial first pitch to Yogi Berra, his old batterymate, on the day Berra was honored.
“It’s getting to be a habit,” said Larsen, who watched the game from George Steinbrenner’s owner’s box.
“He’s a wonderful young man,and I’m glad this happened for him.” *A week ago yesterday, Ed Yarnall got called up. He’s had quite a first seven days.
After making his major-league debut on Thursday, Yarnall was on hand for history yesterday.
“A lot of guys go for their entire careers without seeing one of these,” Yarnall said after watching Cone’s perfect game.