This is an excerpt from The New York Times Best Seller “Full Count: The Education Of A Pitcher” by David Cone and Jack Curry (Grand Central Publishing). Buy Now
After my stint with the Yankees in 1995, George Steinbrenner, the principal owner, had called me “Mr. Yankee,” a lofty title for someone who had made a mere 15 starts for the organization and a compliment that I didn’t take lightly. I enjoyed negotiating with Steinbrenner and I enjoyed playing for Steinbrenner because he was an owner who wanted to win and did whatever he could to put his team in position to win. Was he demanding and blustery? Absolutely. But I enjoyed the pressures of playing for Steinbrenner and playing in New York. I liked being in the Bronx Zoo. To thrive in the Bronx Zoo, I needed to compete my ass off, pitch well, and please Steinbrenner and the fans. I was cool with those expectations.
George wanted to be involved with every aspect of the Yankees, even if that meant he had to take over someone else’s job. During the 1997 season, I was in the clubhouse when a Yankees official said, “George is parking cars.” I thought it was a joke and I ignored it, but I later found out it was true. Because George’s car had been delayed leaving the Stadium parking lot by a major-traffic jam the previous night, the owner showed up this day to solve the problem. For almost two hours, Steinbrenner stood at the entrance to the one-hundred-spot parking lot holding a clipboard and matched each approaching car with the reserved spots on his list. It was a stunning sight, but in a small and humorous way, it showed how exacting George could be about his team.
Having lived through those Mets years where I thought we had underachieved, I had no issue with Steinbrenner being so strong-willed. I was demanding, too, and, at the age of thirty-three, I just wanted to get back to the postseason and try to win another ring. With the Yankees’ talent and with Steinbrenner’s financial might, I thought the Yankees gave me the best chance to do that.
Steinbrenner hired Joe Torre to replace Showalter as manager and, from the first moment I ever interacted with Torre, it was calming. The way that Torre talked to me as an equal and a partner, and the way he treated everyone with respect, showed that he had nothing left to prove and that he was comfortable in his own skin. Torre was very confident without being arrogant, a personality trait that can’t be taught. He was a former Most Valuable Player and had an outstanding career, but he didn’t disrespect anyone, whether you were the best player on the team or the twenty-fifth man on the roster. Because of the way Torre treated us with respect, he commanded respect. Torre’s actions and mannerisms told me he never forgot how difficult it was to play the game, and players appreciated that recognition.
Oh, I was wrong when I said Torre had nothing left to prove. When Joe took over as Yankees manager, he had played or managed for thirty-one years and had never been to a World Series, so, yes, he had something to prove. In one of our first spring training meetings in Tampa, Florida, Torre stood in the center of the room and spoke very directly and very confidently about how he viewed our team’s future.
“When I look at this team,” Torre said, “I see the World Series.”
Looking around and spying Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, and Jimmy Key, I agreed with him. I was angry about what had happened in 1995, and Torre’s words were motivational and realistic. Torre was right and we all knew it. We were all thinking about being champs from the first day of spring training.
Because the Yankees had reviewed my medical records when they acquired me from the Blue Jays in 1995, they never gave me a physical for the 1996 season. Since Steinbrenner knew I was close to agreeing to a deal with the Orioles, I think the organization wanted to get me signed, sealed, and delivered, and the physical was never scheduled. These days, it would be shocking for a team to sign a player without performing a physical.
As I worked my way through that spring training, something weird happened because my fingers kept falling asleep. I trudged along and never had a great feel for the ball because of the tingling in my fingers. In our season opener against the Cleveland Indians, I pitched seven innings in thirty-eight-degree weather to get the win, but I still couldn’t feel my fingers. I was concerned, naturally, but I still wanted to pitch. After being examined by doctors, I ended every conversation by saying, “Can I keep pitching?”
If I had signed with the Orioles, a new team, I’m sure they would have given me a physical. But I’m not sure if the aneurysm would have been discovered, because it would have taken an angiogram to possibly detect it. An angiogram is an X-ray procedure in which dye is injected into the body to make the blood vessels and arteries more visible. Even if the Yankees had given me a physical, there wasn’t anything structurally wrong with me, so an MRI wouldn’t have found the aneurysm. Unless I had complained about a lack of circulation in my hands, which, at that point, I wasn’t, I don’t think a routine physical would have uncovered an aneurysm.
Before my second start of the season, my fingernails turned blue, another obvious sign something was wrong. For most of April, my hands were cold and clammy and my fingers were discolored. After two straight sluggish starts in which I had trouble gripping the ball, I agreed to have an angiogram on April 26 and missed my first start in nine seasons. But the test didn’t discover the aneurysm. The Yankees put me on Heparin, an anti-clotting blood thinner, because they were treating my issue as a local problem in my hand and not as a circulatory problem. I didn’t use the blood thinner on the day I pitched. As it turned out, putting me on Heparin was a questionable choice, because when I was on blood thinners, that compromised the aneurysm. I literally could have been the pitcher who threw until my arm fell off.
I came back and pitched on May 2 and used a looser grip on my split-finger fastball. That proved beneficial as I threw 127 pitches in beating the Chicago White Sox, 5–1. Interestingly enough, it was my best start of the season. Despite the statistics, my fingers were still numb.
At the insistence of Dr. George Todd, the head of vascular surgery at Columbia Presbyterian, and Dr. Stuart Hershon, the Yankees’ physician, I underwent a second angiogram on May 7. Hershon actually told me he would quit if I didn’t get a second angiogram. Todd said I hadn’t suffered any trauma in my hand that would cause the tingling and discoloration, so the problem had to stem from somewhere else in the body. On the second angiogram, they discovered the aneurysm underneath my right armpit. Even at that point, even as I learned that I had an aneurysm that could be career threatening, my focus was on whether I could keep pitching. It’s only a flesh wound, right? As I noted earlier, the aneurysm stemmed from the stress I endured while throwing pressure-filled pitches year after taxing year.
I was so scared about the unknown, but in a bizarre reaction, I was more angry than relieved that they had found the aneurysm. I wasn’t thinking clearly about how this could impact my life and was just pushing forward as the tough-guy pitcher. During this time, Dr. Lawrence Altman, the chief medical correspondent for The New York Times, did some thorough reporting in which he asked why the Yankees allowed me to pitch in my condition on May 2. He quoted an unnamed doctor involved in my case who said it was a risky decision to let me pitch and that I could have lost one or more fingers from blood clotting and gangrene by pitching against the White Sox. I didn’t want to get into a pissing match with Steinbrenner or the Yankees about what did or didn’t happen with my treatment. I was desperate to defend the Yankees because I wanted to pitch.
Did I realize my arm felt irritated in the ALDS game? Sure, I did. But I didn’t know how problematic it might have been and it didn’t matter anyway. I wanted to keep pitching. In less than seven months, I went from a 147-pitch game that deadened my arm to signing a contract and never receiving a physical to circulation issues to having surgery to remove an aneurysm. Even as my world spun and twisted in some chilling directions, I wanted to continue throwing more pitches. One hundred and forty-eight, one hundred and forty-nine, one hundred and fifty.
A three-hour surgery to remove the aneurysm and insert a one-inch vein graft from my left leg occurred on May 10. As I convalesced at Columbia Presbyterian, I had the New York newspapers scattered across my bed. I was antsy and tense, and I spent hours reading the accounts of my surgery, the potential time line for my return, and what the Yankees were planning to do in my absence. It was depressing, incredibly depressing, to be a pitcher who couldn’t pitch anymore. The doctors reassured me and insisted I would pitch again, but this wasn’t a sore shoulder or an achy elbow, so I always had lingering doubts about my future.
Four days after my surgery, I laid in bed and listened on the radio as Dwight Gooden, my old pal from the Mets who had replaced me in the rotation, pitched a no-hitter. It was a brilliant and emotional night for Gooden, the pitcher who had no-hit stuff with the Mets dozens of times, but never actually pitched a no-hitter. In his seventh start with the Yankees, Gooden, who missed almost two years because of substance abuse problems, did pitch a no-no. With Gooden’s father, Dan, awaiting heart surgery the next day in Florida, Gooden suppressed a Seattle Mariners lineup that included Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, and Alex Rodriguez. I didn’t actually see Doc’s pitches that night, but, as the descriptions from announcers John Sterling and Michael Kay emanated from the radio, I imagined the overpowering fastball, the curveball that dropped from a batter’s shoulders to his knees and the more abbreviated delivery that enabled him to release the ball sooner. Gooden silenced many of the same batters who I couldn’t defeat while throwing 147 pitches in the previous October.
Through my window on 168th Street, I felt like I could see the blaring lights of Yankee Stadium, across the Harlem River. That was how close I was to baseball history. But, man, I was so far away. I had such a conflict of emotions when I listened to Doc’s no-hitter. I was so happy for Gooden because of how many potholes he had endured in his life and how he had revived his career. But I was depressed about my situation, and I wondered if I would ever make it back to the mound and ever have the chance to do what Gooden just did. I was an emotional wreck.
One day later, I was back at the Stadium to hold a press conference, and it turned into another emotional experience in which I almost cried five or six times while trying to guess when I might pitch again. The surgery had sapped me of some mental and physical strength, and it was uncomfortable to not know exactly what the future held. I waited six weeks for the vein graft to heal, but then I picked up a baseball and started my journey back to the majors. Less than four months after the surgery, it felt surreal to be starting against the Athletics in Oakland. I wanted to kiss the mound and kiss the baseball because I wasn’t sure if this would ever happen again. Not only did it happen, I was rejuvenated and strong, and I tossed seven no-hit innings on a memorable and blissful day. It was Labor Day and I was beyond thrilled to be back to work.
Standing on a mound all over again and throwing my pitches all over again was nerve-wracking and exhilarating, which made that the most emotional game I’ve ever pitched. By far. That return game was more emotional than the perfect game I would pitch in 1999 and more emotional than any World Series game. Why? I think the answer is self-explanatory. That game gave me my pitching life back. Heck, let’s be honest. That game gave me my life back. If I hadn’t been able to return after the aneurysm, I would have been the most miserable thirty-three-year-old man in New York. And, a year later, I would have been the most miserable thirty-four-year-old, and on and on.
To help erase my doubts, Dr. Todd had told me the vein graft would mesh with the artery and become the artery so I didn’t have to worry about causing any damage when I unleashed the baseball. Instead of the vein graft being the equivalent of a patch on a bike tire, it had now become part of the tire. In the back of my mind, I had wondered if I threw a fastball and really let it loose, would anything happen? But Dr. Todd’s analogy was sensible; I trusted all my doctors, and I trusted the way I felt. The baseball was zooming out of my hand because my arm was rested and refreshed, so I was cautiously confident I could be successful again. Before going on the disabled list, I had led the American League with a 2.02 earned run average.
Under the heading of “Ominous Beginnings,” the first five pitches I threw were balls, and I walked two batters in the first inning. But, after that, I was almost pitching on autopilot because I had so much adrenaline and all four of my pitches were no longer in hibernation. My fastball was lively, my splitter and my slider were both darting, and my curveball was dancing. That caused Mark McGwire to say, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how he was throwing. The guy threw great. Period.”
Perched behind the first base dugout during that game was a familiar and friendly face: my father. He wanted to surprise me by flying from Kansas City, Missouri, to Oakland to witness my return start, but I found out about his plans the night before the game. My first pitching coach wanted to see how I would perform after a trying layoff. I was so stunned and so thankful that I could experience a day like that again, and I was so thrilled that my father witnessed it. It might sound corny, but I had never made eye contact with my dad during a major league game because the family seats weren’t typically in my line of sight and because I was so obsessed with what I was doing. But, on this tense day, I looked for my dad often, and it was relaxing to see him. Every time I finished an inning, I looked behind the dugout and thought, “Oh, yeah, there’s my old man sitting behind the dugout,” as if it were a Little League game in Kansas City.
As the innings piled up and I didn’t allow any hits, I knew that Torre would be faced with a challenging decision. No sane manager would tax a pitcher who had just undergone surgery to remove an aneurysm, even if that pitcher was tossing a no-hitter. I tried to make it easy on Torre and told him my preference would be to stay in the game, but he had to make the choice that was best for me and best for the team. Having pitched three one-hitters at that point in my career, I knew how the stress mounted during the final outs of a no-hit bid, and I didn’t know if my arm was ready for that challenge. Torre removed me after I had thrown eighty-five pitches in seven innings, and I didn’t argue. I was happy, so damn happy. I remember asking myself, “Did I just do that?” I wasn’t sad about losing the chance for a no-hitter, but I was delirious about returning to the majors and being part of that drama, even if that drama faded to black six outs shy of a no-hitter.
“If they had left the decision up to David,” my dad said, “they would have needed a tractor to get him out of there.”
Of course, my father was right. Mariano Rivera gave up a one-out single to Jose Herrera in the ninth, so we combined on a one-hitter. Afterward, Girardi told me he was impressed with how I didn’t fight to stay in the game. It wasn’t about the individual. It was about the team.
“One game that sticks out to me the most was when he came back from his aneurysm and realized the prize was in October, not the no-hitter that day,” Girardi later said. “That is David to a tee. David was about winning championships, not individual achievements.”
And, less than two months later, we won a World Series championship. Redemption.
