25 Years Later: The Game That Led Me Here

Being a sports fan was not a choice. It was a calling.

I doubt higher powers or invisible men in the skies would have let me live without knowing concepts like first downs, grand slams, and buzzer beaters. No greater entity would allow me to simply sightsee the world, appreciating natural and manmade wonders without sports on my mind.

For every place I visited - whether it was sneaking into a small internet cafe in the Sahara Desert to check on the Jets postseason status or staying up at 3 am in Prague to watch the Mets home opener - sports were always with me wherever I travelled.

There have to be early moments in my life where the reward of being a sports fan was ingrained in me. I must have at one point found the breadcrumbs leading me to care about athletes, digest statistics, and harness storylines of games, seasons, and franchises.

I must have had a first instance of feeling something, feeling loving empathy for other fans, feeling the emptiness of dread, feeling the jolt of unexpected success. Feeling the euphoria from victory. Feeling the warmth from contentment.

Not every young child can pinpoint a ballgame where they first experienced that pinwheel of emotions. 

But I can.

In 1999, I was only eight and just getting into sports, watching Yankee games with my dad and grandpa. Baseball’s Sorting Hat had yet to place me into Mets fanhood, so my earliest memories of watching games featured the late 90s Yankees. 

This eventual dynasty (baseball’s last one) featured a rootable roster built on homegrown talent (Jeter, Bernie, Pettitte), former All-Stars turned serviceable starters (Tino, Knoblauch), and locker room leaders on their last legs (Chili Davis). With the exception of Roger Clemens, the Yankees weren’t necessarily buying the best players - they were nurturing them. 

As a way to show my investment in this team, my love language was to keep a tally of their stats. I was excited to collect these players’ shiny baseball cards and gloss over their career numbers, yet my favorite way of tracking their current season was to keep score of the games. I would do so on these three ring bound scorecards my dad bought from Sports Authority. These scorecards were more overtly meant for parents and coaches to score pee wee baseball games or rec league softball games. Afterall, Little League doesn’t hire a full time statistician.

Although I could see the Yankees players statline in the box score the following day, I preferred monitoring the precise input of every hit (was it a single or double) or out (strikeout or fielder’s choice), keeping me glued to every pitch.

For the countless Yankee games I kept score while watching them at home, I had never done so at Yankee Stadium. That would change one fateful Sunday afternoon. 

July 18, 1999. Yankee Stadium. Expos vs. Yankees.

I wish I could remember the game like yesterday, but I don’t. I remember it with muddled cognition fitting into everything I know to be true about sports recollection, fandom, and being one with history.

Yes, history. 

This would be a game millions of baseball fans would be jealous that I witnessed. When I will tell people 5,10, 15 years later, their faces light with envy and curiosity. 

Sometimes when I mention it now, I receive a whiff of Cartman’s ego telling his classmates he saw an R-rated movie. Yes, yes, I was there. 

At this point in my life my consumption of sports was thoroughly baseball. I had yet to discover SportsCenter, a television show which would navigate me through different leagues, athletes, and milestones - spanning both national and international.  

On this specific Sunday, my sports myopia prevented me from learning about a groundbreaking moment that was echoing around the sports world. At the same time my parents were driving us from Connecticut to the Bronx for the Yankees game, thousands of miles away in Scotland, golfer Jean Vande Velde had triple bogeyed his final hole, blowing a three stroke lead at the British Open, eventually losing in a playoff.

His name and memory of what transpired on the 18th hole that day at Carnoustie would become part of sports lore forever - all the while I was sitting in the backseat of my dad’s maroon Honda Odyssey playing Gameboy.

I was oblivious to this transcendent sports moment, just as I was oblivious to the next one about to unfold in a few hours. 

Before the Yankees took the field, this game already felt odd for several reasons. 

The Yankees were playing an unusual opponent in the Montreal Expos. This was only Montreal’s second trip to Yankee Stadium, because Interleague Play (National League teams playing American League teams) began three years prior.

This was also bizarre because this first game of the three game series was beginning on a Sunday - the first Yankees series to start on a Sunday since 1980.

While those are mere scheduling peculiarities, there was a more monumental break in the norm occurring - Yogi Berra was back to Yankee Stadium. 

Dubbed Yogi Berra Day, the pregame festivities commemorated the Yankees’ Hall of Fame catcher’s homecoming to Yankee Stadium for the first time since he was fired as their manager in 1984.

Berra’s self-imposed exile occurred because Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner reneged on a promise to keep Yogi as the manager for at least two years, firing Berra just 16 games into his second campaign. It was a transgression for which Steinbrenner didn’t own up to and only until Steinbrenner apologized fourteen years later, did Yogi Berra choose to return to Yankee Stadium.

Upon Yogi’s return, Yogi appeared from the outfield bullpen and was driven around the field, waving to the crowd of adoring Yankee fans. He received incredible fanfare and pageantry - as should the greatest champion (10 World Series titles) on the most successful franchise deserve.

My vivid memory about the pageantry was Yogi’s video montage on the Jumbotron with Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” as the soundtrack. Hearing that beautiful, gravelly voice for the first time, playing behind a montage of Yogi’s life - from early childhood to playing days to moments with his children - grounded a feeling for this young child, a feeling I’d later learned to be nostalgia.  

But if there was any additional magic needed it was through the first pitch ceremony. Unlike a celebrity or Grimace throwing out the first pitch…the pitch was not a gimmick but a symbolic reenactment. The Yankees organization invited Don Larsen to throw out the first pitch as he was Yogi’s battery mate for the greatest game Yogi caught - Don Larsen’s Perfect Game in the 1956 World Series.  

Larsen threw the pitch to Yogi, and as they walked off the field, gave the mound to Yankees starter David Cone. 

As a reminder, I’m eight. I don’t have the emotional capacity to understand Yogi’s situation and why Yankee fans are excited to see him.

I’m just munching on my hot dog, awaiting the first batter of the game, Expos’ outfielder Wilton Guerrero. I decided to cheer for him because he’s Vlad Guerrero’s brother (before Vlad had a All-Star son, he had a brother who was his teammate) and because his name is Wilton, the name of the town where had just moved.

Wilton Guerrero stepped up to the plate and David Cone threw a strike down the center. 

The game was underway.

Early inning highlights included Paul O'neill making a sliding catch in the first inning and sophomore left fielder Ricky Ledee hitting a Ruthian shot into the right field upper deck. I still think about that blast, reminiscent of where Josh Hamilton hit his home run derby dingers in 2008. If only current advanced stats like exit velocity and launch angle existed… I don’t know how far he hit it, but it could have easily gone 475 feet.

A true mammoth. 

Throughout the first three innings, the game was moving along like any ordinary game.

But one factor that was anything but ordinary was the heat. 

In a July that would go down as the hottest in New York City history, today was one of its apexes, reaching 95 degrees.

My family was in the upper deck between home plate and third base, basking right in the eye of the afternoon sun. My parents prepared for the heat by dressing my five year old sister in a bathing suit and around the fourth or so inning, I took off my shirt.

The scorcher wasn’t only disrupting the young Sheinman kids, but the parents too.

In the bottom of the third, the game endured a half hour rain delay, but not even that sun shower could cool us off. When play resumed, the heat was more menacing than before, and I overheard my parents chatting about leaving the game early. 

We had attended the game with my parents' friends and their two young boys, and in the fourth inning the mother and youngest son had already left.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, as subtle side-chats between my parents about leaving continued, I noticed something unusual was transpiring on my scorecard. Every time the Expos batted, they’d only get through three batters.

I turned to my dad. 

“Look, there’s a pattern. Every inning, it’s been three batters.”

At the time, I didn’t know the phrase I was looking for was “three up, three down.” I just appreciated the symmetry on the card.

It was at this moment where my dad had his own character-aside, where he breaks the fourth wall and with a furrowed brow, ponders into the camera. 

He had been so focused on the heat, that he didn’t realize David Cone was pitching a perfect game through five innings. 

Now what?…thought the sticky, pit-stained 43 year old. He had already made a pact with my mom to leave after the next inning, but after I showed him the scorecard, I audibly heard him tell my mom and to our family friend, “Let’s not leave until Cone gives up a baserunner.”

Comfort-shmomfort. There’s a perfect game going on.

I doubt my mom knew the magnitude of a perfect game. I certainly didn’t. My sister was face deep in cotton candy. I can only imagine that sacred moment for my dad. 

Through 1999, there had been only 15 perfect games in major league history, approximately once per decade of MLB history. It’s rare enough to read about a perfect game in the news or talk about one at the water coolers. But to witness one at the stadium is to be part of that history.

Looking back, I think about my dad’s comment about saying we could leave when Cone gave up a baserunner. It didn’t necessarily mean when an Expo got a hit, so it appears he was fine leaving even if a no-hitter was still intact. 

It was that hot. 

The only way we’d remain in Yankee Stadium was if Cone kept the pattern going. Three up, three down. 

It was the seventh inning and whether or not you had a scorecard, you knew what was on the line. The weather kept getting hotter, but the tension was no longer between fan and heat but rather fan and David Cone. With every strike the applause grew louder and every out and uproar of relief. 

Our inner circle of high fives became extended to fans around us. Adults were starting to high five me and my sister, who - attending her first sports game ever - had no clue what was happening.

In the top of the eighth with one out, after David Cone had set aside 22 batters in a row, Expos batter Jose Vidro lined a hard two hopper past the pitcher’s mound into the second base hole. Chuck Knoblauch, who had been battling the yips and was easily the most likely fielder to fumble a perfect game, made a difficult play to catch the ball on the hop, set his feet and throw a bullet to first, beating the speedy Vidro.

Years later I still think about this play, because it’s a good lesson in understanding the yips. Knoblauch, who had won a gold glove two years prior, had begun developing the yips. He made 26 errors in 1999, a lot of them on run of the mill throws to first. As I learned later, yips are more likely to occur when you’re consciously thinking about your mechanic and not necessarily unconsciously doing a motion you’ve done tens of thousands of times before. I’m thankful that this was a hard hit ball, a play that didn’t give Knoblauch time to overthink. 

Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this article.

The crowd of 40,000 plus - who came for Yogi Berra Day, took cover in the rain delay, and braved the sweltering heat - are on their feet. It’s the 9th inning, 2 outs, and the final batter standing between David Cone and immortality is 9th place hitter Orlando Cabrera.

In five years, Cabrera will be traded to the Red Sox for their current All-Star and AL batting champ - Nomar Garciaparra. The deadline trade of these shortstops will change the trajectory of the Red Sox’ franchise as Cabrera will help the Red Sox break the Curse of the Bambino, winning the World Series for the first time since 1918.

But at this moment, Cabrera is about to be on the wrong side of history. On a 1-1 pitch, Cabrera skies a pop up on the infield, the trajectory of the ball heading down the third base foul territory, right in line of our eye-sight.

In slow motion, I see Yankees third baseman Scott Brosius running underneath the ball, raising both his arms in the air. There is no one near him so his gesture is as much in celebration as it is to say “I got it”. The ball lands in his mitt, he jumps up and down as he runs to an already forming pile of players jumping on the victorious David Cone.

David Cone just pitched the sixteenth perfect game in MLB history.

The celebration on the field was unlike I had ever seen as players carried Cone to the dugout on their shoulders.

The rabid fans around us were applauding and shouting, with my dad being the most excited among our group. My mom and the two friends who stayed were excited to have witnessed something memorable. My sister, five years old and attending her first sports game ever, was taking in all this chaos, being on the receiving end of a wave of infectious high fives and joy.   

As for me, I was excited that the scorecard pattern was kept in check!

The emotions and confusion got the best of me that I unfortunately wrote my exclamation all over the card. 

Having just gone through the first year of Jewish Day School, my Orthodox rabbi teachers had hammered into my obedient brain not to say God’s name in vain.

As I started writing on my scorecard the words “Oh My…” I paused before writing God and opted for Gosh. I didn’t want God to strike me down during this historic celebration.

Throughout the next week, the Yankees’ television station MSG, the NY Post, and other New York sports media were promoting the storyline of Don Larsen throwing out the first pitch to Yogi Berra to commemorate the perfect game.

The cosmos had aligned so a reenactment of a perfect game’s final out from 43 years ago would conjure a fresh one.

As an additional parallel, Cone’s perfect game was an interleague game - the first since Larsen’s. While there are now 24 total perfect games, Cone and Larsen remain the only two pitchers to throw an interleague perfect game. 

The eight year old stathead in me can recall a few numbers from Cone’s box score. 88 pitches, 68 strikes, 20 balls. 20 balls over 27 batters and zero 3-ball counts. 

But the current me - an aspiring sports writer looking beyond the memorization of box scores and players statistics - reflects on this fateful game’s role in my personal legacy of how I think about the psychology of sports fans.

To interpret sports is to find coherence among a series of random events. 

The lore of the perfect narrative of the game on Yogi Berra’s return; The superstition of not leaving a stadium during a perfect game; The unexpected cascade of pride one person can get during a three hour period; The weight of telling yourself “I witnessed history”. 

I love the overall significance us fans can give to an individual game, as if divine intervention and mysticism were at play and to label the result of a game as meant-to-be.  

I was meant to be at Yankee Stadium, sharing that experience with my family, and keeping that date - July 18, 1999 - in the annals of Sheinman history just as it is in baseball history.