I hope everyone checked out the first edition of the newsletter using this new Beehiiv newsletter software. I made the switch because I get analytics that show me how many people are actually opening the email, and clicking the links like the Gehrig video last week. It showed that about 60% of you opened the newsletter last week, which is considered very good. I wish it was 100%, but that’s probably not possible. I also noticed that one of the pictures I used of Gehrig may not have been visible for some and the reason for that is certain email clients have filters that can block images. It happened to me in my Outlook account, so I apologize if you find a blank space in your newsletter. Anyway, here’s today’s edition.

Wells Became the 13th MLB Pitcher to Achieve Perfection

If ever anyone could have been forgiven for the act of plagiarism, this would have been the right day for it.

A little more than 42 years earlier, sports writer Joe Trimble of the long-defunct New York Herald-Tribune penned the perfect description of Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, writing, “The imperfect man just pitched a perfect game.”

It was such an appropriate characterization of the person and the feat. For Larsen to be the first, and still only, man to pitch a perfect game in a World Series remains one of baseball’s most head-scratching achievements because he would have been one of the last men anyone would have expected to be capable of this.

And now on the afternoon of May 17, 1998, along came David Wells, the Yankees portly portsider who not only attended the same San Diego high school as Larsen, but shared the same passion for partying and driving managers batty as Larsen did back in one of the Yankees’ heydays in the 1950s. On a side note, it’s pretty amazing how many heydays the Yankees have had, isn’t it?

Against the Minnesota Twins on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in the Bronx with a Beanie Baby promotion swelling the stadium gathering to 49,820, it was 27 up and 27 down for Wells as the Yankees cruised to a 4-0 victory.

Another imperfect man had thrown a perfect game, and credit to the manic New York press who resisted the urge to regurgitate Trimble’s iconic verbiage.

“This is a dream come true for me,” Wells said after becoming only the 13th pitcher in modern baseball history to throw a perfect game.

Beforehand, pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre had a feeling Wells might have a special day as he watched him go through his pregame throwing session.

“Mel came out of the bullpen and I asked him how it went,” Joe Torre said. “All he said was, ‘Wow.’ That doesn’t normally mean a perfect game or even a win. But it did today. The Boomer was outstanding. That’s something he can take with him wherever he goes.”

Wells breezed through the first six innings and as he walked off the mound the crowd was fully aware of what was happening. The fans stood as one to cheer him as he lumbered to the dugout, but his teammates superstitiously ignored him when he arrived. “They were killing me, man,” he recalled with a laugh regarding the time-honored tradition of players not wanting to jinx a no-hitter or perfect game by talking about.

With two outs in the seventh there was a nervous moment when Paul Molitor worked the count to 3-1, but Wells threw a called strike and then whiffed Molitor swinging. Now Wells was starting to get anxious, and that’s when David Cone - who would be in this same position a year later when he threw his perfect game - sidled up to him and muttered out of the side of his mouth, “I think it’s about time you break out the knuckleball.” Wells cracked up and later said, “I can’t tell you how much that helped me.”

With the Yankees comfortably ahead 4-0, all eyes were focused on the perfect game. In the eighth, Derek Jeter bobbled a grounder at short but recovered in time to make the play, and then Ron Coomer roped a shot to second that Chuck Knoblauch knocked down, picked up and threw to first, the toughest out of the game. Alex Ochoa popped out to end the inning.

In the ninth, there was a World Series-like atmosphere and the fans never sat down. It took seven pitches to retire Jon Shave on a fly to Paul O’Neill in right. Javier Valentin struck out on four pitches, and that brought Pat Meares to the plate.

With his shirt sloppily unbuttoned at the top, you could almost see Wells’ heart beating in his burly chest. After Meares fouled off a first-pitch fastball he punched Wells’ 120th delivery into right, a routine fly that O’Neill corralled with ease.

The stadium erupted, the Yankees mobbed Wells, and Bernie Williams and Daryl Strawberry performed the difficult chore of hoisting the 240-pounder onto their shoulders for a ride into the Yankee dugout as he pumped his fist in the air.

After the game George Steinbrenner’s assistant, Arthur Richman, called Larsen on the phone from the Yankee clubhouse and Larsen and Wells spoke for the first time.

“Talking to Don Larsen, that was a great phone call,” Wells said. “And that we went to the same high school, it’s unbelievable. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

George Vecsey of the New York Times also talked to Larsen after the game and Larsen told him, “We’ve never met. I’m sure we will – probably at some bar.”

The next day, following a predictable late night of carousing, Wells kept his commitment to play in a charity golf tournament in Wilton, Connecticut hosted by Stottlemyre.

At the ninth hole, with reporters following him around which at first annoyed him, Wells chipped in for a birdie, turned to them and his playing partners who were on the green waiting to putt and said, “Pick it up; we’re done here.”

It’s amazing no one in his group ran to the local convenience store to get a New York Lotto ticket and have Wells choose the numbers. The man was on a serious roll.

After fishing his ball out of the cup, he relented and allowed the media to ask a few questions.

“You’ve got to go out and celebrate something like that,” he said of the previous night.

When he was asked about the Yankee fan base he said, “When you do something like yesterday, they acknowledge it. That’s what makes it such a great city. I don’t think I’ll ever come down. It’s a nice feeling, it really is. I’m flattered by it all, but there will be a day when I go out and get my butt kicked and they’re going to say, ‘That’s the guy. How could he have done that?’ I’ll probably hear that. That’s the way it goes. I’m just going to enjoy it while I can. You can’t take it away, it’s in the book. That’s something I get to cherish the rest of my life.”

After the golf tournament, Wells was transported back to the city for an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman.

Letterman described Wells’ performance by saying that he went through the Twins lineup like “Clinton goes through interns.” Of Wells’ well-known penchant for drinking, Letterman said the pitcher “celebrated by retiring 27 Heinekens in a row.”

Wells then shared with the audience that Mayor Rudy Giuliani had called to say he’d be giving Wells a key to the city. “I told him that was not the right idea,” Wells said. “I’d let all my degenerate friends into the city. I think they’d fit right in.”

The imperfect man indeed.

 ➤ I found an interesting item in Tom Verducci’s column in Sports Illustrated last week about Aaron Judge and how he pulled the ball way more last season than he had in previous years. He increased his pull-side hitting from 35.8% in 2021 to 46.3% in 2022, the biggest jump among qualified hitters in MLB. In his first five seasons, his highest number of base hits to the left-field side was 50, but he had 73 last year.

I looked at his spray chart and by my count 23 of his 62 home runs were hit from dead center to the right-field line, meaning he did not take full advantage of the short porch in Yankee Stadium to a very high degree. In fact, he hit more homers on the road (32) than he did at home (30). It also looks like only eight of his 28 doubles were hit from center over to right.

Teams started recognizing Judge’s pull side tendency because in what we hope will be the last time we ever see shifts, he was shifted to the left-field side on 49.7% of his 677 plate appearances, yet he still hit a career-high .311. Of course, when 62 of those hits are one the shift can’t affect, that helps. That was up from 31.3% in 2021. He did get shifted 49.1% of the time in 2020, but that was in only 114 plate appearances due to the shortened COVID season.

To go a little deeper on Judge’s season with the advanced metrics, Baseball Savant tracks a million different things and one of them is barrels, meaning did the batter get the meat of the bat on the ball? Judge did it 106 times last year, and his previous best was 87 in 2017, the year he hit 52 home runs as a rookie. He had a barrel in 15.7% of his plate appearances which led MLB, while his 247 hard hit balls (at least 95 mph exit velocity) ranked fourth behind Vlad Guerrero Jr. (265), Jose Abreu (256) and Bo Bichette (251).

➤ Last week it looked as if Nestor Cortes was the only Yankee who would be playing in the World Baseball Classic. Now, he will be joined by catcher Kyle Higashioka on Team USA, while second baseman Gleyber Torres will play for Venezuela. As I said, I’m fine with the position players participating because it’s a great chance to face very good pitching in a highly competitive atmosphere. I’m not so thrilled about Cortes pitching due to the greater risk of injury.

➤ Spring training starts this week. Pitchers and catchers will have their first workout on Thursday, the first full-team workout is set for Monday, Feb. 20, the first game will be played Feb. 25 against the Phillies in Clearwater, Fla., and the first game at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa will be Feb. 26.

Those are the first of 32 spring games, a total which is a bit ridiculous. There is no viable reason why teams need that many spring games to get ready for the season, but we all know why they do it. Money. All that gate revenue is what owners crave, which is one way the rich stay rich. If you’re interested, YES is televising 13 of the games, all but two of starting at 1:05 p.m. The scheduled dates are Feb. 26 and 27, and March 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 15, 21, 24, 26 and 27.

After all that, Opening Day is set for Thursday, March 30, a 1:05 game against the San Francisco Giants, Carlos Rodon’s last team, and the team that Judge almost left New York for.