David Cone always had a little bit of an edge to him during his playing days, and, as you can imagine, there were days he would not react too well to poor outings.
Former Yankees manager Joe Torre recalled an untold story on Cone’s podcast, “Toeing the Slab,” where the right-hander inflicted some damage inside the manager’s office after a start at Yankee Stadium.
“He’d come out of a game and wanted to smoke a cigarette, I told him to go ahead he can use my office,” Torre said. “I come back after the game, he had a rough outing — I guess there were men on base and the reliever came in and gave up the runs. Whatever the heck happened. … I had this big picture — a friend of mine bought me this photo of Mickey Mantle wearing No. 6.
“That was my number and a friend of mine bought me this photo…and it was broken. The frame was broken and whatever. Coney came in and said he’d take care of it. Well, he I guess threw the ash tray or whatever it was against the picture.”
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As Torre told the story Cone looked down, smiled and said: “True story. Cannot deny it.”
Cone elaborated and said that he actually was scrambling with the clubhouse attendant to try and swap the photo with a different one before the game ended so Torre wouldn’t notice.
“Of course, Joe noticed it,” Cone said. “It didn’t take him long. I obviously paid to have the frame fix. I was pretty sheepish at that point. …I snapped and broke a picture in the manager’s office? That’s not good.”
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