 In 1995, when you were traded over from the Blue Jays, Don Mattingly made the playoffs for the first time. It was 14 years, 1785 games that basically the heartbeat of the franchise never made the postseason. When you guys clinched in Toronto that season and you saw him punch the turf, I mean what were the thoughts going through your head? Well, it really was a rallying cry for that team was not only just to make a torrid run down the stretch, you know, when I've got traded to the Yankees in the middle of the season, they were below 500, I think seven games below 500 and it really took a torrid pace down the stretch run to get to that first wild card spot and 95 was the first year of the wild card. So we were the first wild card winners and to see the emotion for Don Mattingly and what it meant, not only to the team, his teammates to the organization, but to the Yankee fan base that all really just wanted that for Donny baseball, who never had a taste of postseason his entire career until the end and, you know, that emotion because as you know, Chris, Don Mattingly rarely showed that type of emotion. No. That fist bump on the turf and up in Toronto at the old Skydome was pretty remarkable. It was a remarkable display of emotion for him. Yeah, there were definitely some onion-slicing moments in the Sheeran household when that happened because we knew how special that feeling must have been for him going through all those games and not getting into the postseason and there's a couple of other things I have to ask you about about that playoff run and the first one is game two. Gary Thorn had a tremendous call of his home run, hold on to the roof. When he hit that homer in game two, we heard about Girardi's triple in 1996 and how loud that stadium was. In comparison, can you put a comparison on Girardi's triple and Donny's home run in 95? Well, it's pretty close. You know, I mean, we're talking about back-to-back years, 95 and 96, and the Yankee fan base was really hungry for postseason baseball at that point. It had been a long time. It had been really since the late 70s when they won and then 81 was, you know, a little bit of a taste of the postseason. But you're talking about a fan base, and of course, Yankee fans are so well known, the organization, arguably the greatest sports franchise of all time, and that fan base was really desperate to have a big moment at Yankee Stadium. I remember Chris talking to Buck Schollalter before game one of 95 and when Don Maddenly ran out onto the field about a half hour before the game to run his wind sprints in the outfield, the crowd went nuts. He got a standing ovation. And I looked at Buck Schollalter, then obviously the manager of the Yankees and I said, you know what, Buck? Everybody talks about the Bronx Zoo and the Bronx Cheer. I said, they don't come to boo. They come to cheer. They come to see good baseball. And if they don't like what they see, then they will be quick to boo you. But don't ever mistake the Yankee fans come to see good baseball first and that's what they cheer for. Yeah, that's a great point. Jeff Nelson once told me, he said, you know, I came over from Seattle. They cheered me. And then I went back to Seattle and I got the booze immediately. And then when he came back to the Yankees yet again, they actually brought tears to his eyes because when he hit the mound again as a Yankee, the cheers were so loud that it just he had to stop for a second and compose himself. So it's basically that love-hate relationship, but you hit it spot on. No, it is. And that's what makes the Yankee fans the fans that they are. I mean, they're so passionate, so knowledgeable. They anticipate the flow of the game better than any other fan base, the New York baseball fan in general. They're one step ahead of the game. And that shows you right there, that example you just presented about Jeff Nelson shows you how they really are one step ahead of the game. They anticipate that flow better than anybody. We just talked about 1981. There was a perfect game in 1981. And there were five from 81 to 98, five. So these were rare. And then back to back seasons, the Yankees get David Wells in 1998 and then David Cohn in 1999. Just I want to go through Wells first being on the bench and watching it. Is it more nerve wracking watching or being involved in it, David, when you have a perfect game? You know, it was more nerve wracking actually watching until the ninth inning. You know, that ninth inning feeling that I had going out to the mound, knowing that you're three outs away, there's no feeling like that, that you're that close. But actually watching David Wells, you know, I was a nervous wreck in the dugout. I think you see some of the pictures of me in the dugout with my jacket up over my face and looking like cousin it or something like that. I mean, it was I was pulling for him so desperately because I knew what it meant for him. I knew what it meant for our team. We were it was early in the season in May and in 1998, we were starting to take off. We sense that something special was happening with that 98 team. We desperately needed David Wells to be a top frontline pitcher. You kind of struggled a little bit in April, had some turmoil with Joe Tory, you know, some from friction and some some closed door meetings with him and kind of erred it out their grievances. And and that just turned everything around. I think from that point on from from May, when he threw his perfect game through the postseason, he was the best pitcher in the American League. I really believe that he led us all the way through to beating CX San Diego in the World Series. When did you all start to think that? Hey, we got something going here. You know, anytime you get through five innings, you start to peek at the scoreboard and you see all the zeros lined up. And then from that moment on, you know, you get through the sixth inning and then into the seventh, it really, you know, it starts to grow. And that's the beauty of the Yankee Stadium fan base is that they sense that too. And I talked about them anticipating the flow of the game. It's almost as if every pitch starts to get cheers a little louder as the game unfolds. So certainly once you get into the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, you start to think about it more and more. And, you know, I could see it on the bench with David Wells. He was a nervous wreck. And David was the type of guy that he liked to talk. He liked to chirp a little bit throughout the games. And, you know, he's got a goofy personality and he's a lovable guy. But he was a wreck because nobody would talk to him. He had those superstitions and, you know, everybody staying away from him. And that probably made him more nervous than anything. And what about the final out when he gets the fly ball to right and O'Neill squeezes it? What's that? I know what the feeling is like for him. It's just absolute elation. But for his teammates, what was the feeling around the dugout when you're running out to the field? It was an incredible feeling because we all had a good feeling as a team at that point because we were really starting to gel. It was the beginning of the 98 Yankees team. And, you know, we ended up winning 125 games by the time the World Series was over. So you could sense that something was coming together. And David Wells was the signature moment. That perfect game really was that magical moment early in the season that brought everybody together. And, you know, if you know David Wells, he's a big guy. You know, he's like 6'3", pitch between 250 and 270 pounds for the majority of his career. When everybody on the team picked him up on their shoulders and carried him off the field and the reaction of the teammates of our, you know, of us to him and to the fans. To me, that was a really big moment to see that unfold and happen. I think we saw it in 96 the following year when Dwight Gooden threw his no-hitter. Right. Big moment for him. Comeback moment in his career where the, you know, his teammates picked him up on their shoulders and actually literally carried him off the field. David Wells was the first time I'd ever seen that on a baseball field where the teammates, us, grabbed him, picked him up on our shoulders and literally carried him off the field, you know, as he's waving to the crowd. Yeah, he got the NFL coach treatment after they win the Super Bowl without the Gatorade. How about yours, David? Just pinpoint, you just looked, I watched a little bit of this before we did this. And you just look like you were in the zone. When you were out in the bullpen before you threw your perfect game against the Expos, did you just feel like you had the stuff that you needed to compete at the highest level that day? Were you feeling the best that you could feel that day? You know, Chris, ironically, it was kind of just the opposite. My mind was a blank slate. I really didn't think about a thing warming up. It was a hot day. My arm got loose quickly. And my mind was blank because it was Yogi Baraday. And I was actually consumed with watching Yogi riding around in a convertible around the warning track and seeing Yogi. And if you've been around Yogi Baraday, you can't help but just smile the minute you see him. And to see him in Carmen, his lovely wife, who was a great character of the game herself, all those years together with Yogi, to see the looks on their faces as they rode around on Yogi Baraday in a convertible around the warning track at Yankee Stadium, to me, just took my mind off of everything. I was totally consumed with enjoying them, watching them completely distracted from my warm-up, which turned out to be a blessing. And Don Larson throws the first pitch to celebrate their perfect game from the World Series. And then you go out there and spin your masterpiece against the Expos. Around what time during that game did you start to scramble? Was it around the fifth inning after you finished the fifth that you were like, oh, boy, here we go. Now it's me. It's not Wells. I'm actually doing this. Yeah, you know, I think it was after the fifth inning, you know, there was a rain delay of about 45 minutes earlier before the fifth, I think, between the third and the fourth innings that worried me a little bit. If this goes on for much longer, you know, my start might be in jeopardy. But once I got back from the rain delay, got through five innings, noticed that my pitch count was very low at that point and new. At this point in my career, I'm 36 years old. You know, I knew, wow, this might be my last chance to do something like this, Chris. I probably had a half a dozen other starts throughout my career, even going back to the Mets where I had been in that situation either for a no-hitter or a perfect game and lost it somehow in the seventh or eighth innings. And something always happened, a bad hop, a hanging slider. So something, you know, something like that always goes through your mind. But after five innings, you know, I certainly took note of it. David Cohn, thank you so much. We appreciate the time. My pleasure, Chris. Good being on with you.