Between Friends: Cone Edges Key in AL : Baseball: Only 12 points separate the former Blue Jay teammates in Cy Young Award voting.

Jimmy Key, the New York Yankee left-hander, led the major leagues in victories in 1994’s strike-shortened season, but finished second to David Cone of the Kansas City Royals in voting for the American League’s Cy Young Award.

In results announced Tuesday, Cone, who was 16-5 with a 2.94 earned-run average, received 15 of 28 first-place votes and 108 points from a committee of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America.

Key, who was 17-4 with a 3.27 ERA, got 10 first-place votes and 96 points. He also received a $50,000 consolation prize, his contract bonus for finishing second.

Key, 35-10 in his two seasons with the Yankees and currently recovering from arthroscopic shoulder surgery, said he considered games won the most important yardstick for a pitcher “because it’s the basis on which we’re paid.” But he also said that he didn’t put that much value on the Cy Young and wasn’t disappointed.

“I’m happy with the season I had and happy with the season the Yankees had,” he said, noting his friendship with Cone, a Toronto Blue Jay teammate during the final two months of 1992.

However, he said the shortened season blemishes the award.

“The writers were basically voting on the best pitcher over 112 or 113 games,” Key said. “There were still a lot of important games to be played, a lot of time for people to step forward in the games that should be the basis on which the award is voted.”

Cone agreed to an extent, saying he will look back with regret on the lost opportunity for a Kansas City team that had surged to within four games of the lead in the Central Division when the strike began.

“It would be much nicer to be pitching Game 3 of the World Series in Kansas City tonight,” he said. “I’d trade this for that in a heartbeat.

“It’s unfortunate the season couldn’t be completed, but I don’t want to demean the award. I may not get the opportunity to win it again, and I feel that I produced a significant body of work, no matter how long the season was. I guess I’m a little surprised, but I feel that either one of us would have been a deserving winner.”

In addition to the better ERA, Cone struck out 132 in 171 innings, compared to Key’s 97 in 168; restricted opposing hitters to a .209 average compared to Key’s .273, and had eight consecutive victories after having lost his first start of the year, pitching 28 consecutive scoreless innings in the process.

Cone said he did it using the “much more efficient style of a Jimmy Key,” reducing his velocity to cut down on his pitch totals so that he could stay in games longer and allow a strong defense to work for him.

He credited pitching coach Bruce Kison and recently fired manager Hal McRae.

“It seemed like every time I turned around, there was (second baseman) Chico Lind with a smile on his face as if to say, ‘Make them hit the ball to me.’ The light bulb finally went on. I realized I didn’t have to do it all myself.”

Cone, 31 and scheduled to be married on Nov. 12, was a disappointing 11-14 in 1993, his homecoming season with the Royals. He had signed a three-year, $18-million contract as a free agent in the same winter that Key signed a four-year, $17-million contract with the Yankees after he and Cone had helped pitch Toronto to a playoff victory over the Oakland A’s and a World Series title over the Atlanta Braves.

Ewing Kauffman, the Royals’ late owner, urged Cone to return to his hometown and, in Cone’s words, “rectify the worst trade the Royals ever made.” He referred to the 1986 deal in which they sent Cone to the New York Mets for catcher Ed Hearn, who appeared in 13 games with the Royals before a shoulder injury ended his career.

Cone has made 31 or more starts in every season since 1988, when his 20-3 record with the Mets failed to deprive the Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser of the Cy Young. Having now won it, he said, “I think this is what Mr. Kauffman envisioned when he urged me to come back. I just wish he was here to share it with me.”