Baseball fans that love history will recall that the New York Mets’ Dwight Gooden was one of the best pitchers ever. Dr. K (aka Doc Gooden) combined an amazing 95 mph fastball with a great movement and a wonderful curveball that buckled bather’s knees. Sadly, the four-time All-Star’s playing career and life after baseball was marred by alcohol and drug abuse. According to the New York Daily News, Dwight Gooden’s recent DWI arrest in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey came after “three-and-one-half years” of sobriety. His five-year-old son Dylan was reportedly in the car.
Dwight Gooden, 45, faces multiple charges
In addition to driving while intoxicated, Dwight Gooden has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, DWI with a child passenger, leaving the scene of the two-car accident and reckless driving. The accident was reported though a 911 call.
It was reported by the Daily News that Gooden was released eventually on his own recognizance. The drug involved has not been released by the New Jersey Police, although Gooden has had problems with cocaine and alcohol in the past. Financial struggles were part of the territory. If Dwight Gooden did use installment payday loans, hopefully he used them appropriately.
Missing life - and the Hall of Fame
If Dwight Gooden hadn’t struggled with substance abuse in his career with baseball, there is little doubt that he wouldn’t have made it into the Hall of Fame. His career was shortened by battles with cocaine and the bottle as well as the five separate years he spent in court and in rehab stints. That doesn’t even show everything Gooden lost in his life because of addiction. That is a private struggle between Dwight Gooden and his family, one that may or may not have involved no credit check personal loans during times of trouble.
The evidence is ample regarding his play days. He finished with a 194-112 record as well as a 3.51 ERA. According to Baseball Reference, he has 162-game average with a 16-9 season and 7.4 strikeouts per nine innings. Yet even those stats fail to represent his early-career magnificence. In the 1984 National League Rookie of the Year he set the Major League rookie record of 276 strikeouts and 11.4 strikeouts for every nine innings. Of course we are assuming you don’t count rookie “Matches” Matt Kilroy’s 513 strikeouts for Baltimore American Association in 1886 because the rules were too different then and the American association is less than major league caliber.
Dr. K’s year was 1985
After an amazing rookie season, Gooden got much better. In 1985 he just went 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA and a league leading strikeout of 268 strikeouts. It was one of the most dominant pitching seasons in Major League history. Dr. K played a key role the following season with the New York Mets’ first world series triumph since 1969. Unfortunately, the red flags began to show. Because he was on a cocaine binge, he missed the team’s victory parade, and he was arrested after fighting police in his hometown of Tampa, Florida by December 13, 1986. There were flashes of greatest afterward, but nothing like what had come before. On May 14, 1996 he threw a no hitter while on the New York Yankees, the team who won titles in that season and in 2000.
How does someone who endangers a young child like that walk?
The New Jersey Police should be answering that except they won’t talk. Gooden needs serious help, and he shouldn’t be allowed to put his five year old in any danger anymore. Hopefully it wasn’t a situation of skating on fame.
