Pubdate: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 Source: Wall Street Journal (US) Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.wsj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 Author: Mike Sielski THE METS PREPARE TO HONOR GOODEN, REGRETS AND ALL Last weekend, Dwight Gooden was in Cooperstown, of all places, and if you don't find that ironic, you don't know anything about Dwight Gooden. He was there to support his friend Andre Dawson, who was being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and to play in a charity softball game. There was a time in Mr. Gooden's life, when he was young and pitching for the Mets, that a similar ceremony for him in Cooperstown seemed inevitable, a mere formality that would cap a brilliant career. He was 17-9 as a 19-year-old in 1984, setting a rookie record with his 276 strikeouts. He was 24-4 in 1985, had a remarkable 1.53 earned-run average, and won the National League Cy Young Award. That high, question-mark-shaped leg kick, that 98-mph fastball, and a curveball that buckled knees-he was a sight to see. He is 45 now, and he will be at Citi Field on Saturday. The Mets this year are inducting Mr. Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, former manager Davey Johnson and former general manager Frank Cashen into their Hall of Fame, and they are holding a luncheon for the inductees Saturday before a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. More, because Mr. Gooden ended his playing career with the Yankees in 2000-he went 194-112 in pitching for five teams over his 16-year career-he agreed to sign a one-day contract with the Mets this week so that he could again retire, this time as a member of the team with which he is most identified. "To me," he said in a phone interview, "this brings it full circle." But it also calls to mind the darker side of Mr. Gooden: The cocaine and alcohol abuse. The stints in rehab. The suspensions that cost him part of the 1994 season and all of the 1995 season. The piles of innings he pitched early in his career that ground him down later. The arrests. The attempts to reassemble the shards and bits of his life and career. "To be around this guy when he was at the ballpark, which seemed to be his real sanctuary, you might say it was so surprising that he would do this," said Mel Stottlemyre, who coached Mr. Gooden with the Mets and the Yankees. "No question in my mind, it was basically a Hall of Fame talent that ended up being wasted." Mr. Stottlemyre, who lives in Washington, was something of a father figure for Mr. Gooden when the two worked together. He sends Mr. Gooden a basket of apples from the orchards of the Pacific Northwest for Christmas each year, and he has watched from afar as these last few months, too, have proved hard for Mr. Gooden. In March, Mr. Gooden was involved in a car accident in Franklin Lakes, N.J. After the accident, he was arrested and charged with, among other things, driving while under the influence of drugs and endangering the welfare of a child, according to a Franklin Lakes Police Department press release. The arrest was first reported by deadspin.com. His five-year-old son had been in the car with him, the press release said. Mr. Gooden would not comment on either his March arrest-"That case is still ongoing," he said-or his relationship with his wife. And just last week, in an interview with the New York Post, his wife accused him of abandoning her and their two children and said she did not know his whereabouts. Mr. Gooden declined to comment on the report. "I wish I had the secret why he would occasionally get on the wrong path," Mr. Stottlemyre said in a phone interview Tuesday. "The last time that I saw him, he seemed like he was on top of things so much. I think it's just that he's had a hard time just basically leading a normal life. He's not really able to do that." He talks as if he can and will. He wants to get his baseball academy in Newark going. He has talked to the Mets, he said, about working for them as a spring-training instructor. Does he look back on his career with fondness for what he did achieve or with regret for what he could have and failed to? "I've done both," Mr. Gooden said. "I've said, 'I should have taken better care of myself off the field. Maybe if I had done this more. Maybe if there were pitch counts.' Stuff like that. But, you know, you have to give yourself credit on the things you did accomplish. That was part of my problem: beating myself up, trying to live up to others expectations, and living up to my own expectations. "As a kid, I didn't think about the Hall of Fame. I didn't think about awards. All I wanted to do was play major-league baseball. I did that, and I had a lot of great accomplishments come my way. Once I'm in the Mets Hall of Fame, I can close the chapter on my career." Mel Stottlemyre won't be at Citi Field on Saturday. Mr. Gooden said he planned to call him this week to invite him to the luncheon, but at 69, Mr. Stottlemyre isn't up for making too many cross-country flights anymore, and he has not spoken to Mr. Gooden in a year, he said. It should be a fine day for Mr. Gooden, but there will also be the happy-sad sense that this celebration could have been something more, something better, and that it could have taken place somewhere else. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D