NEW YORK STATE, USA — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…August 25, 1985:
Dwight Gooden makes baseball history, becoming the youngest major league pitcher to win 20 games in a season. Gooden and the New York Mets beat the San Diego Padres 9-3 at Shea Stadium, improving his record to 20-3 at the age of 20 years, nine months and nine days—nearly a month younger than the previous record holder, the legendary Bob Feller. Gooden finished the season at 24-4 and led the majors with a sparkling 1.53 ERA on his way to the National League Cy Young Award. It would be the only 20-win season of Gooden’s 16-year big league career.
The beginning of Gooden’s career was brilliant. He was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1984, when he also became the youngest player ever to appear in an All-Star Game. Gooden quickly earned the nickname “Doc,” shortened from “Dr. K,” a nod to his amassing of strikeouts (he had a career-high 276 as a rookie). His Cy Young campaign featured 16 complete games at a time when that category was on the decline. Gooden’s life went into decline after that, though. When the Mets won the 1986 World Series, he went 0-2 in his two starts and later said he missed the team’s victory parade because he was doing drugs.
Gooden spent the first 11 seasons of his career with the Mets but had losing records the final three campaigns. Then his cocaine addiction finally got the best of him, and he was suspended for the entire 1995 season after a positive drug test. Gooden joined the cross-town Yankees in 1996 and pitched a no-hitter en route to an 11-7 record, albeit with a 5.01 ERA. The Yankees won the World Series, but Gooden, less than 100 percent, didn’t pitch in it.
He finished his career with the Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros and Tampa Bay Devil Rays—plus a final stint with the Yankees. Gooden’s career record was 194-112 with a 3.51 ERA. But cocaine always hung over his head, even after retirement. Since his career ended in 2000, Gooden has been arrested seven times on various charges, with the most recent reported one coming three years ago. One conviction resulted in a prison stay of almost seven months in 2006. Gooden was a patient on “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew” in 2011. It was not one of Dr. Drew’s success stories.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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