Twenty-five years after his phenomenal rookie season, Dwight Gooden takes aim at his demons
by Wayne Coffey
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Saturday, November 14th 2009, 6:45 PM
Nobody hangs up Ks for Dwight Gooden anymore. A mural of him - in mid-windup - no longer occupies the whole side of a building in Times Square.
More than half his life has passed since the spectacle of Gooden in his No. 16 Mets uniform, so young and strong and utterly gifted, fueled a frenzy the likes of which this town may never see again - a frenzy that reached everywhere, even to Mickey Mantle, underaged icon of another generation, and another borough.
"If I could pick somebody to be, that's who I'd be - Dwight Gooden," Mantle said.
Of course Dwight Gooden thinks about those days sometimes, but he's in no rush to go back there, even if he could, nor to revisit a fall that was almost as rapid as his rise. His focus, he says, is on today. He has a new bride, Monique. They have a five-year-old boy, Dylan and a baby girl - Dwight's seventh child - on the way. Gooden has a new job, as a senior VP with the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League. He has a new-found Christian faith and new plans to open a Dwight Gooden Baseball Academy in northern New Jersey next year.
Sitting in the dining room of the north Jersey house the family is leasing, Gooden speaks openly about the wildly careening, self-destructive course his life has taken, even as Dylan scampers around with his father's baseball glove on his hand. He talks about how nice it is to have a semblance of order and direction, to be doing outreach work with kids, after two-plus decades that have included five trips to rehab, multiple brushes with the law, one trip to prison and a family and financial life fractured by a demon called cocaine.
He still owes $300,000 in back alimony and child support to his first wife, Monica, according to an affidavit filed in May in Hillsborough County Circuit Court.
"I've had my pitfalls, and I have to accept them," Gooden says. "Everything that's happened, it's nobody's fault but my own. Between the ages of 19 and 41, there was a big cloud, a dark cloud. Some days the sun would come out, but a lot of days it would pour down rain. Now every day is a great day."
Gooden understands there may be skepticism about his three and a half years of sobriety, about reading of another fresh start for the former Doctor K. Haven't we heard this before, after all?
Read the Full Article @ The Daily News
by Wayne Coffey
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Saturday, November 14th 2009, 6:45 PM
Nobody hangs up Ks for Dwight Gooden anymore. A mural of him - in mid-windup - no longer occupies the whole side of a building in Times Square.
More than half his life has passed since the spectacle of Gooden in his No. 16 Mets uniform, so young and strong and utterly gifted, fueled a frenzy the likes of which this town may never see again - a frenzy that reached everywhere, even to Mickey Mantle, underaged icon of another generation, and another borough.
"If I could pick somebody to be, that's who I'd be - Dwight Gooden," Mantle said.
Of course Dwight Gooden thinks about those days sometimes, but he's in no rush to go back there, even if he could, nor to revisit a fall that was almost as rapid as his rise. His focus, he says, is on today. He has a new bride, Monique. They have a five-year-old boy, Dylan and a baby girl - Dwight's seventh child - on the way. Gooden has a new job, as a senior VP with the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League. He has a new-found Christian faith and new plans to open a Dwight Gooden Baseball Academy in northern New Jersey next year.
Sitting in the dining room of the north Jersey house the family is leasing, Gooden speaks openly about the wildly careening, self-destructive course his life has taken, even as Dylan scampers around with his father's baseball glove on his hand. He talks about how nice it is to have a semblance of order and direction, to be doing outreach work with kids, after two-plus decades that have included five trips to rehab, multiple brushes with the law, one trip to prison and a family and financial life fractured by a demon called cocaine.
He still owes $300,000 in back alimony and child support to his first wife, Monica, according to an affidavit filed in May in Hillsborough County Circuit Court.
"I've had my pitfalls, and I have to accept them," Gooden says. "Everything that's happened, it's nobody's fault but my own. Between the ages of 19 and 41, there was a big cloud, a dark cloud. Some days the sun would come out, but a lot of days it would pour down rain. Now every day is a great day."
Gooden understands there may be skepticism about his three and a half years of sobriety, about reading of another fresh start for the former Doctor K. Haven't we heard this before, after all?
Read the Full Article @ The Daily News
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