“The same guy who went to the World Series
and the White House also found himself in housing project apartments with
lowlife moochers, risking his talent and trashing his life for the fleeting
pleasure of getting high.”
“You’d have to look hard to find another
young athlete in any sport who had risen so high so quickly and then fallen so
hard. Too much, too fast, too young, my life was spinning wildly, and I was the
one who didn’t have a clue.”
Growing
up a Mets fan, Dwight “Dr. K” Gooden was a larger-than-life figure, a flame-throwing
pitcher who, as I matured, grew to represent the lost potential and abuse of
the ‘80s in many ways. Having distanced myself from baseball for a number of
reasons over the years, I was thrilled to return to some of those days with “Doc:
A Memoir,” written by Gooden and Ellis Henican.
The story
takes little time to develop. The opening scene certainly grabs you from the
jump, depicting a coked-out Gooden (just 21 at the time!) have to watch his
teammates in the ticker-tape parade through Manhattan celebrating the 1986
World Series championship.
This
book was a relatively quick and easy read, although some of the subject matter
is difficult to digest (or comprehend). Unfortunately, the work was littered
with issues that made it problematic to read. There were some grammatical
concerns, sure; there were some characters (such as ex-girlfriend Carlene) who are
presented without introduction. Also, the years fly past in the telling, making
it difficult to get centered chronologically, with confusion surrounding
timelines.
The
descriptions of some of the key characters here are difficult to reconcile with
depictions of their actions as well. His mother, for instance, he describes as
religious and “upstanding,” yet in the next breath he details her attempt to
murder his father in a tone that includes impossible humor. His father is
described as attentive and available, but he borders on the domineering in his
over-training of his son, and even brings his young son with him to rendevouz
with other women. Gooden writes about an upbringing that is idyllic and
pastoral in some ways, yet punctuated with indescribable violence and
craziness.
“And the whole idea of good, loving people
sometimes doing reckless, self-destructive things—that was business as usual
for the Goodens.”
“Yes, I’d achieved the dream my Dad had for
me. I’d achieved the dream he had for himself. But what was the cost?”
“I was confused. How did my father, who had
a third-grade education and had worked his whole life at a chemical plant, know
what should be in a major-league baseball contract? It was the same as the way
I wondered how he learned all those pitching drills he put me through. Dad just
knew stuff. I had my concerns, but I didn’t say anything.”
Perhaps
most challenging, however, is that for a supposed tell-all, this book was written
in a passive voice, with Gooden serving almost as an observer to his own life
and decisions; in my estimation, this is not a fair or particularly well-chosen
approach for a piece of this ilk. Some intense scenes (such as an encounter
with the urine tester) suffer some in the telling of them as though they are
happening to someone else.
“But who was Dwight Gooden? ... It was
almost like I was two people in one. That both those people could inhabit the
same body was a conflict that wouldn’t end quickly or well.”
Gooden
is certainly good at blame-shifting and circular logic. At one point, he
essentially blames his wife’s pain about his constant relapses for the rocky
state of their marriage that then leads him to be an adulterer. For the reader,
the only impression we are left with is that his wife stuck with him through
everything—serving pretty much as a single parent—and she is repaid with
suggestions that he had an affair because of her?
He’d
like you to believe that he found cocaine mostly because he was bored, which
obviously feels a bit simplistic considering the 20-something-year hold it had
on him.
“Cocaine was a jet, and beer was a rickety
trolley. Coke gave me a feeling I’d always wanted but didn’t know how to find
it. It convinced me immediately that nothing else mattered at all ... This is
how I wanted to feel.”
On
the plus side, the circumstances surrounding his late-career no-hitter with the
Yankees—with his father clinging to life—are pretty remarkable. However, even
that celebratory moment must be examined in the context of Gooden deciding not
to board a flight to see his father for perhaps the last time. Within the
backdrop of the book, this chapter does redeem the entire book in some ways.
He also
shares some amusing anecdotes throughout, and there were also some
somewhat-unexpected, behind-the-scenes insights and tales-out-of-school
revelations. Gooden is somewhat polite—yet clear—in maintaining that Darryl
Strawberry (who he calls a “phony”) is not, and never was, a friend, and is, in
fact, a two-faced, hypocritical snitch.
Gooden
implies that N.A. meetings saved his life and health.* And from a purely
comedic standpoint, there was a Red Lobster reference (below) that registered a
rough 12 on the Unintentional Comedy Scale (apologies to Isaiah Thomas).
“Now I’d had some rough days back at the
Comfort Inn. But I promise you, it was no fleabag [hotel], unless fleabags have
started offering Jacuzzis and flat-screen TVs and Red Lobsters next door.”
At
the end of the day, it’s difficult to read this book without muttering the
words “fucking loser” in your mind at each individual anecdote. Yes, he tells a
sad tale, but he’s a sad person, too. I was admittedly unaware that many of
these struggles are ongoing with Gooden, and I didn’t know of his affiliation
with the “Celebrity Rehab” reality show.
There
is certainly a degree of admirable bravery involved in reliving your sins in
such a manner, to go with situations such as sharing a jail with your son, faking
at religion and dwindling near death. And admittedly, the book does get very
emotional and earnest at the end, but is all feels a bit too late by that
point, and difficult to juxtapose with the tone of the rest of the book.
“I let them know just how powerful and
destructive drugs can be, how they can take you away from everything you love
until the drugs are all that you love. Then I talk about where I am now. I tell
the story, which is my favorite, of being in the hotel room and hearing that gospel
song. Even today, that story gives me goosebumps. Sometimes I tear up. I
recognize that moment as the blessing it was. It was kind of magical, and it
was real.
“Then I tell them about my road back.”
*Editor’s Note: Googling “Fat Dwight Gooden”
brings up some rather awful pictures.
