DailySkew

Book Review: Dwight Gooden: Heat (1999)

Although this probably should be posted in the DailySkew baseball news blog, I decided to post here because the book is mainly about addictions and society.

For those of you who don’t know, Doc Gooden was the toast of the town in New York in the 1980’s, as their ace pitcher, and broke all sorts of records for the New York Mets. He was a teenage sensation as a prospect, and won a world championship in 1986 and later in 1996 after battling drug and alcohol addiction.

This is his story.

Dwight was the youngest child, and was raised in a Tampa, Florida community where crime and mischief reigned. His mother was strict but loving, as was his dad who encouraged him to pursue baseball.

Dwight was born as an Enneagram Type 9 (Peacemaker)- he showed these traits at the very beginning (avoiding chores, laid back, watching TV, playing video games, shy around women, liked to get into mischief with his buddies, but hid secrets from his strict parents, gets along with everyone, impressionable, content with being a follower- not a leader, unconcerned about school, authority figures like coaches and parents needed to get tough with him to motivate him).

And guess what? This same kid is all of a sudden on the best team in baseball in the biggest city in the world. The MEDIA built an image of Doc- an innocent and polite skinny black kid from the ghetto who had the most awesome fastball and curveball in the world, with the potential to be the best pitcher who ever lived.

And Doc resented that. He hated the perfect do-gooder image because he was just a normal guy, not a role model, and not a saint. But the MEDIA liked to build him up as one. And the Mets organization wanted him to be an ambassador, something that added pressure to him.

He never grew up. Never had a chance to. He wasn’t properly educated or motivated. He “quit” many times in high school, and at his (very brief) minor league level, but his dad and a pitching coach talked him back into it. Doc was not an intimidating pitcher when he was first starting out. He had to learn how to put on the game face and pitch inside to intimidate hitters. He had no killer instinct. At the lower levels, he felt weird and an outcast because of racism and being only one of a handful of black players in the Mets farm system.

Fast forward to the big leagues. He met Daryl Strawberry, the black superstar hitter. Straw Man the opposite of Doc: he was cocky, streetwise, and outgoing, always looking to fight. (Think Denzel Washington in Training Day when it comes to ’street smarts’). Straw would give Doc advice on how to carry himself, and to get out of his hotel room. Of course, the advice was bad, but it sounded good at the time. Also, the rest of the Mets were jocks: strip clubs, affairs, bars, late nights, alcohol, and cocaine: all the vital ingredients for a 1980’s NY team. The Mets manager Davey Johnson let Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter police the clubhouse and was a permissive authority figure. The team was comprised of a bunch of animals, and they would have rebelled against any authority figure. Johnson was the perfect manager for the team when it came to focusing their energies on beating their opponents, but not for imposing a clean lifestyle.

Mel Stottlemyre, the old pitching coach (also a Type 9) treated Doc like his own son, and truly loved him. It broke his heart when Doc got into trouble in later years, since Doc kept his secrets.

Doc started with alcohol to escape from the pressure and to be more outgoing with girls, and to fit in with the guys. Yes, it’s called peer pressure, something people don’t like to admit. In 1987, due to injuries, Doc wasn’t feeling well, and his cousin hit him hard with the peer pressure to try a line of coke. And that was it.

The book is short- only 200 pages of easy reading. The scenes are intense: we are taken to dark and scary places on the streets, and in the dark tainted soul of a drug and alcohol addict. We feel when he blows 2nd and 3rd chances, when Commissioner Bud Selig Fed Ex-ed a letter saying that he was suspended for a year. We are sorry when Doc relapses, and doesn’t listen to the lectures at the rehab clinics, and let down his parents, wife, and kids. The cycle continued, the lies continued, the double life continued, and the addiction was too much.

There are other scenes in the book..true crime scenes. White police beat Doc up, and after he was released he and a bunch of his friends and cousins (and his nephew Gary Sheffield) had semi-automatic weapons. They were speeding in Tampa and were going to kill any white cop that pulled them over. Doc thanks God now that no police office pulled them over that night.

In another case, one of his childhood friends was getting sentenced and he asked Doc to assist in a courtroom breakout.

In other scene, Doc’s wife Monica walks in his room with a pistol in his mouth.

While on the Mets, teammate Kevin Mitchell decapitated his girlfriend’s cat in front of her and Doc thinking there was a conspiracy against him.

It’s a great mainstream book, but it’s loaded with tidbits about how badly the Mets were run in the 80’s and 90’s, in addition to how Joe Torre treated him like the invisible man during his 1996-1997 Yankees run.

So yes, this is a sad book. Actually a very depressing book. But I never got frustrated with Doc, though. He’s just too humble and human to judge him. He never fully appreciated or remembered his success in baseball. The only moment that had any true emotional significance occurred in 1996 when he was with the Yankees, when he threw the famous no-hitter against the best hitting team in baseball, the Mariners. That happened while his father was on his deathbed, and he wanted to do it for his dad. Although Doc was way past him prime in 1996, for one night a miracle happened and he had all the abilities and talent when he was Doctor K.

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