NEWARK, N.J. -- The Doctor's office now will be here, at pretty but often desolate Riverfront Stadium. For now, though, there won't be a K corner.
"We might need to bring that back," Newark Bears general manager Mark Skeels joked. "We're running low on pitchers."
No, the only pitching Dwight Gooden will do for his new employers is trying to get more fans to the ballpark. Trying to buck the trend and get this urban area more interested in baseball, by building an academy here. And you might not find that terribly compelling.
But if you have been following Gooden since he first set the baseball world ablaze 25 years ago, and tracked his roller-coaster ride from Cy Young to Florida State Prison and everything in between, then you should hope this sticks.
"I've been clean," Gooden said. "No problems. I love myself again. Everything is good. The family is good."
He left jail in November 2006, a sentence that resulted from violating his probation (over an incident driving away from a police traffic stop in 2005) and lasted nearly seven months. His prison stay punctuated some 20 years of drug and alcohol abuse, a long series of episodes over which baseball fans seemed to grow increasingly numb.
When Gooden, 44, stayed on the down low after his release, his baseball friends feared the worst: Living in his native Tampa, without much else to do, he had surely plunged right back into the abyss of drugs and alcohol. His former Mets teammate Darryl Strawberry, having dealt with his own demons there, publicly shared his concerns.
But no, Gooden insisted, "I stayed away from everything. I had a couple of days here or there in jail, but coming out, not knowing how you'll be accepted, was very tough."
He was so upset with Strawberry, Gooden said, "To this day, me and him don't talk because of that. You get to the point where enough is enough."
Gooden's isolation ended last Sept. 28, when he received a thunderous ovation at the Shea Stadium farewell. That boosted his confidence, and this season he attended a few Mets games to see his nephew, Gary Sheffield.
In the meantime, he moved away from Tampa -- a good move to leave his dark past, he agrees -- first to Maryland, and now to Bergen County in New Jersey. He intended to build his academy in North Jersey, but about a month ago, he came here to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, only to have the game rained out.
He wound up having a long conversation with Bears co-owner Tom Setnar and manager Tim Raines, his old Yankees teammate. And in short order, Gooden joined the operation. In addition to community outreach, he'll help out pitching coach Mike Torrez, his teammate from those '84 Mets.
"Throughout MLB, we talk about, 'How do we get minorities back in baseball?"' Gooden said. "One of the things I look at is me personally getting involved. Go out there, talking to the kids, sharing time with the kids, sharing my experiences on the field and off the field, and being straightforward with them."
The likeable Gooden has given us his share of false starts, both during and after his career. Let's hope this new beginning has legs. For the Newark community, and for Doctor K himself.
Comments