Former MLB pitcher Dwight Gooden earned the Rookie of the Year Award in 1984. He was 19 years old with a blistering fastball and a notoriously deceptive curve ball. His outstanding first three years in Major League Baseball were soon replaced by very public battles with alcohol and cocaine which continued for much of his professional career. At 40, Gooden served ten months in a state prison for drug-related charges. That was a decade ago. More recently he published a book, Doc: A Memoir. Gooden watches football now and hasn't touched a baseball or a drink in years.
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This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, my guest. Dwight Gooden is known especially to baseball fans as the once brilliant nineteen year old pitching phenom from Tampa, Florida. He had a blistering fastball and a notoriously deceptive curveball. Those two pitches earned him the Rookie of the Year award in nineteen eighty four. In eighty five, he won the Cy Young In eighty six, he led the Mets to one of their best seasons ever, ending with a World Series championship. Gooden had some winning seasons after that, but nothing matched those first three years. Instead, his public battles with alcohol and cocaine became the dominant story of his career, leading sports historians to write about what might have been rather than what was. At the very least, Dwight Gooden's addiction ruined what should have been the greatest day of his life, the six World Series win. After the game was over, I'm celebrating the clubhouse with my teammates. Then I going to bake in the trainer's room. I called my dad. We talked about the game, and he's happy. And we're celebrating, and then the night call went right to my friend who knew the dealer. When my friend was the go to guy, told him I was coming by the later and my goal was to go by there, get some drugs, and meet my teammates at local bar after that. But unfortunately, you know, Dick don't don't allow that, right, So your friend, a friend that you knew, called the dealer for you to tee up the ball for you to go score. Well, what it was is, um, I wanted a lot of stuff. I wanted to party and celebrate. Unfortunately, go to the house and projects in Long Island with the dealer, with the dealer. So I'm in there. What about ten people I probably know too. That's the friends from Tampa and the dealer. So we're sitting there partying, having good time, and now I'm thinking I'll be here for maybe an hour of them to cut out. But once those rails hit the mirror, Yeah, once you started, once you start, yeah, it's cryptonite. That was always my track record. I'm just going to do a little bit. Then three days later you're doing the same thing. Dwight Gooden has been sober since two thousand eleven when he went on celebrity rehab. And he has just written a deeply personal book entitled Duck, a Memoir, which chronicles everything from his complicated relationship with his father to his meteoric rise and his drug use and the toll that took on him. You come from an error when uh, drugs predominate as much as alcohol or alcohol is one drug on a menu of drugs, because alcohol certainly is a drug, as you would you acknowledge that, as you say, I called a definite drug. And the error I was in what like you say, um before me was heavy drinking, you know in the seventies where have you? And probably pot from right here Meyer is basically you know, cocaine and drinking. The alcohol is available and every club house you go to, whether it's on the road or at home, and even at home. And when you say alcohol was a very but what was the kind of culture of that? Meaning when the game was over all professional ball players and management and coaching kind of acknowledged that when the games over we we we gave it our best for Pro Bowl players and we've earned a drink and everybody has a drink. So they had a full bar there. Yeah, pretty much as normal, Like you go into the lounge where you have the food, you have the water and drinks, and then you got the beer and then the private stats and the back with the hard stuff. Especially like at the day game, was staying because we want a way to put the traffic down and we just sit around talking baseball, talking about the games, and just drinking. You started your professional career when you were how old professional drafted a seventeen, played a year and a half in the Monitors. It's amazing that nine team. And what was amazing was at the game. If we're on the road, there was always one of the veteran players say Docu pitching tomorrow. If I said no, it's okay, y'reat with us. And I remembers one time I did a commercial Pepsi commercial with Catfish Hunter, and so they started playing commercial. When in Chicago at the day game, we go to this bar and the commercial comes on and the bartowners looking at the commercially looking at me, looking at the commercial. I think it goes I don't think you don't have to be in here, you know, so he sounds funny. You could hanging out here, but I can't start any more. One are the traps of famous. Everybody knows who you are, and they know who you are on every level. But so when you're nineteen years old, even when you get drafted at seventeen. But I would imagine I've got to believe that even when you were in Triple A and you were up in them, when the miners and you were seventeen, they protected you more. They shielded you from certain things more. Were you sticking your hand into a cooler and pulling a beer out of there too when you were seventeen, Definitely pulling out. Once you're in that league, once you're in with that group of people, you're one of them, and you act like them on every level, at every level. You know, myself, I was a paper pleaser, so people pleaser, just trying to fit in. You got new teammates, you know, guys says out of college or been in the monors for a while, but here you're out of high school. A lot of times, like again, alcohol in the clubhouse was available so at the game, so I was just like, you started drinking now you had you been drinking on the streets of Florida when you were hanging out in those neighborhoods you grew up with your mom and dad. A lot of times I got in high school, I got there at a football game, you know, on Friday night, at the game is over. We had this piece of place we'll go to and hang out and guys will have drinks, and I would be a part of that. You would, yes, So it's not like the kid who's on the mound when you're pitching as a little boy, as you describe in the book, and your dad's teaching the underage kid how to throw the curveball. You started throwing the curba when you were seven years old, correct. Your dad taught you, against the advice of some people maybe you were too young. Your dad taught you had to throw the curveball. And then, and I think it's safe to say, I mean, I'm only being half cute when I say this. Your first addiction was throwing the curveball, wasn't it. Oh definitely exactly. That's where it all started addiction. And I want used to Once you learned it through the curb ball, you couldn't stop stop you want to do it. And I think a lot of times, like you said, now, kids are told not to throw a curveball to get an eighteen years on thirteen or fourteen. It's just my opinion. I don't think that's the wrong with the kids on the curb ball said ten leven. I wouldn't recommend thoring tenor leaving curve balls a game, But if the mechanics are right, if you got your arm in the right position to throw it, you know, two or three game. I don't think we hurt. But that kid who when someone would get a hit off you when you didn't perform, well, you admit in the book, and you got very upset. You cracked up a few times. You get really emotional. You're a boy who's learning how to handle this stress and handle this pressure. When does that kid pick up his first drink? When does that kid start in that? You watched your family go through that. Yeah, actually, um, I found out later in my recovery that my dad was actually alcoholic at the time. Grew up in Alice. Just think it's the normal thing guys do. They come home from work, they eat dinner, they sit, you know, watch a game, and they have some beers. So basically, my first separate alcohol was probably about ten eleven years old, I took a sip with my dad's beer when he wasn't watching, when he wasn't watching, wasn't watching, and unfortunately I like to taste. I remember four or five months later after that, we had a family picnic and they had a cooler beer. That made a buddy of mine just jumped in a cool and drunken beer. And that's the first time my mom jumped me because I was pretty wasted from the one beer that Now, now, when you did you either of your parents your dad, If I read the book correctly, your dad cared about you a great and he invested very heavily in your playing ball. So was he on you. But the drug and alcohol thing, was he riding you about that? You know? It was amazing The first time I know, I really hurt my dad was. My mom was more a vocal about that. My dad was. He always participated in my baseball games at an early age, as well as my school activities. I remember in the first time I tested positive, I had to come home and tell my parents I was going to treatment. My mom was like, Okay, that's good son, I can get the help you need. My dad just kind of dropped his head never said a word. That probably hurt me more knowing that I hurt him by him not saying anything I'd rather for him. And that was how he expressed his deepest disappointment. But he didn't say anything, Well, he didn't saything. I'd rather for him to say, you know, sonya loser or whatever. I just wanted something, but he never did, never said one word. So you go from stick in your hands in a cooler at a family event and then you're sticking your hand in a cooler in the Triple A ball there in the minors when you're playing for what world organization where you drafted you? Yeah, I was drafted by the mess You were in tide Water. No. Actually my first year when I got drafted, I went to Kingsport, Tennessee, which is working ball. Towood was the Triple A. I end up going there my second year for the playoffs in the Roal series. And so describe what happens when you're gonna go into the big leagues. I'll tell you what was amazing. While I was in Triple A. David Johnson was the manager and I pitched well for him in the playoffs. From the Triple A Roural Series, and he said, where my manage nature, You're on the team that winner he got the job, really manager, So just jokingly I called him and I said, David, very much. You told me, you said, I don't worry about it. You come in to the spring training, you're gonna be on the team. About two weeks for spring training and started, I get a call because I wentn't at that time you had to have three years in the minors before you get put on the roster. Only had one year and a half. So I get the call, You're coming to Pickley camp as a non roster player. So the whole while doing spring training, the front office kept said we was going to send him to double A, maybe triple A. But then David coming to me and say, don't worry about it, You're gonna make the team. How do they do that? Well, three years in the minors is recommended, or it's a rule. It's it's a rule for its being on the roster. But you can had a guy at this first year before he's ready, but you don't technically have to. But after three years in the matters, you gotta put the gall on your roster. You gotta put him through waivers where any team can claim like guy. So the last game of spring training, we're playing in St. Petersburg and after the game, we're flying out to Cincinnati. Just started the season. So I didn't want to bring my bags into the clubhouse, you know, to take with me because I hadn't officially heard anything. So I kept on bags in the car just in case. So about the fifth in and of the last spring training game, David Johnson comes there and he shakes my hands the congratulations you made the team, and I'm like wow. And at that point, I mean, you got this great feeling that you're living in your childhood dream. But part of me is thinking, man, if I'm really ready for this, you know, I'm only nineteen. I remember calling my dad told I made the team and just hearing the joy because my dad he didn't really show any you know, you couldn't tell you a very quiet guy, laid back and you didn't know, he never showed any emotions. But that day he was showed some with motion over the phone, and we enjoyed that. So you go to New York win what month of what the year? We had to New York. We actually we opened up in Cincinnati, which was great for me because I grew up in Cincinat a rich fan because growing up in Tampa has spring training down there in the seventies. So we played in Cincinnati and get my first start in Houston and old Astrodome. My parents did watching the game, I get that win was great and the first game one, yes, nineteen years old, ninete years old. How many strikeouts you? I think I had five? You know what people remember remember keeping these athletes like I think I hate the ball he took to God was like, I think I double bogie that whole back in nineteen and sev Remember after that game, my dad said, how do you feel? I say, I feel good. I should win a lot of games my very next start as in Chicago, We're gonna feel I don't get a third in it. I mean I get just shell. So now my dad says, well son, what do you think? Now, I'm saying, I don't know if I'm ready. Just from two stars you go back and fourth. So it was just amazing. It's two extremes. How many games did you pitch the first season when you win the first season? I think I had about thirty two starts. He had thirty two starts, so they were all in on you. They wanted you. It was there, definitely, you were you were in the rotation. Yeah, I was in the rotation. I got a seventeen wins, seventeen and nine, made the All Star team. My first year led the league in strikeouts, and it was amazing because as you met and when when I first got there, it wasn't too much of expectations, but after the All Star break, there was a lot of expectations. It was more seats, I mean more fans in the seats to the days I would pitch. It was more media. At that time, I felt great, you know, because I think at you high it did, and then when you're off, you want to maintain that high. How do you do that? Well? My first year, like you said, it was definitely a drawing and rush. Having all the fans they're training for you, and you're striking out the winning and you're winning. It was no better feeling than that. And plus at my age, you're having fun. You pitched against a lot of guys you analyzed just a year prior to that, and then in the next year, I have an even better year. I have a career year, and you know, you go out there, it's almost like, Ben, did you do differently the second year? We're just more confident. It was more confident, more like I had another year experience on my belt. And not that I was cocky, but I had a lot of confidence. And Garrett Carter came over that year. He was All star catcher for me, which is a big plus for me. What did Carter bring for you as a catcher that helped you? I think the way he communicated with me, he didn't want to just win. He wanted to dominate and me even though I want to dominate, but like say if I was winning a game to nothing and then or fifteen nothing and I started just messing around with pitches, he will come out there and get in my face that you know I don't like, No, let's just stick this guys. Stick what you know, Let's totally dominate these guys. So when you're facing a batter, have you pre assessed before a game every single battery you're gonna face in that game that they was I only had two pitches, fastball and curbs. A lot of times they're like, this guy is a great fastball hitter. And came through the guy curball for strikes, and I'm thinking, why shouldn't be pitching? I'm done, you know. But basically I always pitched to my strength and make the hitter suggests and a lot of times what I would do. Also, I should like to watch the box scores, Like if I knew I was gonna face the Cardinals, say three days from now, I'll start watching the box scores and who's hot, who's doing what a couple of days before that, so I have an idea which guy swinging the bat? World? So if you have I'm not a baseball player. I love going to the ball game. I love watching a baseball game live. It's a great treat. So you're standing there and you're at the top of your game. Now you're twenties years old. During your second season, you're more confident, and you look at in your mind and imaginary strikes on the knees to the shoulders. You got the home plate there in those four corners high and tight, high and outside, low and tight low and outside. Could you basically throw the ball in the festival anywhere you want it. You can make it go where you wanted to go. Five where I out five. It was like from the first game to the pick your spot, I was just right there and they have to think about it. Everything just came and the bull would go where you basically go right there. I would saying how many I wasn't even where from to ninety Who's the fastest picture in baseball that you know? Right now? Who who was at that time? I was? Any time? Who's been the fastest? I think Nolan Ryan? What do you supposedly they say top out of one on three? Now you see these guys doing a hundred ninety nine. But also you have to remember all the new stadium, they got the radar guns and there they turned out like three or four miles hour faster, just for the fans and the unfortunately found out the hard way. I went to Cleveland towards end of my career, and when I left the Yankees in ninety seven, I probably stopping out maybe ninety two n three. So I go to Cleveland and pitching at home in the game, the clock's got me at ninety six seven, I'm thinking, wow, my fastball, I'm back. Unfortunately, three What did I have for breakfast today? Write it down? Ready to go? Unfortunately, three innings later, you know I have given on seven runs, four home runs, who knows how many heads. So now when I get knocked out of the game, I going room with the guy that keeps the video and I'm looking at my chart and seeing who did what? And did I see like eighty seven eighty nine? And I'm actually, what is these numbers here? Is that's your philosophy? I said, out there, have me throwing ninety seven? He said no, No No, I was tarted up for the fans. So I found out the heart way a little bit of show business. Yea. So now when you see all these guys storing ninety eight and comedy the feeling. So when you're out there when you're younger, give me an example of a batter that always vexed you, that really just drove you crazy. Chili David's hands down when it was with the Semco Giant sells the mens. Yeah, it didn't matter if I was on top of my game and not. He would get hits off me. And what do you attribute that too? I think it was just the way you're both built. I think what he was built to hit your ball. Yeah, I think the way he was he wasn't like um intimidated by because a couple of times I threw in his head to try to intimidate him. It didn't matter. He just was staying. If I didn't have my good stuff, he was hitting home runs. If I had good stuff, he was getting bags sits. So when you go high and type, you do it to intimidate them. Most of times it's just you're not doing brush them back right. You don't want to hurt them body or hit him in the head, but just want to think, to start thinking and keep them for getting comfortable. But Chilian didn't phase him. And it is weird because some hitters, when you talk to him some pictures, they just see the ball a lot better than other pictures because it's like guard number five starter, so they couldn't get a hit off from him. But I'm like the number one starter and he's just wearing me out. Is I'm real? How to happen? Sometimes? What was it like for you? I mean, obviously, often baseball pictures are not known as great hitters. Is it just because the way they're they're muscular, sure, and their whole physiognomy is such way, they just don't swing about the same way. No, you'd imagine that a picture and just in terms of mechanics, would be a very good hitter. Well, most pictures, like in a little league, in high school or college's great hitters. But what happens when you get drafted as a picture. You don't get the work on it no more. They don't care how you hit right and when you're throwing the ball, ball work on your button. So if he was in the mount of actually for five years, well, picking up a bat you just lose a little bit. But I was fortunate that I had eight home runs in my career, which I was very proud of, and I want a several Suggles Award that's like the best in Picture for that year. So I got that. I just take a lot of pride in my hitting as well. Well. Now, I don't want to be too reductive about the state of Florida, but Florida back then, in the eighties and nineties, Florida was to cocaine what Detroit is to cars, you know. I mean there was a lot of drugs down there, and in the Miami Vice era, so to speak. When you went to cocaine, when you were down there before you came up here, not no. I Um, what was your introduction to cocaine? My induction in cocaine? What was your drug of choice? Correct? Yes, my induxtter cocaine was Actually I had a cousin who was a dialer and he also was a pimp. So I was going to get some pot Where was he in Tampa? Okay? So I was going to house. This was the one. I go to this house. You already playing, yes, So I go to this house to get some pot. Um. He said, I don't have it right now, let me run out and get it. So when he left the house to go get it, I'm kind of moping around his house and now I'll see two girls in this room making out. And so that was turned on by that they see if they say, oh yeah, you know, look at it and coming here. One has some fun with us, and so I'm thinking, yeah, it would be nice, you know, have some from And they say, well, do a little bit of this what we're doing, and you can join in with us. And at first I was like fighting us. Now, I'm not gonna touch that to do it. But what they was doing to each other's attract them to me. So I pull a bit on my tongue and it's like my whole face just went on. And I was thinking, I'll just do one. It's not gonna do anything, and I'll join in with them. Unfortunately, that one line I did, I followed a funny way. Sex was the gateway to cocaine for here. Yes, And that's always been my try record, Like script clubs, hanging out at bars, stuff like that eventually get the same results every time. So I've changed my whole work living. And why do you think that, I mean, one of the things that happens. How old are you now? Now I'm forty, you're forty, and I'm fifty five. And now for you, I wonder have you been able to kind of revisit because you talk about your childhood and you talk about the contradiction and you don't necessarily use that word I was. I read it very carefully when you talked about, you know, the kind of craziness in your household. Your uncle shot your aunt in front of you. It was you, It was your brother in, but you called him uncle uncle g W. But he wasn't really your uncle. He was your brother Inn from your much older sister. So you were six years old and your sister was twenty years old. It was like a fourteen more difference if I incorrect. So you're you're in that scenario and this guy shoots your sister in the head right in front of you. You grab that baby and run into the bathroom, and you lock yourself in the bathroom, and I'm wondering. You talk about how much your dad cared about you, and how much your mom thought to hold onto your dad and put up with a lot of ship from him, and you watched all this and you talk about the love you God and the support you got. But it sounds like your family like much of my family. There's love and support and a lot of good things, but there's a lot of nuttiness going on as well. And do you feel that that's what you needed to medicate yourself against sex, drugs, alcohol, all these things? Can you put your finger on why were you doing those things? Was it just boredom? No? I think a situation of early on in my career. It was boredom like when I would come home, like when I would come home from playing my season. Most of my friends were still in school while I was working, so the boredom was there while just riding around, you know, drinking in the car, trying to pick up women. Um, so you ran around with a bunch of your peers, people that were your age, young people. Yes, it was when when you left the ballpark, you went into a world to people that were just hanging out, right, what I'm saying. When the season was over, I would come back to Tampa and at that time, like my friends I grew up with, there was either working or someone's in school. The ones that wasn't working in school or just hanging on the street corners hanging out. And you came down there with a pocket full of money, right, so we'll hang out. Everything was on Dwight, Yes, everything definitely, So I will hang out with those guys. And so that's where the boredom came from. Just riding around every day, just drinking, killing tom or whatever. Not knowing that to go eventually turned into a problem. So then like after the season, I started doing drugs in New York for the first time. It was more of the proper pressure. It was more of the media pressure and me putting pressure on myself. For example, everything was compared to eighty five. If I won a game three nothing complete game shout out. But if I only had, you know, five strikeouts, the first question to be, what happy you don't have five striks? They're picking you apart. So that's when I started medicating myself. Then it became pre meditated, where every game I pitch, I think the game I was gonna get high. I was needing gonna get high to celebrate the win. Allston get high because I didn't pitch that well, to forget about the game, to put the loss behind you, right. And then like as you mentioned earlier about me um with my sister being shot. She got shot six times and at one time she got shot in the head. The butt is still actually in her head, which you have seizures from it. Like grabbed my nephew and went in the bathroom. We got into a pull current thing, thinking he's gonna come in and get us next. The thing that was weird I didn't find out until basically two thousand eleven was my last treatment. Every time I would get high, I always go to the bathroom, whether I was home by myself, whether it's a restaurant, whether it's what I'm talking about, ghosts and these echoes that we'll be put up with definitely. So I totally relate to that. And I was going to bathroom and it was pointed to me that I never realized that I I put it together. You know, for me, I remember when I started to work oddly, when I was thinking about your life and your book. It's similar because in terms of acting, I was in Tide Water, I was in the port St Lucy of acting. I did a daytime TV show, was soap opera here in New York for a couple of years, and I went to l A and you could called up into the big leagues, so to speak, and then you start to make big league money. I mean, you and I have more in common than I thought, because as I was reading the book, I realized that then I got called up to do other things and I started to make more money. And you know, when I was focused on that work, I mean the high that I I got high from the work, and when I would go home, there was this lull, you know, I mean, like my adrenaline I was. I was. I was high all day from the energy of being a young working actor. I went from one studio to the next audition for this movie. I get a part in night three to five, that period was my white hot period because I'm in l A. My dad died. My dad died of cancer. He was fifty five years old, April of nine, eight three, and I'm out there and I'm booked. Man, I'm i stein deals. I mean, I can't come back. I go to work, and when I were left work, I felt this tremendous kind of depression, like this kind of low, like I had to go do something else to get high. Did you feel that way? I had the same thing. My problem is trying to feel that void like you're talking about. A lot of times, the downtime of being bored is a dangerous spot for me to be in because I've never had a hobby. When baseball steaveson be over. Now you come home to Tampa, you know, it's not like in New York. You can go to concerts, you go to plays, you can go to movies and stuff to do with Tampa's total opously. Just come down and there's nothing going on. So I totally relate what you said. I would feel that time. We weren't taking photography classes down to Tampa at the Tampa Institute of Photography. So you come home, you got all this time, you got six months of um off season, four months before you started training. I started hanging out at clubs, doing more drugs and just basically trying to fill that board and not knowing You're thinking this is fun, Looking my dad, it wasn't fun. It caused more trouble than anything. Did money cause your trouble to money calls me trouble too. I was saying, how much money did you make your first I mean this is all a public record. How much money did you make your first season throwing in professional baseball? Not not the Triple A, not not the farm. I first got drafting, you first got drive first thing? For How long did that last? How many years? For a year and a half, because then I was in the major's right then he went to the majors. How much did they pay my rookie year? I think the minimum at that time was sixty thousand, but my rookie year was out to also bring I made more money off the field than I did my contrcy. How much you money needed to make off the field that year? I probably made about one point five and then busted um the minimum that was in the sixty When did they we negotiate your contract with the Meths Well, I didn't get a long term deal to at that point. I got like, I think it was five point five million for three years, and at that point it was the highest paid player at that time for the first decade of his career. Anyone driving along forty two Street would be greeted by a towering, multi story mural of Gooden painted on the side of a building by Nike. He was young, arms outstretched mid pitch. Dwight Gooden was in complete control. That was amazing. At that point, That's when I knew the things I was doing was he was working. I was working here because as a player, a young player, you're going through that you're not aware of the what you're really doing. I mean, you're aware that you're winning games and you're getting strike out, but you're not really aware the impact on the King and the King. Did you feel like the King? Not really only time I fel like the King was the day to that pitch that day, I just felt like that season was a good year. Yeah, that season was good year, and you felt really strong that year, right, So even coming to the ballpark, he just felt like this is my time because pulling into that. Why do you think you didn't do so well in eighty six? What happened? Well eighty six I did. I won seventeen games and eighty six, but it wasn't eighty five. R. J. Reynolds. In a moment, Doc Gooden gets questionable advice from a doctor and takes it. This is Alec Baldwin. Yeah, this is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to. Here's the thing. Major League Baseball was hardly immune to the cultural excesses of the nineteen eighties and the eighties. Six Mets were known as a hard partying team. Even so, Dwight Gooden was able to set limits in a sense, I went from seven to ninety four, we're just drinking. Howard did that? I have no idea without using I think part of me will help me do that because I was being tested, right, So talk about what it was like back in the test policy? How did that work? Test polity was once you test polity something or if you get in trouble some kind of with alcohol or drugs, and you did, then you get into the just testing programs. How do they know you were in trouble with drugs and alcohol? Why I went to rehab and eight seven describe that what happened obviously in eight six missing the parade and I go to spring training. I'm doing coke, you know, not obviously doing the games. Put them doing coke. Like I said, that night in spring training, you have to be the ballpark really early, so I did. I'm coming in there. I'm sure it looked like I've been up, you know, all day, all night. So then they called me in and say, you know, well these rooms going, let's put the rooms arrest. Can we test you? So sure you can test me because I know I hadn't did anything the night before, so obviously the tests come positive. So they give my option. They say, you go to rehab and we'll continue paying your salary or because suspending without pay. So I was easy, so I said, I'll go to rehab so I can continue being paid, even though still at that time I'm in treatment, but I'm still thinking I don't have a problem. So I was just marking days off the calendar to the third days was up. Get out of rehab. Now out, I'm bike working out with the Monogue teams, and then we get on the plane to join the team. Right back to drinking. So from ninety four I didn't I didn't use the drugs, but I was still drinking. So testing kind of scared you. Tested scared me, and plus it helped me for a little bit of a period of time, but it's just amount of time I was gonna go back because I was still drinking. And so when so when testing helped to keep you in line, and then after ninety four, didn't write where were you that season? What happened was ninety four the situation where like I said, it was already premeditated that I was definitely used again given opportunity SOT four, the first game of the season, I break my toe, so I get put on the deal. So now I'm rehabbing, getting bike in shape. And so when Dog's keeping a clearance to sort of planning, I go down to the mono leagues just to get some in and in and build my own scrint up. And the right away the disease tell me, hey, they're not testing you down here, I can get high while I'm down here, I've relapsed. And now when I joined the team, and since then there's the guy from me any Baseball waiting to test me. He test me obviously it's positive. I gets suspended. Then I go to our Betty Ford for you know, thirty days. I get out of there. So they wanted me to come back to New York. The Major League Baseball doctors. Before I went to Tampa. All I had to hear was the one doctor says, why don't you just drink? I don't do drugs. As soon as they said that, I'm thinking, even though I know, even though I know, I shouldn't have been two treatments at that time, and I know I can't drink, so I would say, Wow, maybe I could do it different this time. Obviously, when I leave that meeting, now I'm on the plane and fly home to Tampa to see my family. I'm drinking the plane I got off to that plane. I don't see my family for three days. You pick up right where you left off. Definitely definitely pick up right, which is what they say for me. I when I got sober, when I stopped drinking and I stopped taking drugs, which was many years ago when I was very young, it changed a lot of things from me. I made. It really changed my attitude walk to what I do for a living. I began to see the potential. And I don't want to say that it made me over awhelmingly cynical. That may be true right less, but it definitely made me more thoughtful and it made me more aware of where there was the unhealthiness and a lot of things we do relationships with people. You know what what was a healthy relationship, What was a healthy relationship with my family? And what was your relationship like with your parents. Now that you're rich and famous and honored and you have all these awards and you're coming apart, my mom she didn't care about that fame. And still they see she can come and see you did just spend talking. She would come up like during the season to see me, but she when't. She maybe came to maybe two games. She came to one in Houston, my very first start. She came to also a game in and maybe two stories in New York. My mom is a real Southern girl. She's from Georgia where they grow their own vegetables and fruit and you know, working the cotton field all that stuff. So baseball she enjoyed it moreen I was a kid than professionally, because see, like all the commotions would right, so from my dad, he kind of treat him in the same at the same time. I mean he was enjoying all the stuff that was going on. I mean he liked that because when I started playing baseball, initially it was his dream and then it became my dream. And as I mentioned a book where a lot of my parents like they had me at a later time in the stage, like I have five sibls, three brothers, and I'm the youngest by thirteen years, so I came later on. So obviously was a spot kid. My mom was very strict, you know, very direct with stuff. When my dad kind of gave me a pass with a lot of things as long as I was playing baseball. Without naming names, obviously, would you say that drug usage, I mean alcohol, it's uh, that's always been the case throughout history. But would you say the drug usage and particularly cocaine usage, Well, what what was the cocaine and drug usage like among professional athletes during the fro from when you started to when you finally got sober in two thousand. Yeah, I think that. Um, Obviously in the eighties it was it was available pretty much any time you wanted it, and a lot of people you knew were doing it. There's a lot of people doing it, and unfortunately the eight six Mats got labeled as a party team. At that time in early eighties, old teams was party. But because we're successful and was in New York, we got pointed out. Um a lot of stuff they said was true. But other teams and the police were doing the same thing. I think, who was a person that didn't party, who was kind of a straight arrow, who was the boy scout on the team, who would come up with you with any and wag their fingers in their face and say, shame on you. Don't you do that with several guys that didn't drink and didn't party, but they never like point of finger. I thought this was better. So no one came to you like a like a patriarchal figure and put his hand in here and said, hey man, you gotta slow down. No prime example, Gary Carter, great guy, I mean, obviously it was a great problem. Even a better person off the field. He never drink, he never hung out with was anything that like. He would go out to eat with us. But once we were saying we'll go out on the strip, and he said, okay, if you guys need me or whatever. I'm in my room. But they day it would come in with the red eyes, you know, you hung over. He never judged you. He just said, you know you're okay, everything's good. You had a good time. Good, okay, let's get back to work. And that was it. Yeah, but nobody came to you and said and tried to intervene. I think one time, obviously, when a rumor started in coaches are management, But do you felt cared it wasn't about you. The one time that happened with me was six when a rumor started flying around that I was parting and whatever. Actually, very night he came up to him and said, doctor, you know, I'm hearing a lot of stuff that's going on, the rumors about They said, it's a black player on the team that's out, you know, doing drugs, hanging out. And again I denied to him and said, no, that's not me. He said, okay, I'll take your word to that. Sports is dominated on every level, from Major League Baseball and basketball. Obviously in football, every great sport and team sport, and many individual sports are dominated by African American players. But did you finally when you got into the world of major League ball was Racism ever a quality you had to deal with every be just a little bit my first year. Um, Like, I grew up in the neighborhood in Tampa where it's like a lot of Hispanics and a lot of whites web so I grew up accustomed to that. So I remember getting you to grew up accustomed to what everybody kept to themselves. No, just the different cultures living there in the same neighborhood. So I was ware of that even at school, you know, school activities. That's just the way it was, Like I just heard my mom and my dad tells stories. Obviously I was aware of the Jackie Robinson story, but I never witnessed that, so I couldn't relate until I drafted. I go to Keen Sports, Tennessee, so I'm there. I remember walking through the mall and it was me. This guy, FLORYD. Yoman's was another black player. I grew up what was on the team, And you can hear people kind of looking at us there, and I remember this one guy was working at his vendor says it must be baseball season. So I know what you meant, because it's not really that many blacks and Kingsport, and all other time was that I would go to Johnson City. It's an applican lye before the game was taking bad in practice or whatever. And I'm warming up on the side and you can hit these guys over there. I remember, like it was today, he goes watched that in chunked that watermoute. So I'm throwing so now while not throw them hanging out in outfield shagging balls. They're yelling all kinds of stuff at me and these other guys. And I remember this guy, Leon Williams was the center field. He goes doctor. They said one more word, We're going up there to get him. I said, no, no, you go up there, and I'm not going out there. But that was a really only time I experienced anything like that. Um, when you came to New York, none of them, I never got none of your years in Pro Bowl. No, no, no, I've never had any of that. Everybody wasn't equal. Everybody was equal. Yes, everybody's was great, and even among the players, everybody was a brother in arms. I never had that problems up here. Um, in my life, I've always accorded a certain kind of respect and a kind of glory too pro athletes that I don't give to people in my business, you know. I mean, like, if you said to me, who's an actor you'd love to meet, I'd say, we're Humphrey Bogart, I'd love to meet. I want to meet William Holden. But to me, um athletes have always been, you know, just magnetic to me. We used to play a game. We'd say, if you could be any athlete, if you could play any pro position and you were guaranteed ten years healthy, you wouldn't get a debilitating injury. You'd be healthy for tenders, you get the crappy daddy, but you never you have to work hard. But if you could have any ten years in any individual sport or team sport, in any position, what would you take? And if you couldn't play baseball? And I hate this question question, but if you couldn't play baseball, what would you be? What sport would you dominate? For it dominate? I don't know if I'll dominate, but I as if football is micro sport, like even though I played baseball obviously, but definitely on Sunday's you know, I go to church to you know hit, I mean, and then I'm in my basement in the restaurantnight, just the way it is. Who's your team Giants, big giant fans. I would say, I would like to be on the defensive fan of safety, you would. The thing is I played quarterback wall was very young. You did. But I don't like contact and I was a real thing kids, So I don't like contact. I like to hit guy on defense where you just worry about you getting interception and running. And I was definitely saying when they hit people not be hit exactly. Well, well, that's like pitching you on the defensive side. You don't have to worry about hind part, especially right right man. See Mi guel would have been Lawrence Teller on the field. And the reason I said, because I've never seen a defensive guy. You just changed the game, just changed the entire game. And you can see the fear in the quarterback guys. And he's talking smashed to him, Like watch some of the highlights and the sounds of the game watching him. Are you just talking smack to the quarterbacks and then doing it? So I just love to know get that field at one time on a defensive side, and like Lawrence Tanner's had just totally dominate. Um, what do you say to your kids? Your kids are high old? My kids are from three to twenty seven, So you have kids that knew how your top three oldest or how old? Twenty seven seven one? And I have an eighteen and sixteen right, so from sixteen and above. Let's say at that age, when they might be sticking their hand in a cooler down there in time water. Uh, what do you say to them when they because they know all about you, what's in the book. They all about me with the book. And even before the book came out, I would talk to my kids, UM, when you drink whatever, I said, look, use me as an example. UM, like older kids. When I got to the point felt comfortable, I had to talk with them, I said, basically to tell you how powerful drugs are called? Is I basically divorced you guys and your mother for drugs? I said, So just picture that. I said, you guys know how I felt when I wasn't around right and when I wasn't at your school activities, when I wanted to game, or if I was there, I really miss a miss a lot of that. And I say, just think what that did to me. And I said, you guys know my heart. You guys know the type of person, as I said, but once you get involved with that, you're not the same. And not only did you hurt yourself, but you hurt your loved ones like they forgive you like you guys, Yes, that was one of the things they forgave me. All they wanted me to be is healthy and be accountable to them. I don't make any promises to them, obviously, but I'm always there. I talked to him daily now and mostly Where where do they live? They spread out all over? Yeah, my daughter, you know, lives up here with me and my two little ones, having three and eight. There's women the rest are you man right now? Yes? What does your wife do? She's a school teacher. Where does she teach math? Last in a school? Yeah? So mostly in Jersey? In Jersey and then like now this summer she's doing something in Maryland. Where did you meet her? I usually met her. The first time I met her was in Detroit and we met through a meet friend. She was a flight attendant and a guy grow with with the flight attendant. What is it with you PROBA athletes and flight attendants? Man? Just physically she's a flight attendant. She was a flight attendant and Richard friend been married. I've been married for four years? And what and how many kids you have with her too? What are you doing with yourself? Now? What I do? I know what you're doing during the NFL season. You got a church, you get a meeting, Your down in the basement on the big jumbo screen watching TV all day? Me with me both? That's it now? I UM. I see my eight year old son and he plays baseball and football. Where he in Inglewood clips he's here, So I um. When I have the opportunity to help to coach this team, I do work with the mess sand Yankees. Um. I couldn't do that when Mrs Simro was living. It was only Yankee or nothing. So now, unfortunately, pass I get to work a little bit with both teams. Do that, do a lot of stuff with the youth program in my true passions, anything with kids? Right? Do you ever throw a baseball anymore? Very little? I can't believe you said that, because I went to a golf tournament the other day and Doug Flutie was there, and I'm a huge Flutie fan. I said, do you ever throw a football anyway? Says, no, they don't do it. He never throws a football, And I said, you gotta be kidding me. Musr throwing a football. You must have thrown a million football show his rally show with Tim Wakefield learning how to throw a knuckleball. That you never throw a baseball anymore. I thought a little bit with my kids. But nothing off the mount, nothing like that. Nothing. No throwing out a ball in the first you've done the first ball done that. That's fun and um ilely. About two weeks ago I played in a Dodgers Yankee O talban. This game at Dodger Stadium was pretty cool. If the if the Doc Gooding you are now, or I should say the Dwight Gooden you are now, I could go back and talk to the Doc goodnn What would you say to him? Maybe I would say, be honest with yourself, remove that mass you don't speak in mind, and put yourself often a good position instead of pleasing others, even though it's danger for myself and you felt you did a lot of people pleasing that a lot of people pleasing. I still struggle with that today, not as bad as I was, but it's still room for improvement. Why I think it just started when I was a kid, and part of me is surviving that household, surviving household and none of that. I have a genuine heart, But I also I gotta understand, you gotta draw the line somewhere. You can't put yourself in danger a way. Your dad died when he passed. Where were you when you're done? Actually? Um, I was in Tampa when it happened. Um, Actually the last game, my dad told me pitch wasn't no hitter, and I talked about that in the book where he had He had been struggling for a while with his kid in the failures on Dallass for like fifteen years. His health was deteriorating and they felt he had to have emergency heart surgery. They felt if he didn't have the surgery, he probably wouldt last on a month or two. And even if he had the surgery, can guarantee he's gonna last a month or two. But he definitely had a surgery the day that pitched on hit. I was supposed to fly home in the build him that day because having a surgery next morning. I had my flight reservation everything. But uh, when I woke up that morning, you know, I remember taking a shower and brash my teeth, and I just started reminiscent of all the days we spent at the park. Him teaching me to drills, made him going through the spring training games, made him watching games on TV. From him, I learned from him, like how to pitch, basically knew everything I learned about baseballs from him. Um, And would you learn from him as a father? As a father is putting family first? Understanding you believe he did? Yes, definitely understanding in his way, in his way, yeah, I mean he might have it, didn't live it, but just telling me, you know, family comes first, family values, set a good example for your kids as well. So that day I felt he will. Probably in some ways he didn't set a good example for you. Well with the woman I was in or whatever. That's what I wonder if sometimes that's part of what happened. Was you trying to make peace with those two, because that's where I came to in my life. Once I got sober and I showed up to examined what was bothering me. What I began to realize was I did my parents were people? Yeah? Did you find that that was a part of what aid at you know, the contradictions inside your dad with with him, No, I would say not at all. Um, he was there like a lot of things that he was doing. I thought you became a womanizer. Yeah, I became a woman and the thing my dad's were doing with the drinking whatever, like I never actually saw him with the one whatever, so he kept it all the way from my parents never are going find me. So I just thought it was you know, everything was great. So you're saying that song Daddy's got a girlfriend, right, You outed your would get water or something. You actually you accidentally threw. That's a violent thing you described in the book. That's really really cool. Well, I just want to say that, Um, I really am very grateful to you that you wrote that book. I mean, I really really commend you for writing that book. You appreciate you. You did the doctor Drew thing. What year that was two thousand eleven, So you went back because you went out again, Yes, and you went out when you were sober from when to win from the last time from two thousand and ten. I was very acting my addiction what I was going through this, But you were sober two thousand two till win two thousand UM to two thousand three, and then I went back out there and I was basically and then in and out of my addiction until so you eate and out for eight more years and you got busted. Uh two thou, Yes, you do something, you get busted. Where what what happened was in Franklin Lakes and New Jersey. I had got charged with child endangerment where I took ambien the night before, woke up to take my son to school, obviously hit a car and they wanted to get me out and do the fhild sobriety tests, which as we're talking to me, I'm building off and Mr taken a couple of ambien. Yes, it sounds to get well, the one ambient right. So then you get charged child endangerment because you were in a vehicle with a child. Yes, How old was the child my son at that time that was two thousand ten, you know he would have been five. You were married to your wife then, yes, newly married almost yes? And what happened? Did you go to prison? Did jail? Rather? No? After time? No time, got probation and I went that's why I went to the doctor Drew show what what what What did you think was unique about that? What helped you about that? Going to the doctor's room, I can help you definitely helped me. But I think the thing was I was ready to get help the times before with the treatment. I was just basically there during my time. As you know, in treatment, what you put in is what you get out. I was just ready. It was the time of my life where I knew I had been a you know, rehabs. I've been the institutions. I've been a jail. I've been a prison. The only thing waiting with the cemetery. When did you go to prison? I went. The prison was six four for technical ablation for it was a relapse. How long were you in there? Ten a half months? What was that like? Horrible hole in Gainesville, Florida. That was horrible any time you get locked up and crossder Well facility. You were in a state prison, but going there at the age forty is horrible. State prison. Yes, you were in a state prison in Gainesville, Florida for ten months, and they all knew who you were and did all like the biggest time I've been making a joke here, but like the biggest toughest guys in the prison who could probably beat the crap and even come up and tell you that they would protect you if you taught them the secret and how to throw the fastball. I didn't get into that. Did you take a ball? Like show them how the thing is going with the laces? They leave you alone. Listen, Ray, I'm gonna show this to you one time and then that's it. I want you to promise if you're gonna leave out and there you found out the first thing you're there, You're just a number. You're not even a name. It's horrible. Yes, who did you become friends with it? Did you any what kind of time? There's a couple of guys that I knew from as kids that I hadn't seen since childhood and found him in air because they've been in and out the whole life. So but that it helped the time go by fast. It was just a horrible, horrible time Harbor experience. When you got out of there, how did you feel it was different? And I totally agree, Um, guy, I was telling me when guys getting cross ready and you're there for basically ten months or longer, it takes that same amount of time when you get out to get back to your yourself. And I found that once I got out, I was still living like I was a prisoner. I wouldn't go anywhere. I was just stay in the house and I was just basically doing time on the streets. So it was a horrible harbor time too, I can get comfortable. How to I had all started going to the meetings after that, UM got a sponsor, this guy Ron Do Now when you first went to meetings after that? No, I went to meetings before, but I just got totally back into the program. The program saved you. Yeah, they got me going and got me, you know, feeling good about myself again. So two thousand eleven, you uh Franklin Lakes the car thing? Am being the child child endangerment? You don't do any time? No, And I had five months probation and basically had to go to treatment. Went to I would like to Drew, I was there for three weeks. When I got out, I went to treatment. Did he strike you? How did he help you? He was a nice guy. When I got out, I went to uh maw Jersey for a year outpatient and that's what that's what keeping me going right. How was your wife? She cool about it. No, okay, no, no, that was sounds tough time. Yeah, that was tough. Yeah, that's a story for another day. But it was okay. It's a tough thing though, you know. That's very tough. That's that's the thing I'll tell my kids. It's tough not only on you, but it's tough on you all your loved ones. Yeah, you put everybody else through it, Yes, definitely. I got people in my family, man, It's like they got a lot of records in their past thinking a lot, a lot of stuff is on their times. You can't have them forgive you on your time because we're doing like right now. So they have to work through their things and get to a point where they accept what happened. We can't force him. That's the thing that I found out. You can learn more about Dwight Gooden's life in his recently released autobiography doc a memoir. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing