File under S for "Shames, Damn."
Jan. 9th, 2006 07:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThe Class of 2006 for the National Baseball Hall of Fame is due to be announced tomorrow. The class reunions may be held in a phone booth, or perhaps even on the head of a pin because there's a good chance nobody will get the 75% of the electorate required for induction (voters being allowed to choose anywhere from 0 to 10 nominees).
One who should have been shooed-in on his first ballot tomorrow, but surely won't get in ever, is one Dwight Eugene Gooden.
----
Doctor K, we called him, eventually just Doc. His arrival in Queens in 1984 signaled the end of an extended nuclear winter of Metfannery. We'd sucked for most of the previous decade. That much we could take, for this was a team built on suckage- the Mets set a still-standing record low winning percentage of .250 in their first season, and two years later moved to a stadium built on top of a garbage dump. Except for brief shining moments in '69 and '73, "Met" and "suck" remained roughly synonymous.
Yet the '74-'83 decade of sucktasticity was even worse, for that's when Steinbrenner became Lord of the evil empire across the Triboro and the hated Yankees began to get good. I still think it was a mistake to let them onto OUR hallowed ground in 1974-75 while "The Stadium" was being rebuilt, for they took all our onfield magic back with them, started winning pennants the year they left Shea and, gorram em, haven't stopped since.
Except for those few bright years of glory back in Flushing beginning in 1984, ushered in mainly on the 19-year-old arm of this young man from Steinbrenner's home town of Tampa.
By the end of the 1985 season, people were ready to extend the Lexington Avenue IRT all the way to Cooperstown on account of Gooden's first two years of prowess, all accumulated before he reached legal drinking age. In '85, he won 24 games, struck out 268 batters in 278 innings, won the Cy Young award and finished strong in the balloting for MVP. A year later, he was a 21-year-old leader of a World Championship team.
And then the demons got him.
----
Gooden entered a clinic in 1987 for substance abuse and his performance faltered, but he recovered for a decent '88 season, the last time until the end of the century that the word "decent" could be applied to the Mets in general. Injuries then plagued him along with further legal trouble- rape charges in '91 and further positive drug tests in '94 ended his Met career and all chances of Hall of Famage.
Or did they? For he wound up in the Bronnix, and promptly pitched a no-hitter for the Yankees, a feat which has eluded Met pitchers for every one of their 44 seasons. His final years weren't even a shadow of his early ones, but he padded his win total to 194 and his strikeout total to almost 2,300-still pretty amazing considering how many bad years had been mixed in with the good.
Any chance of a sympathy vote faded after his 2001 retirement. His Florida rap sheet has grown longer by the year, mostly DWI and assault charges. Even sadder, Wikipedia reports that his own eldest son is now in prison- on a drug conviction. I don't think this is what they meant by "will the circle be unbroken," dammit.
----
So if Jim Rice, or Bruce Sutter, or even Orel Hersheiser gets a call from the Hall tomorrow? Say a good word for Doc come next August, because it's his votes you wound up getting.
One who should have been shooed-in on his first ballot tomorrow, but surely won't get in ever, is one Dwight Eugene Gooden.
----
Doctor K, we called him, eventually just Doc. His arrival in Queens in 1984 signaled the end of an extended nuclear winter of Metfannery. We'd sucked for most of the previous decade. That much we could take, for this was a team built on suckage- the Mets set a still-standing record low winning percentage of .250 in their first season, and two years later moved to a stadium built on top of a garbage dump. Except for brief shining moments in '69 and '73, "Met" and "suck" remained roughly synonymous.
Yet the '74-'83 decade of sucktasticity was even worse, for that's when Steinbrenner became Lord of the evil empire across the Triboro and the hated Yankees began to get good. I still think it was a mistake to let them onto OUR hallowed ground in 1974-75 while "The Stadium" was being rebuilt, for they took all our onfield magic back with them, started winning pennants the year they left Shea and, gorram em, haven't stopped since.
Except for those few bright years of glory back in Flushing beginning in 1984, ushered in mainly on the 19-year-old arm of this young man from Steinbrenner's home town of Tampa.
By the end of the 1985 season, people were ready to extend the Lexington Avenue IRT all the way to Cooperstown on account of Gooden's first two years of prowess, all accumulated before he reached legal drinking age. In '85, he won 24 games, struck out 268 batters in 278 innings, won the Cy Young award and finished strong in the balloting for MVP. A year later, he was a 21-year-old leader of a World Championship team.
And then the demons got him.
----
Gooden entered a clinic in 1987 for substance abuse and his performance faltered, but he recovered for a decent '88 season, the last time until the end of the century that the word "decent" could be applied to the Mets in general. Injuries then plagued him along with further legal trouble- rape charges in '91 and further positive drug tests in '94 ended his Met career and all chances of Hall of Famage.
Or did they? For he wound up in the Bronnix, and promptly pitched a no-hitter for the Yankees, a feat which has eluded Met pitchers for every one of their 44 seasons. His final years weren't even a shadow of his early ones, but he padded his win total to 194 and his strikeout total to almost 2,300-still pretty amazing considering how many bad years had been mixed in with the good.
Any chance of a sympathy vote faded after his 2001 retirement. His Florida rap sheet has grown longer by the year, mostly DWI and assault charges. Even sadder, Wikipedia reports that his own eldest son is now in prison- on a drug conviction. I don't think this is what they meant by "will the circle be unbroken," dammit.
----
So if Jim Rice, or Bruce Sutter, or even Orel Hersheiser gets a call from the Hall tomorrow? Say a good word for Doc come next August, because it's his votes you wound up getting.
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Date: 2006-01-09 02:10 pm (UTC)Maybe that would have allowed him to get into the Hall on the strength of those early years. The NYC sports radio guys always get things heated up when they debate whether or not several years' of transcendence is more or less worthy than a long career. Don Sutton seems to be the poster boy for that argument. And then there is the moral fiber standard which finally kills Gooden's slim chances but also has compounded the Pete Rose case--a slightly better than mediocre longevity AND moral issues.
The 1986 Mets, from start to finish, were one of the great joys of my peripatetic fandom. I don't declare any long-term allegiances to any team, pro or collegiate, but they were not only likeable, they were a living myth. Gooden was at the heart of the myth. This final snub may have to be another chapter of that myth--the hero without honor.