Dwight Gooden

Today brings very sad news about someone who was once the best pitcher in the game, but who squandered his prodigious talent to drugs. Dwight Gooden turned himself in yesterday after fleeing a DUI stop in Florida. He is being held without bond on a felony charge of fleeing police.

It seems so long ago now, but Dwight Gooden was once baseball's best pitcher. He jumped from A directly to the majors as a 19 year old in 1984 and dominated hitters from the beginning. He won the NL Rookie of the Year, set the rookie record for strikeouts, and was the youngest All Star in the history of the game. He was even better in 1985, leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA.

The Mets had the brilliantly stupid idea of making Gooden less reliant on his fastball beginning in 1986, and he was never again the same dominating pitcher, although he was still very, very good.

What ultimately undid Gooden was his use of drugs. He went into a rehab clinic in 1987 to cure his dependence on cocaine, but it didn't work. Gooden used cocaine off and on through September 1994, when Bud Selig finally suspended him for the rest of the season and all of 1995.

Gooden's talent was something to marvel at, but his career was one of a missed opportunity. His stats tell the story:

Year	H/9	BB/9	K/9	HR/9	ERA
1984	6.65	3.01	11.39	0.29	2.60
1985	6.44	2.24	8.72	0.42	1.53
1986	7.09	2.88	7.20	0.61	2.84
1987	8.11	2.65	7.41	0.55	3.21
1988	8.77	2.07	6.34	0.29	3.19
1989	7.08	3.58	7.68	0.68	2.89
1990	8.86	2.71	8.62	0.39	3.83
1991	8.76	2.65	7.11	0.57	3.60
1992	8.61	3.06	6.33	0.48	3.67
1993	8.11	2.63	6.43	0.69	3.45
1994	10.02	3.27	8.72	1.96	6.31

He wasn't a very good pitcher after 1994, although he had flashes of glory with the Yankees in 1996.

We hope this arrest is a temporary set-back for Gooden and that he puts himself together quickly. God knows he's had his share of trauma already; the last thing he needs is another bout with addiction.