Doc: A Memoir (21 page)

Dad’s surgery had just started when I got there. Four hours in the operating room felt like a million years. Finally, I got to see my father and do what I’d known I’d do from the moment the no-hitter was done.

I handed him a ball from the game. Together, we clasped our hands around it. I told him how much I loved him. He closed his eyes and held the ball. He nodded. He was on life support. He barely came off it for the next seven months, his last.

One of the doctors walked into the room as I was leaving and said: “He doesn’t have much left, Dwight. But he was so proud of what you did.”

Pushing It

T
HE FINAL STAGE
of a baseball career can be very frustrating. I know mine was. The little bursts of brilliance are separated by wider and wider gaps.

After my 1996 no-hitter with the Yankees, I went on a glorious 11–1 tear. It’s amazing what a single confidence boost can do. For a couple of months there, I was the best starting pitcher in the Yankees rotation. But in September, my arm completely wore out. The pitches I’d thrown that year—on top of the pitches I’d thrown for the past twenty—had taken an undeniable toll on me. However much I wanted to keep on going, my body had other ideas. I sat through the victorious playoffs and World Series, consoling myself with the knowledge that my eleven wins that season had helped to get us there.

My father died that next January. I know he loved me. I know he was proud of me. I know I caused him a giant load of unnecessary heartbreak
and pain. A few days before he passed, George Steinbrenner postponed a day of meetings to sit in the hospital with a dying man. George had bumped into Ray Negron and asked how my dad was doing. “Not the greatest,” Ray said. “They’re all over at the hospital. He could go at any time.”

George stayed with my dad for almost three hours. The Yankees boss did most of the talking. Dad could barely speak. That simple kindness was a side of George few people ever heard about. I believe the visit prolonged my father’s life at least a couple of days. That spring, I went back to baseball—I tried to, anyway—for the first time ever without my father to call.

I started 1997 thinking I’d pulled a groin muscle. The golf ball knot inside my leg told doctors the problem was a hernia. That meant more surgery, more recovery, more rehab, another trip down to the minors—and, when I finally got back to the Bronx, sporadic and unpredictable starts. At that point, I could only dream of surprise no-hitters and glorious 11–1 tears. The Yankees started me twenty times, and my 9–5 record was not what I would have liked. After David Cone got hurt in the postseason, I pitched well against Cleveland in game four of the playoffs. I was good, but not good enough to secure a spot on the roster of such a talent-packed team. When the Indians expressed an interest in picking my contract up in the off-season, I left the Yankees with George’s full blessing.

One of the biggest things to come out of my time with the Indians was what happened one night in Detroit. Over the years, I had kept in touch with a guy from childhood who’d grown up to be a flight attendant. Randy and I traveled in different circles, but when we happened to be in the same city, sometimes he’d come out to a game. At dinner after we played the Tigers, he introduced me to another flight attendant, a feisty and beautiful woman named Monique Moore. She was attentive. She liked to laugh. She seemed to hang on every word I said. I wasn’t looking for a new relationship. Monica and I were having our
problems, but we were still married. My cycle of use and relapse, use and relapse, had left her exhausted. Monique and I didn’t jump into anything immediately. But we did agree to stay in touch.

After two seasons in Cleveland, I knew I was nearing the end. This getting older as a pitcher—I was thirty-three, and older than that if you went by pitch count—really did stink. But it was tough to accept my baseball mortality. I sent some feelers to the Mets before the 2000 season. No thank you, I heard back. I signed with Houston but flamed out quickly after a single, rotten start. I just didn’t have the stuff I once had, or even the stuff the good young pitchers had now. I asked to be traded home to Tampa Bay. I knew manager Larry Rothschild from when he coached with the Marlins. He’d always had an interest in me. With the Devil Rays, I figured, I’d be closer to home. And as a local guy with family and friends in the area, I could probably help fill some seats as well. As troubled as our marriage was, Monica even jumped in. On April 21, when I debuted my Devil Rays number 16 jersey, she packed two SUVs with sixteen of our friends and relatives for the short drive to Tropicana Field. Dwight Junior, who was fourteen years old, looked pretty sharp in his Rays batboy uniform. I pitched three scoreless innings and, thankfully, didn’t embarrass the Gooden family name.

But that was about as good it got during my big hometown return. With a 2–2 record, I started on a Wednesday night in late May against the Oakland A’s. In four painful innings, I gave up seven runs. The whole Rays team was terrible. It wasn’t just me. There were three errors before I left the game, and I didn’t commit any of those. All of Tampa–St. Pete knew how awful the Rays were. Only 13,000 people showed up that night to watch us get slammed 9–2. Immediately after the game, Chuck Lamar, the general manager, called me into the office. I was still in my uniform, sweating. Larry was also sitting there.

“We think you should retire,” Chuck said. Those were the first words out of his mouth.

“Retire?” That was a little abrupt, wasn’t it?

“Listen,” Chuck continued. “It’s for the best. Retire and come to work with us.”

His plan was to take the money the team owed me and spread it out over a few years, while I worked in the Rays’ front office. The way I heard that was: “Quit pitching, get your money late, and work a boring job for free.”

“No thanks,” I said. “Why don’t you release me?”

They were fine with that.

I was thirty-five years old. In less than four months, I’d been dumped by two lousy teams. There didn’t seem to be a next stop. I had nothing to do but sit at home and stew. For three weeks, my phone didn’t ring. “This really is it,” I thought. I could already feel myself getting out of shape. Then Ray Negron called.

“Would you like to come back to the Yankees?” Ray asked.

Who said my life had no surprises left? Three weeks later, I was about to pitch in a Yankees uniform at Shea Stadium in the first game of a home-and-away doubleheader against my old team, the New York Mets. I was nowhere near ready. But I couldn’t say no. When would I ever get that chance again?

My thought was, “I’m going to pitch the game and probably get killed. But at least I get back to Shea one last time.” I went down to the bullpen thirty minutes early to shake the emotional stuff out of my head. Even after I calmed myself, my warm-up pitches were refusing to cooperate. My curveball was breaking in the complete opposite direction. My fastball looked more like a changeup. Mel was standing next to me. He offered a few suggestions. Then, he just stopped saying anything. The look on his face said it all.

This ain’t gonna be pretty today.

I noticed Mel had a whole posse of relievers warming up in the bullpen. That was not a vote of confidence.

Right before I went onto the field, Joe Torre said: “Just give me
whatever you got. Whether it’s one, two, or three innings, just give me whatever.” I was starting to think George was the only person in the whole Yankees organization who believed I had anything at all in the tank.

But when I stepped onto the familiar mound at Shea, it was like I had suddenly come home. Something about my cleats in that dirt, it just felt natural. My breaking ball clicked in. Batters came up, and they were actually having trouble hitting me. I gave up two cheap runs, but I’d held the Mets in check. My pitches were legitimately big-league. After the fifth inning, when I came off the mound, Joe asked me: “You have another inning or two left, Doc?”

I didn’t give him the answer I’d given him during the no-hitter. I didn’t need to.

“Nah,” I said. “That’s enough.”

It really was. The Yanks won 4–2. The fans from both New York teams could hardly believe how strong I looked out there so late in my troubled career. I know I could hardly believe it. I’m still not sure what got into me. I’m just glad it did.

“I really can’t explain it,” Mike Piazza said later in the Mets locker room. One of the best hitting catchers in baseball, Mike went 0–3 against me that day. “He just threw strikes. That’s the bottom line.”

I stuck around for the rest of the season. I pitched out of the bullpen and had a couple of playoff appearances en route to the Yankees winning the World Series over the Mets. But picking up that July win against the Mets—that was one of my last, best moments playing baseball.

Too bad I couldn’t just gently fade away.

I had stayed off drugs since I started working with Ray Negron. I’d chosen baseball over cocaine, and I had the lab tests to prove it. But that didn’t mean I was working hard on my recovery. I’d stopped going to NA meetings. I didn’t think I needed them. I had stopped checking
in with Ron Dock. I was drinking a fair amount, mostly beer and vodka. The drinking should have been a warning. Booze has always been my gateway to more.

I went back to the Yankees during spring training of 2001 as a nonroster player. I was thinking, “I probably should have retired at the end of last year.” Then my body proved me right. A week before the season started, I tore my knee during warm-ups. The doctors said three months minimum of rehab. When George heard that, he offered me a $100,000 job as his special assistant if I was ready to retire. I loved the idea of working for George and the Yankees. And frankly, the way I’d been pitching, how much longer could I really play? Plus, I had a more sinister reason for accepting George’s offer. If I quit playing, I wouldn’t have to worry about being drug-tested anymore.

Hmmm, I thought.

I told George yes. The addict sleeping inside me was waking up again.

My family organized a big dinner in Tampa to celebrate the end of my playing career and my new front-office gig with the Yankees. I really felt like I had something to celebrate. Afterward, all of us would go watch my daughter Ashley play softball. But just as we were ready to leave for the restaurant, my cell phone rang. It was Ron Dock. He said Darryl Strawberry was somewhere in the Tampa area and no one could locate him. I knew Darryl had been spiraling downward. The fear now was that he had relapsed or worse.

“Can you help?” Ron asked. “We’re really worried about him.”

“I have my retirement dinner tonight,” I said, wondering how long this would take. But my family could start the celebration without me. “Yeah, sure. Anything for Straw.”

“Ray will pick you up,” Ron said.

Ray and I drove all over St. Petersburg. We scoured dicey neighborhoods in Tampa. We swung by the projects, where I asked old drug
buddies: “You seen Strawberry anywhere?” After a couple of hours, I called my mom and apologized.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Ray is with me.”

“Just be careful,” she said. “We can do the dinner another night. What you’re doing is the right thing.”

Ashley wasn’t as understanding. Just ten years old, she wasn’t happy I had to miss her game. This wasn’t the first time I’d disappointed her. She played outfield and shortstop, and I’d missed a lot of games. Being retired now and closer to home, I thought I’d finally have the chance to be there more often for her and for all of my kids. I knew I was ready to try. But here we were, on the same night we were celebrating my retirement, and I was already off to a questionable start. For five or six hours of family time, Ray and I drove around looking for Darryl. We never found him.

The part that went unspoken was that, as I was trying to rescue Darryl, my own life was about to spin out of control again.

I loved working for George. He gave me special assignments and was always available to me. “Go check out a young pitching prospect on our AA team,” he’d tell me. “What do think of this guy?” That would lead eventually to “Go sign Sheff” and, “See if Darryl wants to come back.” God knows, he showed real faith in me when hardly anyone else was willing to. When he first welcomed me to the Yankees, George told me, “This will be tough. But you won’t be alone. I’ll be right there with you.” And he also said, “But you better never fuck with me, because if you do, I’ll get ya. You’ll be sorry you ever heard my name.” Especially after my father died, George’s approval was hugely important to me. I took my Yankees work seriously.

From Monday to Friday, anyway.

Weekends were my drug time. I was using again, and my use was
getting more frequent. My dealer knew to expect a call from me late in the week and often a refill call or two over the weekend. I started staying out late again, sometimes until Sunday night or Monday morning. I wasn’t with other women. I was off doing coke. But that old, familiar cycle was spreading a new cloud of tension across my family life. Monica and I were arguing a lot. I’d withdraw, she’d get madder. I’d been burning through her patience for a good long while. My kids were disappointed by my no-shows. I was disappointed in myself. When I retired, I’d planned to make up for all the school events and Little League I had missed over the years. But now the drugs were gobbling up more and more of me. The more Monica and I argued, the more I wondered whether the kids would be better off if we split.

In early 2003, I told Monica I wanted a divorce. She knew this was a cop-out and saw it for the cowardly move it was. Mainly I was bailing on the pressures of my life. Work and family take a lot of time and energy. Add regular drug use into the equation, there isn’t much left. Many times before, I’d threatened to leave without actually going. I didn’t know if Monica took me seriously. But this time I actually moved out. I convinced myself again that peace and quiet were waiting for me in a fresh line of cocaine.

After I got my own place in Tampa, Monique came to visit on one of her flight-attendant layovers. She had no idea how out of control my life really was, that her famous athlete boyfriend was actually a drug-addicted mess. Had she known, she probably would have scheduled a much quicker TPA turnaround. My apartment was being remodeled the weekend of her first visit. I had a connection for rooms at the Hyatt, so I told her we’d be staying there. I’d promised to pick her up at the airport. But I’d started using cocaine before she landed and was in no condition to meet her plane. I called her cell phone from a different, fleabag hotel.