DOC GOODEN SERIES
Steinbrenner gave me an opportunity."Įven a man who won a Cy Young and a World Series by the time he was 21, in New York City, was awed by the pinstripes.
"I thought I'd be a Met my whole career. It was tough leaving them. "I was kind of nervous," Gooden said about meeting Steinbrenner and then playing for the cross-town Yanks. "George came to the hospital, held his hand, and told him he would always take care of his son." (credit: Ian Teti/WFAN)įor his part, Gooden, the other half of baseball's odd couple, recalls Steinbrenner with equal fondness. Whatever the human alchemy that matches two people, something about Gooden touched Steinbrenner's soul. "When Doc's father was in the hospital after heart surgery," Negron said softly, clearly in tears. "Doc always had a special place in George's heart," said Negron, who still gets emotional when musing over the Boss, his boss, mentor, and father figure. The next day, Negron, Gooden, and his father met with the Boss and hammered out a deal at the Bay Harbor Inn, a Tampa hotel. "He didn't need to talk baseball with you," Negron recalled telling Gooden. George was opening up in front of Dwight, not the reverse."Īccording to Negron, Gooden thought the sermons meant Steinbrenner didn't want him to pitch for the Bombers. It felt like the four of us were letting loose, crying at the dinner table. "Just 24 hours later, we had dinner in Tampa. "After we lost in the 1995 playoffs, George called," Negron said. So they got started long before Gooden made his Bronx debut in 1996. So, naturally, he was interested in Doc, as a human being." "George educated himself, too, on recovery," Negron said, "because he had Darryl Strawberry, whom I also recommended to the Yankees. While many seem to recall Steinbrenner as a tyrant, Negron said he saw the another side. Negron speaks of Steinbrenner with the soft-pitched fondness reserved for a father. We even started a radio show in Tampa so that he could express his place in recovery. "We really intensified his program to show he would do anything he could to stay clean. Rather than call contacts overseas, Negron had a different plan. "He knew I had strong contacts with the Tokyo Giants." "He came to my house asking me if I could get him a gig in Japan," Negron said. I said 'let's do it.'"īut Gooden, thinking he had no more currency in MLB until he could prove his pitching and personal wares, didn't think about wearing a local uniform. I said we could have a problem, but we would do what we can. "He asked if I thought Doc could stay clean. "I knew he always liked Doc," Negron told me recently. Ray Negron, special assistant to Steinbrenner for decades, was the one who first envisioned Gooden in pinstripes and approached the Boss with the incongruous idea of bringing him to the Bronx. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in 1989 (Photo by: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images) Gooden was good as gone to many fans, New Yorkers, and most of MLB.ĭuring his suspension from baseball in 1995 stemming from his well-documented substance abuse issues, the Boss became the most unlikely fan, friend, and career counselor. There isn't a better case in point than the Boss's most unlikely project - the fireballing pitcher who made his name and game not on River Ave, but rather in Flushing, in the second-tier baseball cathedral we called Shea Stadium.īut by the time Gooden arrived in the Bronx, he was no longer a pitching god who owned the Big Apple, whose intimidating visage soared up the flank of a Midtown skyscraper.
PHOTO GALLERY: Doc Gooden's 1996 No-Hitterįor all the tales of Steinbrenner's tirades, the turnstile he planted at the manager's door, firing people with the frigid indifference of a mortician, there's a tender tint to the Boss that has long been overlooked and under-reported. Gooden, of course, also came with a fitting handle: Doc. But the twin-billing made for a storybook saga in 1996, a confluence of timing, talent, and a World Series title, the team's first since the Bronx Zoo mayhem of the late 1970s.
DOC GOODEN PROFESSIONAL
Rarely would the names George Steinbrenner and Dwight Gooden fit seamlessly into any family or professional narrative, especially as allies. Which makes one of the oddest couples in baseball history a story of cinematic contours.
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