Gooden, Dwight E.
Baseball
b. Nov. 16, 1964, Tampa, FL
A right-handed pitcher, Gooden won the NL's Cy Young Award in 1985, only his second major-league season, when he led in victories with a 24-4 record, in ERA with 1.53, in complete games with 16, and in innings pitched with 276 2/3. He was also named male athlete of the year by the Associated Press.
Gooden joined the New York Mets in 1984 and had a 17-9 record to win rookie of the year honors. Nicknamed "The Doctor," he throws a fastball at well over 90 miles an hour and has a big breaking curveball to go with it.
He missed the first month of the 1987 season while in a rehabilitation clinic for cocaine use, and injuries hampered him in 1989 and 1991. After a 10-13 record in 1992 and a 12-15 mark in 1993, his brilliant career seemed to be approaching a premature finish.
Gooden had three fairly good years as a spot starter and occasional long reliever, for the New York Yankees in 1996 and 1997 and for the Cleveland Indians in 1998. But he bounced around to three different teams in 2000 and announced his retirement after being cut by the Yankees during spring training of 2001.