Word: gooden
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Though he appeared briefly in the 1983 International League Playoffs and Triple A World Series, Gooden's minor league career was essentially over. Blissfully, he did not know it yet. Davey Johnson was about to be named the new Mets manager, and Johnson had a notion about this young pitcher. "I wasn't really in a hurry," Gooden says. As a matter of fact, those few days at the end of the season made him wary enough of Triple A, let alone the National League. "I could see the hitters were much more patient, stronger too. Not only didn...
...There are "favorable chance deviations." The Mets' general manager, Frank Cashen, also came from Baltimore. He is considered conservative, though ( a better word would be careful. While Cashen tilts especially toward caution in the development of 19-year-old arms, Johnson persuaded him to keep an open mind on Gooden...
...unfavorable chance deviation. Neglecting to protect Tom Seaver, or to imagine anyone would be gauche enough to claim their venerable pitcher, the Mets lost him to the Chicago White Sox in the 1984 player-compensation pool. "Until then I wasn't even going to the big camp," Gooden says. "I came in as a non-roster player, and right up to the fourth inning of the last spring game, I was sure that I was headed to Tidewater. All of a sudden Davey walked over to where I was sitting in the dugout and just put out his hand. 'Congratulations...
Johnson and Cashen handpicked the stage for Gooden's first start, the Houston Astrodome--"before they brought the fences in," Dwight points out gratefully. "I couldn't sleep the night before, and I couldn't stand to wait for 5 o'clock to take the team bus. About 2:30 I left the hotel and walked by myself to the stadium, about a mile and a half. Everything was moving in slow motion; I was sweating pretty good." Despite forgetting all he knew about pitching the instant the game began ("It was like I'd never been on a mound...
Including that first one, Gooden won 17 games and the Rookie of the Year award. He also lost Youmans again, shipped with a small gang of minor and major leaguers to Montreal, but at least he was compensated this time with the eminent backstop Gary Carter. "We're all just fortunate to be part of Dwight's world," Carter likes to say. Last year this pleasure included eight shutouts and strings of 14 victories, 31 scoreless innings and 49 innings without a run earned. Gooden and the St. Louis Cardinals' ace John Tudor stared each other into stupors, but even...