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Episode 27 - 1986 Mets - Darryl & Doc - Audio Fixed
16 Plays11 months ago
We wrap our coverage of the vaunted 1986 Mets by running through the lives of their greatest stars - Darryl and Doc. Just what comparisons can be made between them and the world of Pro Wrestling, and how can we keep that joke going for an entire episode? Tune in to find out!
Anton and the satanic texts stop by, we get Rick's Razor Ramon impression, Harry stops by too. Oh, and we get into the finer details of how to avoid pink eye.
Join us on PATREON: www.patreon.com/thewholeballgame
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Transcript
Introduction to the New York Mets and NWO Wolf Pack
00:00:00
Speaker
Let hear you, good and loud.
00:00:10
Speaker
And now, two people that probably know you better than you know yourself. That's my whole ballgame.
Comparing Scott Hall, Dwight Gooden, Kevin Nash, and Daryl Strawberry
00:00:22
Speaker
In 1986, New York Mets and the NWO Wolf Pack were two larger-than-life crews dominated their respective worlds with swagger, controversy, and an appetite for out-of-death.
00:00:37
Speaker
Both squads were built on raw talent, fueled by chaos, and carried an aura that made them the ultimate anti-heroes. Scott Hall, like Dwight dot Gooden, was the stylish, supremely gifted playmaker who could single-handedly change the game, but battled demons that often threatened to derail his greatness. Kevin Nash, much like Daryl Strawberry, was towering force, a freak athlete who seemed destined for the Hall of Fame, but never quite reached the stratosphere his natural gifts suggested.
00:01:12
Speaker
Though, he remained an icon nonetheless. These two duos were the rock sellers of their respective teams flashing brilliantly... Let me hear you! Good and loud, I'm Gary!
00:01:26
Speaker
flashing brilliance on the field and in the ring while indulging the nightlife that would later become part of their lore. Beyond Holland Nash's resemblance to Goodman's Strawberry, the Mets and the Wolf Pack appeared a lot of colorful, unpredictable pictures that made them must-watch entertainment. Letty Dystra was very much the Sean Waltman of the group, scrappy, relentless,
00:01:47
Speaker
performer who thrived despite being undersized and seemingly out of late in a world of giants. Meanwhile, Keith Hernandez, he played the sting role, a veteran leader who tried to be the voice of reason but ultimately got sucked up in the madness around him with the and shit on many women's heads, from what I
Downfall of the Mets and Wolf Pack
00:02:05
Speaker
understand. make the own you' doing up what it And let's not forget Ray Knight, who, with his hard nose, take-no-prisoners attitude, had a bit of that Macho Man Randy's savage energy, capable of flipping from cool confidence to absolute fury at a moment's notice, as evidenced by his infamous brawl with Eric Davis in 1986.
00:02:25
Speaker
Both in the 86 Mets and the NW Wolfpack weren't just teams, they were movements. They reveled in being the bad guys who were somehow impossible to root against. They partied like kings, played with reckless abandon, and they left a trail of destruction in their wake.
00:02:39
Speaker
Whether it was the Mets brawling with the Red Sox and tearing through Shea Stadium's post-game clubhouse, or the Wolfpack running roughshod over WCW while making Red and Black the hottest look in wrestling, the most both of the groups represented the perfect storm of talent, attitude, and excess. The Mets eventually flamed out due to injuries, egos, and personal struggles, just as the Wolfpack and the larger NWO faction crumbled under its own weight. But for a brief, glorious moment, they were the most electrifying shows in sports.
00:03:09
Speaker
and entertainment, and their legends continue to grow decades later. Speaking of
About 'Keep On Dancing' Podcast
00:03:16
Speaker
legends, how we doing, Blakers?
00:03:23
Speaker
Hmm.
00:03:52
Speaker
keep on Keep on, keep on, keep on dancing Joe want to keep on dancing Joe all night long Hey baby So ah if you didn't know fuckers We don't talk about anything ever So that's correct You didn't figure it out by that um here on the Keep On Dancing show, as it as it were. We're going to get that over, by the way. K-O-D-S coming to a Patreon feed near you, I'm sure.
Legacy of the 1986 Mets and Main Topic Introduction
00:04:19
Speaker
Hashtag. Uh, baseball is back on the docket today and, uh, we are heading back to finish up the storied story, the storied story of the 1986 New York baseball Mets.
00:04:36
Speaker
And, uh, we, we saved the best for last, didn't we? We're, uh, we got the, the, the, I guess the, the terror twins, uh, 1.0. We have,
00:04:49
Speaker
we have We had Steven and and ah Joe
Rant on Life Choices and Cultural References
00:04:53
Speaker
Perry, and then we have Daryl and Doc. And then in our modern world, we were graced with the newest generation of the Terror Twins.
00:05:00
Speaker
I believe that was Damian Priest and Rhea Ripley, because that is what you deserve in your 2025 life, you stupid fucking bitches. You're fucking this all up.
00:05:12
Speaker
Okay? You got that? Do you understand? Let's get this out of the way here. You're... You're out there and you're making bad decisions in in what you believe to be your best self-interest.
00:05:28
Speaker
But what what you're failing to see here is that the things that um are in your self-interest are going to lead to ah the entire, ah your background, your your the the platform you stand on, your existence, everything that surrounds you.
Reading and Discussion of the Satanic Bible
00:05:50
Speaker
It's going to look like a garbage dump if you don't get un-fucking-selfish and stop being a bitch. And what I'm saying is keep on dancing, baby.
00:06:06
Speaker
And yeah, so, you know, the 86 Mets, they were just the fucking... The final story in this journey that we've... I don't even know when this thing...
00:06:19
Speaker
It's probably been close to, I don't know, it's got to be eight months. and but you're you're It's over a year. Since we did the first one, you know kind of tried to sprinkle them in there with just a little something to go back to here and there between what we were doing and you know you you ah you died and were brought back in a resurrection ah of sorts, as it were.
00:06:44
Speaker
um You got a book there that explains that, right? Yeah, ah hold on. <unk>ll see You people have no idea. The Roman god Lucifer was the bearer of light, the spirit of the air, the personification of enlightenment.
00:06:57
Speaker
In Christian mythology, got that? yeah He became synonymous with evil, which was only to have been expected from a religion whose very existence is perpetuated by clouded definitions and bogus values!
00:07:11
Speaker
exclamation point It is time to set the record straight. false moralisms and occult inaccuracies must be corrected.
Critique of Societal Norms and Reactions
00:07:21
Speaker
Entertaining as they might be, most stories and plays about devil worship must be recognized as the absolute absurdities, the obsolete absurdities rather, that they are. It has been said, the truth will make men free.
00:07:32
Speaker
The truth alone has never set anyone free. It is only doubt which will bring mental emancipation. Beat your ass and hide the Bible of God watching. Uh, that is, straight from the Satanic satanic Bible of one Anton Sandor LeVay, uh, that was dropped off on my doorstep under mysterious circumstances, at some point this week.
00:07:57
Speaker
Um, the mystery, ah being, i there was a van that pulled up in the driveway, the sliding door on the side opened, and the only, ah sort of defining characteristics of the manners. There's a, a strange word, six letters long on the side of it said Amazon.
00:08:16
Speaker
Very strange. I don't understand exactly what that's about, but, uh, but yeah, my band, Gabe, I'm dead.
00:08:27
Speaker
So, uh, Joni making her second appearance on the show.
00:08:33
Speaker
Oh God. Uh, so I will be, uh, uh, uh, sharing this obviously with Bob, uh, pretty regularly. And, and some of you will, will likely get, uh, uh, get remnants from the satanic Bible as, as time wears on you, pay you Patreon folks let' find some fun things to do with that.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah. i'm I'm sure the the hall of famers over on the Patreon will definitely probably find, uh, bits and pieces of that Bible in their mailbox as time goes on.
00:09:06
Speaker
ah Let me tell you exactly what's going to happen here, folks. And make no mistake about it.
00:09:17
Speaker
Because he's he's already proven this and he's told you his story. You just need to believe him because he's not lying to you. This man, is is he's reading this and I can tell in the way and what he's saying back to me that that what he he's reading and he's going, you know,
00:09:34
Speaker
He's got a point. This makes sense. And you know what? He's not wrong. There's that's some of the most logical stuff I've ever heard printed in my life. And quite frankly, if you can't take a look at it and and realize that that that is nothing but a troll Bible to the Christians, I'm then you're probably not that fucking smart because the stuff in there is just absolutely ridiculous and outlandish.
00:09:59
Speaker
And I assume the unintended negative consequence of it is some crazy fucker would see it and really take it to heart. But this anyone with a brain looks at this and this is nothing but just a giant fuck you to organize Christianity, in my opinion.
00:10:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah ah I read this one to to Blake before we went on the air, and this is what what yeah made him Yeah, this one that shaped it. yeah Satanism represents kindness to those who not deserve it.
00:10:28
Speaker
not that Oh, you you want you the one I sent you? Yes. Okay. Give it to that. They need that one because that's the one that drove it home. Buckle in, pals, and understand that this thing is replete.
00:10:40
Speaker
um Let's just say Elaine Bennis did not edit ah did not edit this, as the exclamation points here are yeah all over the place. That's a key point.
00:10:51
Speaker
the the The number of exclamation points in this, that that should tip you off very much. That it's all troll bullshit. Yeah. yeah So here we go. um This is entitled The Black Mass.
00:11:03
Speaker
Okay. Okay. No other single device has been associated with Satanism as much as the Black Mass. To say that the most blasphemous of all religious ceremonies is nothing more than a literary invention is certainly a statement which needs qualifying, but nothing could be truer.
00:11:19
Speaker
The popular calm concept of the Black Mass is thus. A defrocked priest stands before an altar, consisting of a nude woman. Her legs spread-eagled and vagina thrust open.
00:11:31
Speaker
Oh, baby. Each of... Come on.
00:11:41
Speaker
You're a pro. Come on. yeah
00:11:45
Speaker
A nude woman, her legs spread-eagled and vagina thrust open, each of her outstretched fists grasping a black candle made from the fat of unbaptized babies.
00:11:58
Speaker
And...
00:12:01
Speaker
and a chalice containing the urine of a prostitute, or blood, reposing on her belly. An inverted cross hangs above the altar, and triangular hosts of ergot-laden bread or black-stained turnip are methodically blessed as the priest dutifully slips them in and out of the altar lady's labia.
00:12:28
Speaker
Then, we are told, an invocation to Satan and various demons is followed by an array of prayers and psalms chanted backwards or interpreted with obscenities, all performed within the confines of a protective pentagram drawn on the floor.
00:12:44
Speaker
If the devil appears, he is invariably in the form of a rather eager man wearing the head of a black goat upon his shoulders. Then follows potpourri of flagellation prayer book burning, cunnilingus, fellatio, and general hindquarters kissing, all done to a background of ribald recitations from the Holy Bible and audible expectorations on the cross.
00:13:14
Speaker
If a baby can be slaughtered during the ritual, so much the better, for as everyone knows, this is the favorite sport of the Satanist. Exclamation point. Yes, yes, yes.
00:13:26
Speaker
Now, I have left with two questions. Only two. Now, you're ordained, right? You told me that. I am, yep. Are you frocked or defrocked?
00:13:37
Speaker
I mean, now that i'm i'm I'm dabbling here, I imagine that that I have some sort of ah ah
00:13:48
Speaker
stain. Whether defrocked or not, I do not know. the yeah The proverbial scarlet S, as it were, Satan. hu a Second question.
00:13:59
Speaker
yeah What about General Anal Angus? Well, I think that is ah the the general high-incorporous kissing that they missed out. I know, Colonel Angus, it's a fantastic Saturday Night Live skit.
00:14:15
Speaker
i I threw it out there. I was going to let you go. we went where you took us, so that's fine. it's well We'll get back to Colonel. What do you feel? How you feeling about that? ah I mean, it's it's it's vulgar and um intense, but like it just it reads as as satire.
00:14:39
Speaker
right I mean, it's just like it's it's it's like the the version of satan satanic worship that um that fills the the minds and hearts of ah single Christian mothers in the Midwest in the early 1980s. It's how a boy of my age, about 10 years old, ends up with a packet that thick on satanic lore and rituals and logos.
00:15:09
Speaker
I was terrified of the Procter & Gamble company for ah many years at my elementary school because their logo, you see, had these stars in this It's insane shit, man.
00:15:22
Speaker
So you can kind of see why this is sort of like strikes a nerve with me. um
00:15:28
Speaker
I mean, fuck, man. I think... i mean, they were talking about having... Like, essentially... Fucking this poor woman on the altar with ah with a rotten turnip. It was a turnip. Yeah, yeah. How are going to even penetrate with a turnip?
00:15:42
Speaker
i very I mean, it's not not easily. so I mean, it's similarly to our text chain about ah the giant shits we both took yesterday. you know like you just That kind of forcing out that pain you know followed by the sweet relief.
00:16:00
Speaker
It's not. the Vice versa. The yeah turnip is going in. Got to come back out, though. Does it? Okay. Well, what if it's absorbed on the body?
00:16:12
Speaker
Well, no, I'm not done with this yet. um
00:16:18
Speaker
I don't know. I forgot what I was going to say. Anyway, are you ah you doing okay having that book near you? I mean, Stella was reading it yesterday. It's fine.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, look, I think here's the thing. The... you know, the stuff, like you said, that the Midwest mom gets in their mind and all that, that, that is the, the yin and the yang, the other side to the, just the shitty, awful Christian that, that, you know, beats their family and, and pedophiles their child and whatever else.
00:16:56
Speaker
Like, you know, it's, it's just shitty, crazy motherfuckers that make the world suck. And, You know what? There's probably some decent hearted Satanists out there, just like there's some decent hearted Christian folk out there.
00:17:12
Speaker
And those are the people that should be on the same fucking page, you know, but we can't get there because we got this goddamn fairy tale right in the middle of us. That's the mountains.
00:17:24
Speaker
It's a little nuts too, because like you, you mentioned the pedophilia thing. And I think this week alone, there's been like four or five of these assholes in the news um that are dyed in the cloth, ah you know, pedophile chasers ah that have come out and, and, and, you know, been caught ah being pedophiles.
00:17:45
Speaker
The one day it was a guy that ah introduced the, the bill to classify the Trump derangement syndrome as a fucking mental illness or whatever. And then fucking three days later, he gets busted for trying to fuck a kid.
00:17:59
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I mean, it's they tell on themselves constantly. We see it over and over and over and over and over and over. Like, how many times does it have to happen for people to recognize the pattern?
00:18:11
Speaker
Our brains, as human beings, are built to recognize patterns. Yes. Unless you are actively working against your own brain, which we've proven here time and time again that they are.
00:18:25
Speaker
They're acting ah actively against themselves and their own self-interests. And ah it wouldn't surprise me if they were working against their own instincts as well.
00:18:36
Speaker
um It's, it's hard to deny that, that this is the case. Instead, they look for conspiracies and, ah ah interesting reasons to be upset or unhappy ah that that make their otherwise meaningless lives have some inkling of meaning because they they're the ones that know.
00:19:00
Speaker
these These fucking people, look, this is why we can sit here and we can just fucking go because there's not any kind of goddamn shit to fucking sell other than the Patreon, you know, which you need to do But there's no fucking ideology. There's no whatever. It just so happens that most of the decent stuff tends to fall on the left side of the aisle and not the right when it comes to actually giving a fuck about your fellow human beings.
00:19:29
Speaker
So ah it is what it is there. But like, i I don't have any kind of path. I got to fucking walk. I can sit there and talk every single fucking thing you want on an individual basis. And I can say, yeah, that...
00:19:43
Speaker
Oh, they shouldn't have done that. That was fucked up and wrong. And yeah, whatever. I'm like, I say, well, you know, whatever. What about no, no. Like if it's fucking just the, the, the right thing and the truth, it's very simple and it's very direct and it should be guiding you.
00:19:59
Speaker
It's not a complicated thing. And, and they, they do tell on themselves all the fucking time because they have to, they're intellectually dishonest and they, they,
00:20:10
Speaker
their whole lives become entangled in this sea of shit that they have to keep up for various fucking reasons. And they eventually you get taken down because that's not easy
Cultural References and Baseball Banter
00:20:24
Speaker
to do. And it's really not easy to do when you're a dumb fuck.
00:20:30
Speaker
Hey, Gabe. Hey, uh, God, uh, did you put that book away? uh, Jesus. Are you reading it? No, no, no.
00:20:40
Speaker
I, uh, I've been hiding, you know, normally I sleep under the couch. I'm in, I'm in sleeping behind it so that there's been a, like a, a separate barrier separate. Cause it's been sitting on his desk over here.
00:20:52
Speaker
Oh, and, and I can feel the, the bad, the badness just reverberating off of that book. And I, needed I needed some distance and, you know, i just protecting you.
00:21:06
Speaker
It's been... From Satan? I mean, look at how green it is, you know? oh that's what does it, the color? thought it the thickness or maybe something else. It pulls straight.
00:21:18
Speaker
Come on! Do it! Do it!
00:21:23
Speaker
Well, you know, ah the but green is the most godly of the colors. That's true. Grass. You know, other than white, of course. um Come, yeah.
00:21:35
Speaker
I mean, That isn't where I was going with it, but I understand. um Is Jimmy around by the time? What's his name? Hi, Jimmy. jimmy i'm um and I heard tell of your appearances here on the program, and I've been hoping that we were going to meet one day, and I'll tell you, it's it's always been my dream to call a match or two with you.
00:21:57
Speaker
ah I'm a big wrestling fan from way back. My daddy and I would you know, when we were fresh after juicing a girl, we'd watch WCW Saturday night on on, well, Saturday nights back home on the farm in Effingham.
00:22:13
Speaker
It was an early afternoon ritual with the juicing, and then we'd come on upstairs and gather around the television. And we loved watching you in the faces of fear. See, I knew that that was all ah an act. You know, it wasn't as satanic as it looked or nothing.
00:22:30
Speaker
um But I sure did like that megaphone you carry around. It was pretty pretty similarly pretty similarly shaped to to to my palace.
00:22:43
Speaker
ah And so um now we're getting off track here. My point is i would I would love one day, maybe the boys can arrange it for us to call a match or two together and and just, ah you know, he vibe as the kids say He had to run out. He was coming, Rick.
00:23:01
Speaker
but oh I did have a question for you, though. Yeah, okay. When you and Dad were watching WCW Saturday Night 1996, how old were you?
00:23:14
Speaker
How
00:23:19
Speaker
old was Dad?
00:23:32
Speaker
Well, you understand. um
00:23:39
Speaker
Age is really just a construct. the time, was, I mean, 1997. think you're retired.
00:23:46
Speaker
at the time i was i mean nineteen ninety s
00:23:54
Speaker
think you're tireded
00:23:58
Speaker
I was 46 at the time. 96. Yeah, 46 years old because I'm 75 now, and it wasn't until summer that we were really getting into it. Dad was 72, but look, that doesn't matter much. from No, no, it's just my picadillas. You know, he... um He was ah an ox of a man. as you can I mean, look, he sired both me and Paul, and we were big boys. Sure.
00:24:23
Speaker
I mean, I still am, as you know. ah ah But, yeah, I was 46. He was 72. And, I mean, we've been doing it for, I mean, hell, all through my playing days since I was 12. So, I mean, at that point, it was 34 years of killing.
00:24:43
Speaker
And I mean, they ain't caught us yet, but you know, the authorities, they haven't been been listening to this podcast neither, but not many high have. So the auto blow guy was. Yep.
00:24:53
Speaker
Yep. Auto blow. Uh, we, we should, we should pick up those conversations. I know you're listening, sir. Uh, thank you for reaching out to us and letting us know that you appreciated our impromptu advertisement, uh, a couple of weeks ago here on the program.
00:25:09
Speaker
but uh uh please uh feel free send one my way send one blake's way ah we will uh we will we will use the auto blow uh live on the air if that's what it is yeah um but we'll just turn the video off it'll be fine jimmy oh baby it's auto blow to keep on dancing that's it uh That's a real story, by the way. They actually reached out to us because they have some kind of thing monitoring all podcasts for mentions of their their device. And um who knows? we
00:25:44
Speaker
To hell with dick pills. We might just be sponsored by the blowjob machine. So let's hope so. You know, brah, you know who else has got a monitoring device on the podcast? That's me, brah.
00:25:54
Speaker
And you know why? I got that, brah. Dally, I owe you a call, as a matter of fact. an update because I'm down, I'm down some more weight. So I think you'll be very proud of me.
00:26:06
Speaker
You know how you can get down about 20 more pounds, brah. How's that, bud? Pull your head out of your ass, bro. You're going to fucking die. ah that's coming soon to Patreon as well. Uh, the, uh, the original, we, we haven't posted it yet, but we will.
00:26:22
Speaker
Um, also, in the very near future, um, for those of you that also listen to the lapsed fan, we'll be having a, uh, a little tête-à-tête there ah with the the gentleman on the program ah sponsoring that guy as well and giving a little preview of the Patreon.
00:26:40
Speaker
ah If you haven't heard the, and if you're not on the Patreon, and you haven't, but if you haven't heard, we're going to drop ah on their feed at some point in the near future here the game between the Houston Rockets and the Utah Jazz from that that triple header in 1995, that Saturday during the playoffs, um mainly because...
00:27:07
Speaker
Because ah Blake pretty much single-handedly ruined the entirety of my childhood NBA fandom. Oh, come on. Not the entirety. We won't say that. The Jordan stuff remains, but certainly ah we went two for two ah in terms of ah killing heroes on that particular program in both John Stockton and Carl Malone.
00:27:31
Speaker
You cannot blame me for anything, Gabe. I am only a southern truck driver. known as Carl Malone, and I did not, and I have not, had sex with no kids.
00:27:42
Speaker
It's true. that's ah that's that's That's the story that Carl tells. um And the reason we're picking that particular episode... Not just for the hero worship, Peach, but for the fact that ah I realized about halfway through when when when our ubiquitous Carl Malone, ah truck driver from Louisiana, ah mentioned one Dally Page.
00:28:07
Speaker
Mr. Dally Page, we did the wrestling in the WCW when I was driving my truck, you see. You remember, a Gabe, you were watching. I drove my truck to Atlanta, Georgia. He did.
00:28:18
Speaker
He absolutely did. And i I remembered at that point that I had ah Mr. Page's phone number in my phone from a chance meeting at a comic book convention ah some years back that I was running in New York.
00:28:33
Speaker
And so right there, live on the. on the, the, the, the podcast, I went ahead and called him and put her speaker phone. He did not answer, but we left him a message. And then four days later, ah he called me back and I happened to be in front of my computer.
00:28:50
Speaker
I did some quick thinking, uh, ah opened up my webcam and recorded the entirety of that conversation about 16 minutes worth, uh, where we run through, ah to, to Blake's astute point, uh, that I need to get my head out of my ass that I'm going to die.
00:29:11
Speaker
ah And then we eventually get into his new accountability crib. Yes. ah Construction in Tampa. a or St. Pete, I believe actually but somewhere.
00:29:23
Speaker
It's not cheap. He's got about $2 million dollars wrapped up in it. I remember six six million. it was there yeah um And you know ah how, you know, maybe I can get down there, but it's not going to be free. It ain't free, brah. It's 6 million.
00:29:38
Speaker
Yep. Uh, ah but ah he also wants me to update him monthly on my progress. That's right. owns that ass. He does indeed. got monthly updates, man.
00:29:49
Speaker
I absolutely cannot wait to share this with you all. um ah So we'll be, we'll be doing that in the very near future as well. So, so far on the program, we're 30 minutes in, we've touched on Anton LaVey and Satanism. We've touched on Diamond Dallas page and my imminent death.
00:30:08
Speaker
Uh, And we've we've introduced you to the topic this week, which will be ah Daryl Eugene Strawberry and Dwight Eugene Gooden, interestingly enough.
00:30:21
Speaker
Because Eugene. That's correct. ah Double Eugene's on the ballgame this week. um it When we were trying to figure out how we we were going to work both Daryl and Doc, um and you know Although we very rarely shy away from problematic accents on this program, we kind of decided that um that perhaps the fact that Daryl and Doc were both black men that we probably shouldn't...
00:30:52
Speaker
um Go down that path. You can't. like You really can't, especially with these guys. There's a lot of respect there on both of our parts. ah But what we can do is ah what we we started talking about in the intro of the program today, and that's the fact that ah these two men, the more you dig in, and as you'll see, we will dig into their lives here, ah the more these two men are very clearly Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, look, this's it's the Wolfpack, the Outsiders, it's Daryl and Doc, it's Hall and Nash. it's you know they They probably they weren't as thick as those guys, but there's, like you said, the similarities are striking.
00:31:37
Speaker
And two, we had to do something because like you just you can't do it. And as as men of our age and white guys...
00:31:50
Speaker
I say it's probably you you get one. You get to do one black guy, maybe. and And I know who my one guy is because here's the thing, because here's what you'll do.
00:32:03
Speaker
you yo Every fucking black guy you do is going to sound the goddamn same. Correct. That's Because you've grown up watching fucking 80s and 90s shit, and and that's what imprinted on you.
00:32:17
Speaker
And these are men of that time. So you're, especially when you get into their stories and stuff and that's what you would do. And then you would expose yourself to be a stupid dipshit.
00:32:29
Speaker
So by the way, for the record, my one is JYD. I can do a decent JYD, I think. And it, it doesn't, you know, cause Jake, look, cause here's the thing. Cause JYD himself is a caricature. So you can, you can do that.
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah we will we will very soon, I'm sure, grab them cakes.
00:32:52
Speaker
I'm not. I ain't going to do it. Thank you. No, you got to save it. You got to save it. This is the first time I've ever saved it, I think. It's been over a year, and it's the first time I've ever saved anything on this goddamn forsaken fucking show that we do together.
00:33:07
Speaker
Speaking of this goddamn godforsaken show that we do together, ah we need you and we need your help. ah We want to keep doing this show. ah Things keep coming up, right? Life.
00:33:21
Speaker
ah I've got a two-year-old in about a month. She'll be two. It's just insane that she's already at that point. um She's running around here like a chicken with her head cut off most days and She's reading satanic verses for God's sake. She's reading satanic verses. You know, we got to keep her in line. She's summoning demons. it's It's a real mess. You should see the fireplace. I saw the video of her speaking and it sounded like she was speaking in tongues.
00:33:47
Speaker
She said, well, go get it backwards. No.
00:33:52
Speaker
I love this picture have this picture up at the side of my desk here with the the True World Order, myself and and the Hulkster and the Blakester ah right next to each other in Philadelphia last year. And she loves this picture so much. right And so I've introduced her to exactly who's in the picture.
00:34:12
Speaker
And I sent a video to Blake the other day. And I said, who's this, who's that, who's this? See if I can get the audio off of it here. this is I should have done this before. I didn't think about this. Hulkster's high as fuck in the picture, by the way, for the folks that haven't seen it. Absolutely out of his mind.
00:34:28
Speaker
Correct. We've put it on the Twitter before, but it's probably buried back there under me yelling at Cat Turd and some fucking bots.
00:34:42
Speaker
Who's Golden Man. Nope, this guy. Who's that? Blake. That's the second one. Look at me. Look at me. Who's this?
00:34:53
Speaker
that
00:34:55
Speaker
yeahta Who's that? And who's that? And who's that? And who's that? Blake. Hulk Hogan is now known as cocaine. hu Cocaine beware.
00:35:08
Speaker
That's right. Yo, brother, dude, that shit's no good, dude. It's a trap rope. Oh, baby, I do the cocaine, Terry. I carry, baby, keep on, keep on, keep on dancing. I'm gonna keep on dancing.
00:35:18
Speaker
Show. ah Fantastic. I even got jazz hands on that one. yeah One day I'll convince him to do the video podcast. It'll be great. um Read this fucking story. Oh, you were still in the middle of the story. We got so anyway. ah That's ah that's where we are. That's ah oh, oh, oh.
00:35:38
Speaker
We have a bunch of shit going on is my point. I've got that thing with my kids. Blake's got a dipshit boss that he's going to kick in the nuts and probably set the place on fire where he works. Hopefully that's not the case and this isn't used as state's evidence against you.
00:35:51
Speaker
This is all entertainment. Correct. 100% entertainment. We've got the devil for God's sakes. Correct. We're talking about black mass and vaginas. Turnips. Blackened turnips.
00:36:04
Speaker
um Sounds like it'd make a good Cajun stew. um Put a bird with it, maybe.
00:36:12
Speaker
Louisiana bird.
00:36:16
Speaker
God damn it, Blake. We'll never get this one going. i did I didn't want to show up today, i tell you right now. ah This one hurts Gabe's throat so bad, I can't tell you. By the time we're done with this program, I'm going to be hoarser than a horse. ah Eating a horse on the side with a horse. It's horsey sauce. All right, well.
00:36:38
Speaker
I won't keep you then, Marvin, but I do need to to to let you know, though, that I got to talk to you in the near future because I got a question for you about a picture I saw of you today holding a small little fella in your arms. And I got some questions for you.
00:36:53
Speaker
Oh, you're talking about that one where I'm holding that poor black child, am I right? Okay, well, we'll talk about it down the road. I'll tell you I'll be back. It's no problem. Okay, bye-bye. Child isn't a 40-year-old man, but yes.
00:37:06
Speaker
ah Yeah. Yeah. So we'll we'll we'll come back to that one, I'm afraid. ah Here's my point. ah Blake and I want to keep doing this. And so we need your help over on Patreon. Right. um A couple different tiers available to you. can Get the baseball shows ad free because I know how annoying those advertisements are.
00:37:23
Speaker
ah just $4.94 a month, and you don't have to worry about pressing that 30-second skip button seven times in a row every 15 minutes.
00:37:34
Speaker
ah And then the next tier up is the... ah Huff stuff, ah where Charlie Huff leads you on oh ah journey into ah the best professional wrestling in the history of professional wrestling and and how Blake and I exactly break that down. And of course, with cameo appearances from all your favorite ballgame characters, like, of course, Rick Russell and Marvin Davis and Charlie Huff himself, as well as ah our good old friend, Jimmy Hart.
00:38:07
Speaker
Uh, and then i talk to your butthole though you can't see it.
00:38:13
Speaker
I yeah I'm working on it, everybody. Uh, hopefully one of these days, one of the relics for the hall of famers will be just that a picture of Charlie's butthole, um, with buttons.
00:38:25
Speaker
There you go. Perfect. Just a balloon knot on the way. Uh, so, uh, and then of course the top tier, uh, is all of that shit that I just mentioned on top of,
00:38:37
Speaker
All of that, you'll get a ah bonus show every month, which will be, who knows, and NBA, NFL, ah some random crazy bullshit, some sports movie, something like that every month, plus a chance to pick a show every month. And we'll throw your name in a hopper, and every month we'll do a bonus show specifically picked by one of our Hall of Famers, Harry's Hall of Famers, as a matter of fact, for $19.94 month.
00:39:04
Speaker
ah That 94 is no coincidence. And if you've been listening to the show for any period of time, you know exactly why. 1994 the nexus of the universe. It is the place where everything went wrong. ah Worlds collided, and this is why we are where we are because of that baseball strike in 1994.
00:39:22
Speaker
ah So now that that good business is of the way, it's patreon.com slash the whole ball game. ah Check that out when you get a chance. And let's get into
Daryl Strawberry's Early Life and MLB Rise
00:39:33
Speaker
the baseball. First up today ah is the story of one Daryl Eugene Strawberry written by our pal at Sabre, Sean Morris.
00:39:45
Speaker
You ready to go? Fuck it. All right. There it is. For many African-American males growing up in poverty-stricken households throughout Los Angeles, sports offered a chance to break away from the cultural and economic restraints imposed on them by their surroundings.
00:40:03
Speaker
This was no different for a young Daryl Eugene Strawberry, born March 12, 1962 in Los Angeles. Daryl was the third boy born to Henry and Ruby Strawberry and would be followed by two sisters.
00:40:20
Speaker
By 1970, the family was residing in a small house in the Crenshaw neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles. Strawberry recalled his father as being a negative influence early in his life.
00:40:31
Speaker
Henry Strawberry, Hank, held down a steady job as a postal clerk, but suffered from many of the same vices that would plague Daryl's life. He would often come home in drunken rages and physically assault Ruby, as well as Daryl and his older brother Ronnie.
00:40:48
Speaker
Much of Daryl's younger years were spent in fear of their father until one night when he was about 10 years old. On that night, Henry came home intoxicated and began to verbally and physically assault Ruby.
00:41:00
Speaker
The police showed up, and just like that, Henry was gone from his children's lives, only to reappear when it was evident Daryl was a remarkable talent on the baseball field and would be a top pick in the Major League Draft.
00:41:15
Speaker
You know, it's sad. I never never had a real relationship with him. He never sat me down and talked to me kindly, never never gave me a word of fatherly advice or counsel. He never even taught me to tie my shoe or hit a baseball.
00:41:32
Speaker
None of those things a father and son are supposed to do. He either ignored me or he beat me, period.
00:41:39
Speaker
What Henry did give his youngest son was a love for sports and athletic abilities. Like many of the other children in the Crenshaw neighborhood, Daryl went to the local park to watch his father play on one of the many softball teams in the area.
00:41:54
Speaker
His father who could
00:41:58
Speaker
You could whip the ball across the plate so fast you wouldn't know where to start your swing. he did the long ball over and over again every time he came to bat. It's like, fuck it.
00:42:09
Speaker
After his father disappeared from his life, Daryl felt an absence and turned to sports as a refuge and escape from everything bothering him. You know, I was very good at every sport I tried.
00:42:22
Speaker
I'm not bragging. It was just in me. I loved it. It was a Pure joy for me to play baseball, basketball, and football. While was playing, I could almost forget my anger and my troubles.
00:42:36
Speaker
Almost. Ruby was devoted to her family, held a full-time job at a local telephone company, and supported Daryl playing baseball. She knew how happy it made him, and she was shocked to see that on the field he was not the same lazy Daryl she knew at home.
00:42:54
Speaker
After attending numerous junior high schools, Strawberry attended the predominantly African-American Crenshaw High School. Crenshaw was an athletic powerhouse. Scouts came to Crenshaw Games. It was Daryl's chance to get noticed, to gain the fame and notoriety so many young athletes from similar circumstances were searching for.
00:43:11
Speaker
Basketball was his first love, and his gangly frame gave him an advantage on the court, but baseball came the most natural to him. Right from the start, I could pitch.
00:43:23
Speaker
I could hit home runs. I could steal bases. I could field. didn't think much about it. didn't study the game. I just fucking went out there and did it. By the time he reached Crenshaw, Strabri had earned a reputation throughout the Los Angeles Little League, but none of that mattered to Crenshaw baseball coach Brooks Hurst.
00:43:45
Speaker
When Daryl entered Crenshaw High for the 10th grade, he was already six foot three He was long and lean and covered with sinewy muscle. Oh, baby. Oh, man.
00:43:58
Speaker
Not the type created by hours in a weight room or supplements, but the real thing. He had the body of a basketball forward and the natural baseball swing, powerful loop and uppercut of a historic home run hitter, a writer said of him.
00:44:17
Speaker
To Brooks Hurst, Darrell was just like many of the young black men he had coached, full of talent lacking discipline. At Crenshaw, Hurst did his best to instill the qualities his players were lacking to help them succeed on and off the field, and in back talk any backtalk or mouthing off to him and he would make them run until they dropped from exhaustion.
00:44:38
Speaker
For many of his players, Hurst was the only stable male figure in their lives. He was familiar with Daryl and his situation. Both older brothers had played for him at Crenshaw.
00:44:49
Speaker
Hurst did his best to watch over Daryl and guide him to make the right choices during his three years at Crenshaw. Strawberry struggled in his first year at high school, although there was no denying his talent.
00:45:00
Speaker
He was given no special treatment under Hurst. He tried to drill Daryl into... Beat the ball to the spot when playing the outfield and run hard for balls that fell in base hits.
00:45:13
Speaker
In for base hits, not just glide to them and let singles turn into extra bases. Coach Hurst often found himself annoyed with Daryl and his approach of only giving half effort. I had to sit him down.
00:45:26
Speaker
and talked to him a lot. I had him run laps. I'd tell him, the scouts are going to come in here with assumptions about inner city ballplayers. You have to counteract that.
00:45:39
Speaker
Don't give him the ammunition. But finally, I just ran out of patience. Finally, Daryl's first high school season ended early when he was kicked off the team.
00:45:49
Speaker
I just said to him, this isn't working out. I hope you want to come back next year. Hearst recalled. Daryl took it pretty well. He still came to the games.
00:46:00
Speaker
He helped lug the equipment.
00:46:03
Speaker
Despite his talent, when Strawberry came back for the 1979 season, there were some who thought he was not the best talent on the team. He also had to contend with Corey Dillard and another player who would go on to the major leagues, Chris Brown.
00:46:18
Speaker
Besides those three, the rest of the Crenshaw team was also talented, so much so that the second stringers would end up with professional contracts. On the playing field, the 1979 Crenshaw team was in the midst of a spectacular season. Strawberry was having an outstanding year at the plate, in the outfield, and when he took them out.
00:46:37
Speaker
The team easily defeated many of its inner-city opponents. Early in the season, the Los Angeles Times reported, After a 15-5 mugging of Hamilton, Crenshaw was now now has now scored 31 runs in its last two games.
00:46:53
Speaker
Many of Daryl's relatives, who had largely been absent from his life, began to appear at his games as well, including his father. Coach Hurst did his best to shield his players from the circus, enveloping them and keeping their focus on the game itself.
00:47:07
Speaker
Throughout the season, the team kept playing at a high level, and by the time the regular season was drawing to a close, Crenshaw had lost only a handful of games, and in each of those cases, Hurst had benched one of his star players for disciplinary reasons.
00:47:23
Speaker
When the regular season finished, the Crenshaw High Cougars entered the Los Angeles Unified School District baseball playoffs. Anchored by senior Chris Brown and junior Darryl Strawberry, it was the first inner-city school in many years that had the talent to compete against those in the San Fernando Valley that benefited from manicured fields, booster clubs, and year-round instruction.
00:47:45
Speaker
Playing the way they had many times during the regular season, the Cougars cruised their way through the first two rounds of the playoffs by a combined score of twenty three to four Nothing, it seemed, could keep Crenshaw from hitting.
00:47:58
Speaker
In the semifinal round, they powered their way over Monroe High by a score of 10-7. In the three playoff game, Strawberry hit three triples in addition to a home run and was the winning pitcher in two of the contests.
00:48:13
Speaker
Next stop for Crenshaw was the championship game at Dodger Stadium.
00:48:20
Speaker
On June 6, 1979, the Cougars boarded the bus for the short trip to Dodger Stadium. Their opponent was Grenada Hills, a team that played with a few mistake with few mistakes and relied on the small ball approach.
00:48:33
Speaker
Wiggy ball. ah Lots of bunting and good defense. Their third baseman was a high school football standout, Stanford-bound John Elway. Brrrr.
00:48:45
Speaker
The Crenshaw players had their work cut out for them, and when Grenada Hills jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, their task became much more difficult. A strong third inning put Crenshaw back on top by a run, and the Grenada Hills coach pulled Elway from third base and put him in his pitcher.
00:49:02
Speaker
After his eight warm-up pitches, Elway struck out the next batter to end the inning. On the mound, Strawberry began to crumble. Unnerved by the Little League tactics of fake bunts, he began to become erratic, and after walking several batters, he was pulled and sent to the outfield.
00:49:19
Speaker
By the end of the fifth inning, Grenada had scored another six runs on three hits because of Crenshaw's bad pitching and sloppy fielding, and the Crenshaw hopes were in rapid decline.
00:49:30
Speaker
Elway shut the Cougars down.
00:49:34
Speaker
the team that scout George Genovese considered from top to bottom um the most talented assemblage of high school talent ever, could not win the l L.A. City Championship. Now, are you familiar with the John Elway's, ah i guess, is story of, I want to i guess his beginning, how he was baseball and football, and he he did not want to go to the the Colts at the time And so they kind of held them hostage and said he's going to go play for the Yankees.
00:50:10
Speaker
That way the Colts wouldn't draft him. And then he ends up on the Broncos. the the young editor says The Yankees piece what just triggered it in my head. I knew I remember us talking about something like him with the Yankees at some point.
00:50:24
Speaker
yeah Steinbrenner something. um i didn't know the full story though. no He basically uses his leverage. He uses the Yankees and baseball his leverage to not go to At the time, Baltimore, ah which I think they moved to Indianapolis like the next year or whatever. But, yeah, I don't blame him.
00:50:42
Speaker
But still, just such a bitch thing to do. For sure. Just go to the fucking town and kick ass. But whatever. When Strawberry returned to Crenshaw for his senior year, all the attention was lavished upon him.
00:50:58
Speaker
Without Brown to share the spotlight, it became the season of Strawberry. Coach Hurst was continuously chasing agents off the baseball field and out of the Crenshaw hallways. Strawberry often found himself surrounded by an entourage and those looking for any piece of stardom that association with him brought.
00:51:14
Speaker
As his ego grew, his attitude only seemed to worsen. According to some teammates, George Cook recalled, Daryl Strawberry didn't listen to Coach Hurst.
00:51:27
Speaker
The press buildup surrounding Strawberry in the baseball draft. Nope, that's not a quote. The press buildup surrounding Strawberry in the coming baseball draft overshadowed anything else he accomplished his senior year.
00:51:38
Speaker
Sports Illustrated published a feature on Strawberry late in his senior season with a picture caption that said, Daryl, 18, is likened to Ted Williams. He's got a Williams-type physical makeup, tall, rangy, good leverage.
00:51:53
Speaker
Scout Phil Pote told Sports Illustrated, he's got bat quickness. He can drive the ball. The ball just jumps off his bat. He's lithe, as you would say. He is. He's lithe.
00:52:06
Speaker
He is and he remains. Although he did have a heart attack recently. Yeah, he's fine. Strawberry had dreamed about being the first overall pick in the draft, and in June of 1980, the New York Mets made that happen.
00:52:19
Speaker
The Mets were hoping he could help turn the franchise around. Not only did he have the potential to help on the field, He could provide them with a much-needed box office revenue as well.
00:52:31
Speaker
The team provided him with a $200,000 signing bonus to forego college and flew him to New York to show him off to the press. But before Strawberry was able to play in Shea Stadium, he had to first prove himself in the minor leagues.
00:52:46
Speaker
A few days later, Strawberry found himself in a landscape vastly different than that of Manhattan or Los Angeles. Kingsport, Tennessee. was home to the Mets team in the rookie-level Appalachian League and Strawberry's first step in the Mets' farm system.
00:53:03
Speaker
During that 1980 season, ah in 180-played appearances, he batted.268 with five home runs. His work ethic was still sloppy, according to some, and he was often late arriving to the stadium.
00:53:17
Speaker
One time even missing a game. What's that about, Darryl? You know, look, when I was down and in the miners and in Kingsport and in fucking Lynchburg and all those podunk fucking towns down in the south, you know.
00:53:34
Speaker
I was usually taking 75 and see what happens is down around Dalton, it, it switches to two lanes and you're, you're going to be late. If you got to give yourself, you know, 45 to an hour extra, if you don't know what you're doing, uh, you're going to blow your fucking spot. And, and that's, you know, it's like anything else, you know, shit happens.
00:54:04
Speaker
that good enough for you, g Gordon Liddy?
00:54:11
Speaker
A player not of Strawberry's status would have had harsh repercussions for missing a game, but not Strawberry. His absence was largely ignored by those in the organization. The following season, Strawberry was assigned to the High A Lynchburg Mets.
00:54:26
Speaker
He continued to struggle and failed. know else is in Lynchburg? I do. Do do you I wouldn't be asking you if I didn't. You never know.
00:54:38
Speaker
Okay. It's Jack Daniels, pal. Did you spend a lot of time at the Jack Daniels distillery? Yeah. Me and Michael Hayes would go down there and just tear shit up.
00:54:50
Speaker
I mean, we're talking, yeah know, one time ah was down there eating Bea Arthur out from behind and, and, and free bird was getting her sucked off.
00:55:02
Speaker
And she was wearing us like a pair of fucking Chinese finger cuffs. Me, on Darryl Strawberry, Bea Arthur, and Michael P.S. Hayes at the Jack Daniels factory. Can you believe that shit?
00:55:25
Speaker
Oh. the follow the Let's see. Um... Off the field, the 19-year-old Strawberry was homesick, called his mother every day. On the field, he was struggling against many of the pitchers he faced.
00:55:38
Speaker
They easily fooled him with hard fastballs inside and breaking balls. so Strawberry possessed the power to put the ball into play, but he struggled to make the contact that had made him a legend at Crenshaw. In 123 games with Lynchburg in 1981, Strawberry managed to hit 13 home runs and bat.255 the season.
00:55:59
Speaker
The next spring, Strawberry continued to climb the farm system ladder and started the season with Double A Jackson. It was in Jackson, Mississippi, where he became locked in at the plate and began to flash the talent the Mets saw in him when they drafted him.
00:56:14
Speaker
think they had flash down there one time. Yeah? You big fan of Jackson?
00:56:23
Speaker
Did you enjoy yourself in Jackson? You like Jackson?
00:56:28
Speaker
You know, Johnny Cash wrote a song called Jackson. Fantastic. Thank you, Daryl. ah He began to see the ball better and figure out opposing pitchers. Although he struck out 145 times, by the end of the season, he had driven in 97 runs and hit 34 homers.
00:56:44
Speaker
Rather than take the winter off, he the Mets had Strawberry extend his year by playing winter ball for the team in Caracas, Venezuela. Uh-oh. he credited the experience with speeding up his development.
00:56:58
Speaker
Speeding up? Is that right? And better preparing him for the coming season. Strawberry remarked. You know, before I tell you what I said, I feel it's important to let you know that although, you know, I was in Venezuela, I'm not one of those Venezuelan gangbangers that Donald Trump's out there rounding up.
00:57:17
Speaker
And by the way, did you see he rounded up a gay hairstylist from California and sent him down there? see that, Gabe? I didn't see that.
Daryl Strawberry's Mets Career Highlights
00:57:27
Speaker
This poor little fella.
00:57:28
Speaker
All he wants to do is ladies' hair, and now he's down there in fucking Gitmo with his head shaved.
00:57:38
Speaker
Sad state of affairs, isn't it? If I ever see that guy in the Hall of Fame, I'm going to give him a fucking jackknife through the table. Anyway, I'll tell you what I said now because I feel better.
00:57:49
Speaker
I felt confident after my season in South America because I'd been able to hit some of their best pitchers. See, aren't you glad I made you wait for that? I am, thank you. To start the 1983 season, the Mets sent strawberry to their top affiliate, the AAA Tidewater Tides.
00:58:06
Speaker
The organization wanted to keep him in the minors for one more season before bringing you up to New York, but many believed he would see the Big Apple before the year was over. Under manager Davey Johnson.
00:58:17
Speaker
Strawberry got off to a great start at AAA. yeah My first ten games or so at Tee Water were spectacular. Whether I had improved to the point where I could hit anything any AAA pitcher could throw, or yeah whether AAA pitching wasn't as good as it was supposed to be, yeah i don't know.
00:58:39
Speaker
At the same time, the the Mets were off to a dreadful start, and the New York newspaper headlines began to call for Strawberry. In early May, Darrell was summoned from Tidewater. Mets general manager Frank Cashin regretted having to call him up ahead of schedule, but Strawberry had the potential to help fill the empty seats, and on May 6, 1983, made his major league debut.
00:58:59
Speaker
he made his major league debut Strawberry stood in imposing 6 feet 6 inches tall with a playing weight of 190 pounds. He batted and threw left and was a right fielder for most of his career.
00:59:13
Speaker
His debut against the Cincinnati Reds was... less than spectacular, with three strikeouts and a foul pop during a six plate ah six plate appearances and an extra innings win by the Mets.
00:59:25
Speaker
Strawberry also worked a couple of walks worked a couple of walks and stole a base late in the game. The Mets manager, George Bamberger, encouraged the rookie to go out onto the field and have fun.
00:59:39
Speaker
However, Bamberger resigned on June 2nd and was replaced by Frank Howard, one of his coaches. Howard began to demand more out of Strawberry and assigned hitting coach Jim Frey to help.
00:59:52
Speaker
Under Frey's tutelage, Strawberry began to blossom and adjust to major league pitching. His struggles at the plate began to disappear, and in September, Strawberry found his groove.
01:00:03
Speaker
It was also at this time that Strawberry began to succumb to the New York lifestyle and started experimenting with cocaine. crazy and all that Couldn't smoke dope.
01:00:14
Speaker
So you take that out of the equation. it's just like so the other thing you can do is you can take pills and you can drink booze. You're one of the top guys. i mean Most guys drink beer. Most guys don't drink liquor.
01:00:28
Speaker
So you can't be you know bloated toad and drink. you By this time, yeah it takes 20 beers to get a buzz. So you know it's like, well, I got to work every night. So can't be a bloated toad with a big fat beer gun.
01:00:42
Speaker
So it's like you'd so you take pills right and just kick them in with, them with this you know, four or five beers, you know. And I had never taken a pharmaceutical drug in my life before I got in the bodybuilding. I mean, until i got in the wrestling industry.
01:00:59
Speaker
What was your, I guess, drug choice, if you want to talk about it? Well, I had to do it. Well, I mean, you know, I was in that Soma era, you know. Everybody, yeah. Somas were very popular.
01:01:12
Speaker
His immaturity and desire to be liked left him vulnerable to negative influences. Daryl was someone who always wanted to be liked, said his mother, Ruby. During his rookie campaign, Strawberry was introduced to cocaine by two Mets veterans who told him it was the right thing to do in the big leagues.
01:01:32
Speaker
Despite his off-field habits, Strawberry continued to produce quality numbers. His 108 hits, 26 home runs, 74 RBI, and 19 stolen bases were enough for him to be voted National League Rookie of the Year.
01:01:46
Speaker
After the season, Howard was replaced as manager by David Johnson. Under Johnson, Strawberry and the Mets became a powerhouse franchise for the rest of the decade. Now, and let me stop you. Can I ask you something here? Mm-hmm. what do you think the chances are this now let me rewind here when this was said that it sounded something like this this is the thing to do in the big leagues my friend we are the guys you think he might have been one of those two that introduced naryl to the cocaina and said hey hey i do not like it my friend i just like the way it smells hot
01:02:29
Speaker
ah Without question, not only that, but he also heard, if you're not going to take the take the blow, move on. Oh, Wally. Move on. Yep, yep.
01:02:41
Speaker
I think that's a good chance. Take the line and move on. ye that's gonna get That's going to get edited out, but it was me sniffing very loudly. Gabe just blew a rail.
01:02:56
Speaker
The drip is the best part. Once once so once Johnson was at the helm, the master god damn it the Mets began to turn things around on the field and pursue produce wins with regularity.
01:03:09
Speaker
The attendance at Shea Stadium began to increase, and it was becoming clear throughout the city that the Yankees were not only not the only show in town anymore. Rookie Dwight Gooden was a stud on the mound, and so and Strawberry was continuing to rise to stardom in the outfield.
01:03:25
Speaker
being named to the all-star team in July. He also began to use amphetamines with regularity during the 1984 season. Most members of the hard-partying Mets team already were As amphetamines were allowed, ah and sorry, as amphetamines allowed the players to go drink and abuse drugs all night and play the next day with no hangover or real feelings.
01:03:48
Speaker
By the end of the season, Johnson had guided the Mets from a team that came in last place the previous year to a second place finish in the NL East. See, now it's getting good.
01:04:00
Speaker
Uh-huh. Yeah, it's the drugs. The 1985 season again saw an increase in the number of Mets victories. The team that won only 68 games in 83 rang up 98 victories in 1985.
01:04:13
Speaker
Strawberry continued to produce at the plate and help put fans in the seats. Attendance at Shea Stadium was now more than double that of his rookie year. 2.7 million versus 1.1 million.
01:04:25
Speaker
Strawberry was also married that year to Lisa Andrews, a tumultuous relationship that resulted in court appearances and ultimately divorce. Although he appeared in 30, you think the drugs might have anything to do with him having ended up ah divorced from Lisa Andrews?
01:04:43
Speaker
yeah Let me ask you, Daryl. Let me ask you, Daryl. Do you think that the the the rampant drug abuse that you were partaking in in the Mets clubhouse during the the the mid early to mid 80s resulted in, um you know, ultimately the the dissolving of your first marriage?
01:05:05
Speaker
I mean, you know, look, it it's really like anything else. And the fact that, like, like yeah you know, you're married and you see each other and you get tired of one another and, you know, it's it's this, it's that, it's it's everything, it's nothing, it's it's, you know, it's the way you look, it's how you're breathing.
01:05:33
Speaker
yeah So, did it help? yeah Probably not. But, you know, if it if the left one don't get you, the right one will, you know.
01:05:44
Speaker
Although he appeared in 37 fewer games than he did in 1984 due to minor health issues and slight injuries, Strawberry still scored 79 runs, hit 29 homers, both more than his previous year's total.
01:05:56
Speaker
While it was enough to earn Strawberry a trip to his second consecutive All-Star game, his performance was not enough to help power the Mets into the postseason. But that would change the next season.
01:06:10
Speaker
We had a sense of destiny in 86, you know, a belief it would all come together for us and, you know, really a great historic display of baseball power.
01:06:24
Speaker
The expectations were high for the Mets as early as spring training. They had won 98 games the season before and were, in almost every aspect, more skilled, more intense, and more arrogant than the Cardinals, Cubs, and the rest of the NL East.
01:06:38
Speaker
After an indifferent start to the season, things began to turn around for the Mets. They went on one of the greatest runs in franchise history, reeling off 11 wins in a row before losing a game, then winning another seven in a row.
01:06:51
Speaker
The Mets were on fire through May. Although he was having a great year on the field, off it, Strawberry continued to alienate himself from teammates as his ego grew. His head was as large as the Goodyear blimp, and with each new magazine cover story and autograph request, it only got bigger.
01:07:09
Speaker
His teammates felt he was vicious and selfish, taking a great deal of pride in making others feel inferior. By now, Strawberry was routinely abusing drugs and drinking heavily in the clubhouse.
01:07:22
Speaker
Under the MLB drug policy in place in the no team could compel a player to take a drug test. And with the Mets winning in amazing fashion on a regular basis, no one was willing to rein Strawberry in and get him under control.
01:07:38
Speaker
You know, Gabe, my friend, i I feel like I can call you a friend, right? Sure. so This is around the time that ah you know I ah was at a party of ah princes and I ate out ah Felicia Rashad from behind. And you know what happened?
01:08:00
Speaker
What's that? Fucking Claire Huxable farted in my eye. And I got fucking pink eye. Pink eye. Davey tried to blame it on me being hungover and drunk, but the truth was I couldn't see out of my fucking right eye because Ma Huxtable dropped a shitbox on it.
01:08:20
Speaker
You believe that? I don't.
01:08:26
Speaker
You don't think I can fuck Claire Huxtable? I don't. i think I think you're lying to me, Daryl. Daryl Strawberry... 1986 New York, and you're telling me i can't fuck Claire Huxtable? The Huxtables lived in Philadelphia.
01:08:45
Speaker
Oh, you're a smartass. Okay. Well, but I got news for you, pal. Look, nobody likes a dumbass. Yeah. Well, I am the walrus, goo-goo-ka-choo. Fantastic.
01:09:01
Speaker
Fantastic. ah For most of the 1986 season, the Mets were the first place team and the others in the division futilely chased them. The 108 win Mets were heavy favorites to capture the World Series.
01:09:15
Speaker
The National League Championship Series went six games and included two thrilling extra inning contests before the Mets emerged victorious over Houston. ah Strawberry hit a crucial home run in Game 3 to propel the ah ah the Mets to victory and finished the NLCS with two home runs and five RBI.
01:09:34
Speaker
The 86 World Series, putting the Mets against the Boston Red Sox, opened at Chase Stadium on October eighteenth After six games, the teams were tied with three victories apiece, and Strawberry was a non-factor at the plate.
01:09:47
Speaker
But in Game 7, when it came time to deliver, Strawberry stepped up. Boston had mounted a mini rally in the top of the eighth inning to pull within one run of the Mets, but when Strawberry let off the bottom of the inning with a solo home run,
01:10:01
Speaker
There was no doubt it was New York's night. The miracle season of 1986, highlighted by so many late-game heroics and the team's never-say-die attitude, concluded with the Mets as the world champions.
01:10:14
Speaker
The Mets' descent from a World Series height started before the 1987 campaign, when ace pitcher Dwight Gooden was admitted into a drug treatment center a week before the start of the season.
01:10:26
Speaker
Strawberry was able to hide his demons throughout the season and produced the plate. He had career highs with 108 runs scored, 104 RBI, 36 stolen bases, and 39 home runs.
01:10:40
Speaker
Despite his increased offensive output, though, the Mets finished second in the division and missed the playoffs. ah Gabe, I'll have you take note right there.
01:10:51
Speaker
If you look as you read my stolen bases and my homers, I was almost the first 40-40 guy, not that fucking freak Canseco.
01:11:03
Speaker
Very, very close. Very close. And I would have got it if I wouldn't have the fucking pink eye from Claire Huxtable's fart.
01:11:16
Speaker
How long did the pink eye last, Dwight? I would have hit one more homer and stolen four more bags. Exactly. It You do the math. Go in there.
01:11:28
Speaker
Do me a favor. Take my stats and then divide them by the number of games played. And you tell me I wouldn't have had one more homer and four more stolen bags.
01:11:42
Speaker
I'm a fucking 1099. All right. I know how to do math. Great. 33 and a third or something. In 1988, Strawberry again reached the century mark in runs scored and RBIs, smashing a league-leading 39 homers and led the National League in slugging and OPS. He was named to his fifth straight All-Star game and was runner-up to Kirk Gibson for the MVP.
01:12:09
Speaker
The Mets finished in first place. How's this territory doing now? That's good point. ah First place in the NL East, winning 100 games. However, they failed to recapture the magic of 86 and fell to the Dodgers in seven games in the NLCS. In 1989, Strawberry was unable to repeat the success of the previous two seasons. and Across the board, his numbers fell off dramatically, and the turmoil in the Mets clubhouse spilled out in front of the media when Strawberry and teammate Keith Hernandez got into a scuffle during a team picture day with the cameras rolling.
01:12:47
Speaker
Tim, you want to talk about that, Daryl? What happened that day? when What was the problem?
01:12:53
Speaker
Look, Keith was all geeked up. you know and He's back there and he's in the clubhouse and his he's smoking his cigarettes like he's some fucking Frenchman just walking around with that mustache and and talking about how you know it's the Mets are about this and the Mets are this and that.
01:13:14
Speaker
and I looked at him and I said, Listen, Keith, it's not always about you, motherfucker. And that's when he came at me. And I fucking hit him with a big boot. Jackknife, one, two, three.
01:13:29
Speaker
As Strawberry suffered through his worst year with the Mets statistically, 225 batting average, the team began to falter and failed to make the postseason. When David Johnson was fired early in the 1990 season, Strawberry declared he would leave the Mets at the end of the season as a free agent.
Strawberry's Post-Mets Career and Personal Struggles
01:13:47
Speaker
He performed well and earned a seventh consecutive All-Star appearance. His last season as a Met concluded with 37 home runs, career-best 108 runs batted in. That offseason, Strawberry was true to his word and left the Mets to return home to Los Angeles, signing a five-year contract for $20.25 with the Dodgers.
01:14:07
Speaker
whi the dodgers Strawberry's first year in LA, 1991, was his best in Dodger blue, but even though he was named to his eighth all-star contest in July, he batted just.265 and his other numbers were down. In 1992, Strawberry played in only 43 games before injuring his back.
01:14:29
Speaker
He had back surgery in September. He tried to return far too soon and was off and on the disabled list for much of 1993, getting just 100 at-bats as his batting average tumbled to a disappointing 140.
01:14:44
Speaker
As he fell apart on the baseball field, his personal life was no better. He was going through a messy and public divorce from Lisa, and the ever-present drug and alcohol abuse rumors swirled around him despite his claims of sobriety.
01:14:59
Speaker
Eventually, Strawberry came clean to the Dodgers about his addiction, and they placed him on the disabled list, sent him to the Betty Ford Clinic. When he was finally released from treatment, the Dodgers cut tide cut ties with the once-hailed hometown hero.
01:15:15
Speaker
Now, ah I must stop here because will, you know, as i have the ah baseball deviants as we've established, I will remind ah our audience and you Pardon me.
01:15:32
Speaker
Look, the, the Dodgers not only got Darryl strawberry, they also got Eric Davis at the the same time. And they were going to win every world series from the the the rest of the nineties on basically like it was over.
01:15:48
Speaker
And that did not fucking happen because both of those men ah completely fell apart and just, you know, goes to show you, I, Because I remember specifically there was a fucking Sports Illustrated for kids.
01:16:03
Speaker
And, like, I think I was in fifth grade. So it would have been 91, 92. ah And I remember and it had both of them on there. And, yeah, like, dude, the fucking Dodgers were.
01:16:17
Speaker
Daryl and Eric Davis. That would be like if ah you had, maybe not today, but I don't know, say Six years ago, you had fucking Mike Trout and Bryce Harper on the same team.
01:16:32
Speaker
thats That's what it was, but you know it didn't work out.
01:16:37
Speaker
After being away from the game for a little over a year, Strawberry found a team willing to take another chance on him, and he signed with the San Francisco Giants on June 19, 1994.
01:16:48
Speaker
Strawberry was now 32 and promised the team that he was ready to live a drug-free lifestyle. The Giants felt his guarantee of sobriety was genuine and took a chance on the slugger.
01:16:59
Speaker
With Strawberry in the lineup, the Giants flourished and won nine straight to come within four and a half games of the division-leading Dodgers. Despite his less than overwhelming numbers, four home runs, 17 RBIs, and a.239 average and.92 at-bats,
01:17:14
Speaker
the Giants were impressed. The player strike of 1994 interrupted the team's plans to capture to the division from the Dodgers, but the Giants were left with a positive impression from Strawberry and his recovery, and he had a job waiting for him in 1995 in San Francisco.
01:17:33
Speaker
what What do you remember about your time in San Francisco?
01:17:40
Speaker
ah you know, I was good the Cow Palace every now and then, but... ah you know Other than that, i I enjoyed the local fair at a Fisherman's Wharf.
01:17:51
Speaker
That was great. ah Lots of interesting culture. ah I ah tell you, one of my favorite things to do was to go down to that, yeah what do they call it, the Hyde Ashbury? I can't tell you because I was so fucking high, smoking so much crack down there.
01:18:11
Speaker
But it's where Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead used to hang out. Anyway, the Haight-Ashbury district, I think it was called. So yeah I like that. And then, ah oh, yeah, I'd go by the house where they ah filmed Full House. You remember that show?
01:18:28
Speaker
i do. I'd go by there, and ah I'd eat out the chick that played Becky from behind. But she didn't fart in my face, so my eyes were good.
01:18:41
Speaker
That's good. It's a fun town. Yeah, it sounds fun. yeah big big that's ah What's her name? Lori Loughlin. Yeah, think she yeah she fucking went to prison or something. Yeah, she did for helping her kid yeah with s SAT t this or that or some bullshit, some white person bullshit, that you know like rich white person problem stuff that she just made an example of. Yeah.
01:19:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's the SAT on the S-A-A-P-S-C-A, I think. Holler. Sure. We're listening Buck, you know. Yeah, but Strawberry would not get the chance to get back back to the Bay Area. Troubles with the IRS arose over... Fucking Rotunda. Yeah, let me tell you about Rotunda. This asshole.
01:19:30
Speaker
So he comes up to me, it this and he says... You know, I i think yeah you made a little bit more of a payoff at this card show than I did.
01:19:42
Speaker
And I said, hey, fuck you, Mike. You know what? hope your fucking boy doesn't live to be an old man. That's right. Fuck it.
01:19:54
Speaker
Did he also wish the same to you?
01:20:01
Speaker
Yep. Brother. How about it? Troubles with the IRS arose over unreported income from card show appearances and facing right off facing the prospect of jail time.
01:20:13
Speaker
Strawberry relapsed into using hard drugs and began to fail drug tests and display erratic behavior. Drugs.
01:20:22
Speaker
Well, he was, if you could see the cloud of smoke raising from Blake's microphone right now. Well, he was prepared to go to jail. I'm sorry, vape vapor, not not smoke.
01:20:34
Speaker
While he was prepared to go to jail for the income tax charges, Strawberry was let off with probation, community service, and a hefty bill for back taxes. But once again, he would get another chance to turn his baseball career around, this time with the New York Yankees.
01:20:49
Speaker
No hot dogs. I'm not there, so I guess you can hot dog. Fuck it. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner believed he could rehabilitate Strawberry and that the 296-foot porch in right field was no match for his uppercut swing.
01:21:06
Speaker
From 1995 through the 1999 season, Strawberry was a member of the Yankees, but the dreams of Strawberry home runs landing in Yankee Stadium's right field porch with consistent regularity were never realized.
01:21:21
Speaker
Assistant to the traveling secretary, George Costanza, ah helped Strawberry work on... time I gotta to plan that out next time. He was never able to recapture the glory he had experienced across town.
01:21:34
Speaker
and no You know, George did teach me how to incorporate salted meats into my erotic behaviors. Pastrami is my my favorite and and probably the most erotic of the salted cured meats.
01:21:48
Speaker
That's where I landed. The 1995 season was, hello to Pauly, 1995 season was full of setbacks for Strawberry. His ah legal troubles resulted in court-ordered restrictions that dictated where he could reside, the hours he was able to be away from his residence.
01:22:06
Speaker
Steinbrenner's determination to help Daryl turn his life around resulted in the Yankees appointing a full-time guardian to shadow Strawberry at all times. as well as regular drug testing to ensure that he would not slip up again.
01:22:19
Speaker
After rehabbing at the Yankees facilities in Tampa, Strawberry was ready to hit the field. In 95, he played 31 minor league games for the Tampa Yankees, Gulf Coast League Yankees, and the Columbus Clippers, before rejoining the big league club for 32 games towards the end of the season.
01:22:41
Speaker
sh Strawberry spent 63 games in 96 with the big league club and hit 11 homers. He helped the Yankees defeat the Orioles in the ALCS, hitting three home runs and collecting five ah RBIs, and then went on to win another World Series over the Atlanta Braves, alongside former Mets teammates David Cohn and Dwight Gooden.
01:23:01
Speaker
In 1997, injuries derailed Strawberry. played only 16 minor league games and 11 for the Yankees. For the for first time in his career, he failed to hit a home run that season. Then 1998 was a bounce-back season for Darryl at the plate, as he played in over 100 games for the first time since the 1991 season.
01:23:20
Speaker
In a part-time role, he belted 24 homers, had 57 RBIs to go along with a.247 average. And for the third time in his career, he became a World Series winner, But that accomplishment was overshadowed by a diagnosis of colon cancer that kept him from playing in the World Series. In 1999, after cancer treatments, after a 140-day MLB-mandated suspension for possessing cocaine and soliciting an undercover police officer for sex... Look, let me tell you what happened there.
01:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, would you? So, you know... It's 99, right? Were you at the Jiffy Park? No, i didn't have any popcorn. and yeah we are It's 99, so, you know, TLC is big at the time, right?
01:24:17
Speaker
And I like, ah you know, I like... Tables, ladders, and chairs? I'm talking about T-Boz left eye and chili, pal. um talking hey eric got it I'm talking TLC.
01:24:31
Speaker
talking pussy. All right. Pussy or pimento loaf? Which one are you, pal? Shout out to Nasty Nate and JB. They're the only two people in the world that will understand that.
01:24:45
Speaker
But that's fine because that's the kind of show this fucking thing is. It's a real shitbox, like I said. Anyway, so I say, hey,
01:24:57
Speaker
how much is it going to cost for me to eat the three of you out from behind and have you not fart in my eye? And turns out one of them was a fucking cop.
01:25:12
Speaker
She was a trailer. One of the three members of TLC was a police officer? No, they just looked like TLC. They weren't really them.
01:25:22
Speaker
It was just three chicks that looked like it. They were Chinese, though, not even black. But other than that, they looked exactly like them. But the one that was a cop, you know what her was? She was the T. The T stood for?
01:25:35
Speaker
Stood for Trailer. was Ray Trailer's Chinese daughter. He had her in an over... What do you... What?
01:25:46
Speaker
What?
01:25:51
Speaker
He was in a tour of all Japan. his You know, fuck it.
01:25:57
Speaker
Don't worry about the timeline on it. You know, it's an alternative to to universe, that kind of shit. The 37-year-old Strawberry returned to the Yankees in limited playing time. He managed only three home runs. However, he was...
01:26:12
Speaker
Able to recapture postseason glory once again when he hit a decisive three-run home run that played a critical role in helping the Yankees sweep the Texas Rangers in the division series, then hit another homer as then the Yankees knocked off Boston in the ALCS before moving to another World Series championship over Atlanta.
01:26:32
Speaker
When the season concluded, Strawberry retired from baseball as an eight-time All-Star with four World Series rings. Not a bad accomplishment for an inner-city kid from an impoverished neighborhood.
Daryl Strawberry's Post-Retirement Life and Legacy
01:26:43
Speaker
After baseball, Strawberry continued to struggle with addiction and run-ins with the law. In 2000, his cancer returned, and he started chemotherapy. However, this setback was not enough to quench his desire for drugs, and he spent most of the next three years
01:27:04
Speaker
Sorry, dog issues. He spent much of the next three years in and out of treatment centers and prison on drug-related charges. As of 2015, Strawberry was married to his wife, Tracy.
01:27:16
Speaker
And was an ordained minister. Not, I believe, in the Church of Satan. A frocked one, by the way. Nice. Not defrocked like you. He devoted a great deal of his time.
01:27:28
Speaker
Well, you've never been part of a black mass. That's wonderful news. He said he remained remorseful. Every mass I do is a black mass. I see what you did there. He devoted a great deal of his time to his family, church, and his charity work for those affected by autism.
01:27:43
Speaker
He said he remained remorseful for his past actions and was fully aware of the impact they had on his career. With his natural talent, Strawberry could have been one of baseball's greatest hitters if it were not for his naive nature, immaturity, and ultimately his substance abuse.
01:27:58
Speaker
In a book published in 2009, he admitted,
01:28:04
Speaker
You know, I made some good choices and I made some really bad ones. I mean, it's like anything else. Fuck it.
01:28:15
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Daryl, Eugene Strawberry on the whole ball game. What a masterful tale you told there, Gizl. Thank you for that. ah Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it? like Like, as we were going through the kind of, um, and look, he clearly, till you hear this next one, because, like, you think he he was fucked up and had some issues with the jurors, uh,
01:28:44
Speaker
old Doc ah is is certainly a little bit more screwed up. and and You see why he is Razor. It's really fascinating the the similarities between and and where they ended up landing.
01:29:02
Speaker
it's It's shocking to me. like The numbers are there, especially if you look at who else. i mean look at you know i Blake and I, especially in in early episodes of the program, would joke about Harold Baines.
01:29:14
Speaker
But like the fact that Harold Baines is a hall of famer and, and Daryl strawberry is not a hall of famer is a little, little suspect. Yeah. You know, he just lost too many of his good years to all this shit.
01:29:29
Speaker
So he, ah, there's no reason, you know, but if Daryl would have stayed healthy, he would have ended with a 500 plus homers and all that bullshit.
01:29:41
Speaker
But it, you know, he, uh, Like he said, he made some good choices and some really bad ones. I'd forgotten about all the world series rings. He rings. He won. And with the Yankees. Yeah.
01:29:53
Speaker
I didn't three of them. I didn't remember him being there for four years. I knew he was there towards the end in the nineties, but I don't know. He didn't play a whole lot. So except for a few years, but anyway, you know, me and me and Daryl, we never crossed paths. Uh,
01:30:11
Speaker
On the same teams, but we played for a lot of the same teams. Yeah, yeah, let's see. i was yeah i was a y I was Yankee, and I was a Giant. I was a Cub, too, but Darryl wasn't ever a Cub.
01:30:27
Speaker
You know, I think you guys, ah well, maybe he he might know. No, checked. I went back and double-checked my own records. I didn't remember much, but... What about all star Games? All-Star Games.
01:30:40
Speaker
I think the year that I started ah the All-Star Game, I think that was 1989. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was in the All-Star Game that year. um Nice guy, ah but, you know, a little wild-eyed when I remember meeting him.
01:30:56
Speaker
Well, you got to remember, too, where the 89 game was. That was out there and ah Anaheim, so you're close to home. So he was undoubtedly fucked up, you know, Rick.
01:31:08
Speaker
That's funny. The wild-eyed. Well, we're... is he a southern boy? We're all a little fucked up of here and there, aren't we, then? Well, no. You're really fucked up. Whether it's cocaine or, you know... Juice. Homicide. Sure, yeah.
01:31:24
Speaker
Hernandez. You There's addictions all over. i don't know. look Gabe here, I think he's addicted to gambling again. He's been on the MGM app a lot and betting on this March Madness nonsense. see He put together a parlay the other day that was supposed to win him something like $9,000 to $7,000 on
Gabe's Gambling Anecdote and Humorous Banter
01:31:44
Speaker
a $20 bet. He was up all night, so excited about it. We were talking, and he was just all through. the And he won the first four games of the day. It came parlay, and then it all came crashing down and a hurting side.
01:31:57
Speaker
was to say, it was at four what last night, and it Are you telling me it immediately fell off after that?
01:32:05
Speaker
um I don't know where the fuck the two of you get off talking about my bullshit. But, ah you know, hey, you know, if I can throw $20 at something and come back with $97,000. Sure. That's great.
01:32:17
Speaker
The issue, of course, is that that never happens. You can't win it if you're not in it, you know. You make a real valid point. like Thank you for that. Appreciate your your help and your support in this endeavor.
01:32:32
Speaker
That's why I'm here. yeah Should we visit the good doctor? Hey, yo. so hold Hi, Doc.
01:32:45
Speaker
Alright. Oh, shit. I just noticed the name of the person that's written this. So, our story by Q Marvin.
01:32:57
Speaker
ah This article was written by Cluck. I tell you, Roy Boy, I bet he tastes like a savory duck on a Saturday night at a Japanese restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, hanging in the window.
01:33:11
Speaker
Like the Chinese TLC that Daryl met. I had no idea that Ray Traylor had a Chinese daughter. Half Chinese. Half Chinese, of course, yeah.
01:33:23
Speaker
Oh, man. if but she was a tree I bet she was a big girl. ah chad ah
01:33:30
Speaker
You better watch yourself, because I'll be doing TLC. All right. All about Chinese finger cuffs in there somewhere. Chinese finger cuffs, whoa, whoa.
01:33:41
Speaker
carries a ah He carries some finger cuffs. And and they're Chinese, too. Yeah, there you go. He carries some finger cuffs and they're Chinese, too. You're looking for trouble. He's going to come inside you. You're looking for Chow Mein.
01:33:56
Speaker
Oh, if you're looking for Chow Mein, he's going to come inside you. Hard times. Keep on dancing. I'm going to keep on dancing, Chow. Oh, shit. That's gimmick infringement.
01:34:07
Speaker
I don't know what's happening.
Dwight Gooden's Early Life and Baseball Beginnings
01:34:09
Speaker
There is no doubt that Dwight Doc Gooden should be considered one of the baseball's biggest stars of the 1980s. There is also no doubt that he should be thought of as one of the game's largest cautionary figures of the same period.
01:34:28
Speaker
Dwight Gooden was the youngest of three children born to Dan and Ella Gooden on November 16, 1964, in Tampa, Florida, where Dan, who had only a third grade education, worked for the Cargill Corporation and coached youth baseball, while Ella, his second wife, worked in a nursing home and a pool hall.
01:34:51
Speaker
According to Gooden, baseball was one of his father's great passions, and it permeated the relationship between the father and the son from the beginning. Often this meant that Dan and Dwight would spend countless hours talking practicing or watching the game in order to make Dwight the best player possible.
01:35:12
Speaker
This treatment paid off very quickly and as the lanky Gooden aged. At seven, he learned the overhand curveball that would help him dominate hitters during his big league career.
01:35:26
Speaker
At nine, he was an integral part of a 10 to 14 year old little league team that qualified for the little league world series and though Dwight couldn't play in the tournament because he was too young, and also playing softball against adults who played semi-pro baseball for his father.
01:35:46
Speaker
Despite this early success in what Gooden considered a fairly idyllic, nurturing childhood, his home life was also full of turmoil that would foreshadow many of the pitcher's struggles later in life.
01:36:00
Speaker
Most importantly, Gooden was exposed to a heavy dose of substance abuse, His father was a heavy drinker, adultery, and violence. This ah included being present the day his sister was shot five times by her husband while five-year-old Dwight played with his cousin, Derek.
01:36:19
Speaker
Oh, you know, we were we were at the club, and the guy had the gun in his hand. And I'm like, Kev, Kev, come here, help me out.
01:36:34
Speaker
And before I knew it, she was gone.
01:36:41
Speaker
Still good and continued to excel on the baseball diamond, eventually becoming a standout picture for Hillsborough High School in Tampa. He was scouted by teams, including the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, and the Chicago Cubs.
01:36:56
Speaker
Hey, there you go, Rick. You could have had Doc on your Cubs. Hey, hey, I'm glad you brought me up there. I appreciate it. um Sure. I've been sitting here just waiting. I've been chomping at the bit. I heard Gabe walking around the house all week this week trying to to get down this. ah Well, as you know, you know, we've talked about this before. Razor Ramon was my favorite. Oh, yeah.
01:37:16
Speaker
When I was watching the wrestling in the early ninety s and Sure, sure. You know, the fact that you're you're equating, ah you know, one of the better – African-American pitchers in the history of baseball ah witha with a professional wrestler from the 1990s. I thought ah thought, who better to help out in this case than than a ah ah ah ah a white pitcher ah from baseball in the 80s and the late 70s?
01:37:44
Speaker
and I've been working on it, and that's so I thought I would i would maybe help out if if you're okay with it a little bit and if Gabe wants a little break. Well, I got tell you, Rick, I've been is is I'm at a loss a little bit.
01:38:00
Speaker
i I'm so excited that you've decided to become more of a part of the creative endeavors here at at the whole ballgame. And the way you just shove your nose into it and just get right in there, whether you're wanted or not, is something to just be admired.
01:38:17
Speaker
You know that? and And you live on a couch. They're behind a couch. I'm sorry. But you just, you don't stop And you don't let that def define you.
01:38:28
Speaker
And I appreciate that. So, yes. Well, well look, at 75 years young, yeah you know you you've got to keep on keep on keep on going every day. You thought I was going somewhere else with that, didn't you? I know you did.
01:38:42
Speaker
was going to say, this gimmick, a Frenchman motherfucker! I listen to the program, and I love Jimmy's eyes. But anyway, especially when he's got his glasses off, it that makes you feel some certain kind of way.
01:38:55
Speaker
Anyway, so before we get into it, doesn't seem like there's a lot of quotes in this one that I'm going to have a lot of chance, but um certainly I'm going to play the part here of Doc.
01:39:08
Speaker
here I've been working on this one all all week for you, so here we go. You ready? Okay.
01:39:14
Speaker
Say hello to the bad guy. Oh, that's wonderful, Rick. You're very good.
01:39:27
Speaker
Thank you You can tell that you watched a lot of that 90s wrestling with with your dad, like we were talking about earlier. Yeah, we sure did. Razor, the faces of fear.
01:39:39
Speaker
And when they were on, they were on, I mean, eventually we... you know, Saturday night, WCW Saturday night wasn't but't the one to watch no more. We would be watching on Monday evenings. and Right. Razor makes the jump.
01:39:56
Speaker
It wasn't quite as easy ah a transition, right? Right, You've got to wait two and a half days to get your wrestling fix after a good juicing.
Crossover Discussion of Athletes and Personal Struggles
01:40:06
Speaker
ah Not the same. but So, you you know, yeah what we would oftentimes do is we would,
01:40:12
Speaker
We would cut on the girls for two days before before letting them go entirely. So we spread that that adrenaline out a couple days so that we could have a proper come down on watching the wrestling show.
01:40:26
Speaker
So what we've had here is a real full circle moment in the show because as as Rick just laid out, these poor girls suffered for two days longer because Ted Turner...
01:40:41
Speaker
told Scott Sassa to give Eric Bischoff two hours on Monday night and look at the butterfly effect that that caused in Effingham on the farm. My God, that's what we do folks.
01:40:56
Speaker
I'll tell you, you know, what I, uh, is what we do. I sent Donnie a, uh, a couple of fingernails from my girls, uh, uh, in the mail this week. So he should, he should be on the lookout there as well.
01:41:09
Speaker
Um, ah One of them is the one I used on your boss, too. So he should he should hold on to it. and I mean, use it if you want to. you know If that's your kink, I'm i'm not here to kink shame nobody.
01:41:22
Speaker
Use it as if it just is known and needs to be unsaid is how you would use that fingernail in sexual manner. Well, sure, you've got to slide it in between. you gotta to s slide it in between The gap, even if you don't have a gap, just the space in between your teeth.
01:41:39
Speaker
you know And sometimes that resistance, that pain that comes from sliding it through yeah is is all you need to go over top the plateau that you're looking for. You understand? to come. That's what you're saying?
01:41:52
Speaker
Well, I mean, I don't like to be quite as ah vulgar as all that. Sure. Now, why would you be vulgar? You're just juicing girls. That's right. That's right. Okay, let's get back to your story. All right, thank you.
01:42:02
Speaker
Chico. Thanks for letting me be part of it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no problem, bad guy. Still Gooden continued to excel in the baseball diamond, eventually becoming a standout. I feel like I read that. Did I?
01:42:14
Speaker
No. Hillsborough High in Tampa. He was scouted. Oh, yeah, there it was, by the Mets, Reds, and Cubs. He also received scholarship offers. The Mets took Gooden with the fifth overall pick in the 1982 amateur draft.
01:42:28
Speaker
and he signed a deal worth $40,000 with an $85,000 signing bonus. Like most prospects, Gooden started out in the low minors. In this case, the 17-year-old Gooden was assigned to Kingsport in the rookie-level Appalachian League, and after just two starts, was promoted to Little Falls in the Class A New York Penn League.
01:42:53
Speaker
Overall, he went 5-5 with a 2.75 ERA and 11 starts and was promoted to Lynchburg in the High Class a Carolina League for 1983.
01:43:06
Speaker
This is where I met Daryl. What about his other brother, Daryl?
01:43:15
Speaker
Daryl and I thought of ourselves as outsiders. Oh, yeah. Great.
01:43:29
Speaker
I can just I can see you in every different red and black Wolfpack is back causing mass destruction it's to see the bad boys are wrestling it's a man of the mission Wolfpack
01:43:47
Speaker
you do the jerky ah wolf packck Let me prove a point. dude believe that Yeah. That's a good song. Don't turn your back on the wolf pack.
01:44:00
Speaker
You might wind up in a body bag or on Rick's table. ah rick I mean, Rick's dad's table. I can see you in every single NWO Walmart shirt ever made, Rick.
01:44:14
Speaker
Just all of them. Just hanging off of you somehow, even as big as you are. There's there's still like three times too big. I'd always buy a 5X, you understand. That's the place to get it.
01:44:28
Speaker
At Lynchburg, it looked as if Gooden's progress may have stalled. Like most young pitchers, he tried to survive purely on his fastball and was beaten around by the more advanced hitters. At that point, Gooden said it took the tutoring of his pitching coach, John Cumberland.
01:44:44
Speaker
To get him back on track, brother, by teaching him to set up hitters by throwing outside. From that point on, Gooden was dominant on the mound. Off the field, a number of incidents foreshadowed the problems he would face later in his career.
01:45:00
Speaker
At Lynchburg, Gooden became a frequent drinker. How about that? wonder he drinking. At the time, he thought this was a normal part of being a young professional.
01:45:11
Speaker
However, when he missed a bus after partying with teammate Darryl Strawberry, the Mets brass became concerned for the young variety. i mean, we were outsiders.
01:45:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you were. That's right.
01:45:32
Speaker
um But at the same time I'm glad because a lot less guys will be dropping dead young. You know they do have a good wellness program. They they contacted me. um mean i um I went to 12 rehabs.
01:45:43
Speaker
I paid for the first six. Vince paid for the last six. By then they had their wellness program up and running. and And the last two or three weren't just 12 step deals because that wasn't working for me. I was going there. I was paying attention. I was participating. But it wasn't sticking.
01:45:59
Speaker
And then Vince's experts kind of went, well, let's maybe try re treating the root cause and not the symptom. The symptom is drugs and alcohol abuse. You know, let's treat the cause. And that's when I started to make a little headway. I mean, I'm sitting here straight today.
01:46:13
Speaker
course it is early. So you had to go deep. Of course it is early, he said. and don't know if you heard that. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's, he's supposedly straight at the time. That's from 2009. I think um that clip.
01:46:31
Speaker
And ah yeah, like right in the middle of him saying I'm straight today. And then just off to the side of the camera, looks at the camera and goes, of course it is early. Yeah. Well, you know, it's one of those things where like, you know smoking weed doesn't count. This doesn't count, whatever.
01:46:45
Speaker
But God, I got such a problem with like just that whole sentiment. Cause here's the deal. uh so i gotta i don't know probably maybe i've never come up but so i got a master's in social work so i got a little bit of a background with some knowledge of this kind of shit and i don't i can't i don't know how the fuck anybody could go through that many rehabs and that whatever and you know take you said the last two or three were different but
01:47:17
Speaker
for it to take eight, nine, 10 rehabs before you figured out about the whole treating the root cause and all this, like, what are you doing? Just go in someplace and get like fucking an abuse or something like, cause it just, it just, it just sounds like such horse shit.
01:47:33
Speaker
There's like just these little, like, you know, pieces of truth in there. And well, look, that's interesting because of what I'm going through currently with my brother. It's the same concept, right? is um Like, yeah, maybe maybe right. Like just for some, this doesn't apply to Scott Hall ah because he was at least in the wrestling era of his life.
01:47:59
Speaker
And I think that's what caused most of this problem anyway. He was never in danger of being homeless. Yeah. um But like, Makes it all worse. I would say 90% of the issue right now with my brother is it's not even about the fact that he's an addict, although he is, and he's been on methadone for 12 years or something like that on and off.
01:48:26
Speaker
But he's been in and out of rehab three times in seven months, mostly because he's not got anywhere else to go that's that can provide a warm bed outside of a homeless shelter.
01:48:40
Speaker
Yeah. Right? Like, so that aspect of it, I think, is strong as well. And so this time, apparently, he's finally going to get moved out to a three-quarter house. But, like, I think that's that's part of the that vicious cycle of going back and going back and going back is that they just can't get their feet underneath them enough to have consistent housing and a job to pay for that housing.
01:49:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's certainly, you know, I did a lot not a lot of, my semester at my undergrad was at the with the ah agency that worked with the homeless. And it's a, I, it's a fucking, it's a nightmare because and to get one thing, you need these two things that you can't get without this thing that you can't have without these. And they don't have any of it because they've, they're fucking homeless.
01:49:35
Speaker
Okay. Like it's, so yeah, like trying to navigate that is a nightmare in and of itself. Cause like you try to figure out how to get somebody their ID or whatever, their birth certificate, or they need this or that. And it's just, yeah. I mean, all of this comes back again to the bullshit, this full circle bullshit that we're, we're dealing with now, you know, with something as simple as, you know, people going on,
01:50:02
Speaker
Twitter and complaining about how anybody could possibly um be against the idea of having to show ID at the polls, right?
01:50:14
Speaker
Like, because they have no forethought or right ability to think about any situation that isn't their own situation. Yep. Right.
01:50:25
Speaker
The reason the laws are in place that say you don't have to bring your ID with you to the polling place is because that is tantamount to a poll tax because it costs money, not just to go and get an ID, but to get to the DMV, to leave your house, to it's so it's discriminatory against people who aren't homed.
01:50:48
Speaker
Yeah, no, they don't think about anything like that. They don't. There's fucking half of the shit in the world that didn't even cross their mind because the only thing you really need to know is that you don't fucking know everything and, and everything, ah there are things out there that don't affect you that you don't even fucking know or understand.
01:51:12
Speaker
And, you know, that's not for you to know or understand. So just sit, sit that the fuck out and maybe listen to the person that it is.
Dwight Gooden's MLB Success and Addictions
01:51:22
Speaker
anyway, the point being, and I was like, i can't, I just can't,
01:51:28
Speaker
I mean, maybe it's a product of the time or whatever too, but he's going to rehab like even in you know, the 2000s and shit. I just, I can't see any fucking place that they would get sent to that just that wouldn't understand right off the bat that like what you're doing is you got to treat the root cause or nothing's going to work and i that's what just didn't jive to me. Like what the the fuck is, are these guys going you know, whatever, but Also, it's Scott Hall, so who the fuck probably happened? Yeah, he lying.
01:52:02
Speaker
It's horse shit. yeah I mean, there's that. That does change it. so Let's see. ah Despite these problems, the future was bright for Gooden at Lynchburg. He finished the season 19-4 and struck out 300 hitters in 191 innings. That's nuts.
01:52:24
Speaker
This earned him a promotion to AAA Tidewater. in time for the International League playoffs. Gooden got two starts for manager Davey Johnson's team. The first was a loss to Columbus in the semifinals.
01:52:36
Speaker
Gooden then started the decisive game in the playoff finals and defeated the Richmond Braves to win the International League title. Gooden finished his season by pitching a complete game win against Denver as Tidewater won the AAA World Series, a round-robin event.
01:52:57
Speaker
The biggest event that propelled Gooden's career coming into 1984 occurred off the field. The 1983 Mets went through two managers, the aforementioned George Bamberger and Frank Howard, and finished sixth in the NL East.
01:53:16
Speaker
General Manager Frank Cashin embarked on a rebuilding At the heart of the rebuild was the core of the 1983 Tidewater team, including manager Davey Johnson and playoff call-up Dwight Gooden.
01:53:32
Speaker
As for whether he felt he belonged at the big league level, Gooden was up and down on the idea. He made his major league debut on April 7th at the Houston Astrodome.
01:53:43
Speaker
That's my fucking anniversary. How about that? How about it? Hey, you know, they introduced me. ah ah They talked about round robin. You know, there's a girl that used to live in Lynchburg. We called her round robin.
01:53:58
Speaker
No doubt. She would, a lot of the times we'd, ah we'd hang out after games and we'd go down the street. There's a strip club called lickety splits.
01:54:10
Speaker
We'd end up there. And Round Robin was a dancer there, little overweight, but sure had a dump truck on her, right? Because she's around. she'd ah she'd She'd back her ass into my face and ah pretty regularly would fart right in my eyeballs. Oh, no. And, well, you did I bet you didn't know you can actually build up a tolerance to pink eye.
01:54:36
Speaker
It's crazy. I don't get it anymore. My wife here in, well, no, I'm Doc Good and I'm not Scott Hall. ah So I'm still alive. My wife farts on my face regularly. It's great.
01:54:50
Speaker
ah It sounds like it. Another win for the good guys.
01:54:57
Speaker
i can't believe Daryl didn't tell me about it. He's usually, so he wants to make sure that you, you know, all the facts like, that That medical one about the tolerance to the pink eye seemed like something. Hey, yo.
01:55:12
Speaker
Daryl's a bullshitter, and we both know it.
01:55:17
Speaker
He'll tell you the same thing, I promise. It's early, though.
01:55:25
Speaker
You know, Scott got it. wait, no, Doc? What?
01:55:32
Speaker
However, Gooden was little unsure his pending success after a rough – oh, wait, no. He made his major league debut April 7th at the Astrodome and won, surrendering one run in five innings and striking out five.
01:55:45
Speaker
After the game, Gooden told his father he felt he would win a lot of games at the big league level if he – what a weird place for a fucking – at a big league level if he continued to pitch the way he did that day.
01:56:00
Speaker
However, Gooden was a little unsure of his impenetra. Oh, clucky boy here. He's not the best writer, is he? That's right. That'll get cut out. Probably.
01:56:11
Speaker
Gooden was a little, I becocked for those of you that were unsure his impenetra. There it is. After a rough outing at his next start against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, he pitched three and one-thirds innings and gave up six runs.
01:56:29
Speaker
This time, He told his father that he may not be ready yet for life in the big leagues. Luckily for the Mets, Gooden was wrong.
01:56:42
Speaker
During the rest of 1984, the young right-hander dominated the National League on the way to a 17-9 record with a 2.60 ERA. His weapon of choice?
01:56:53
Speaker
The strikeout. During his rookie season, Gooden averaged 11.4 strikeouts for nine innings, and struck out a total of 276. Fans the media took to calling him Dr. K or Doc.
01:57:08
Speaker
His performance earned him Rookie of the Year honors in the National League. In 1985, Gooden was even better. He continued to rack up wins and strikeouts. He would go eighteen and one during one stretch of the season and and ended that season 24-4, mowing down hitters with an overpowering fastball and devastating curveball.
01:57:30
Speaker
He struck out 268 hitters in 276 and two-thirds innings and finished with an ERA of 1.53. All of this would earn him the National League Cy Young Award.
01:57:42
Speaker
His dominance on the field helped the Mets begin to look like contenders and made Gooden a proven commodity for advertisers. By the start of the 1986 season, Gooden was a spokesman for Polaroid, Kellogg's, Spalding, and Toys R Us.
01:57:56
Speaker
Hey, look, I love to take pictures. Yeah. Right. Uh, especially of round Robin. Uh, I'd eat cornflakes off of her dumper, uh, at home.
01:58:08
Speaker
So Kellogg's natural fit, and you know, uh, Everybody loves Battle Creek, right, Billy? ah Spalding, right? It's baseball, right? so And then Toys R Us. I'm a Toys R Us kid, man. and I'm a big kid. Look what I can do.
01:58:27
Speaker
I can take more drugs than you. Thanks, Scott. You really nailed that here. Daryl, wow. I'm a big kid now.
01:58:49
Speaker
Hey, you like my G unit t-shirt? I do. And I also like how you have your bandana tied in a knot on the front of your head. It's just over to the left hand side. Yeah. to That's the crip side. You understand? You guys listened to POC back then, right?
01:59:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
01:59:10
Speaker
You need to understand people. That's this lean that, that Gabe has done as he's answering this question of, yeah, that's right. Like, like, he's going so he's He's waiting to jump a jumping off point here, and he's going lace me with something.
01:59:27
Speaker
So what can you tell this? only thing I lace is fentanyl in my Coke, bro. What about your Kool-Aid?
01:59:37
Speaker
Orale. Viva la raza. Vis-a-vis.
01:59:43
Speaker
By good admission, during the 1985 season, he began to sample the nightlife of Major League Baseball with the help of some of his Mets teammates. For Gooden, who was 20 at the time, this meant a continuation of his heavy drinking.
01:59:58
Speaker
Then, while in Tampa, fucking T-Town, after the season, Gooden experimented with cocaine.
02:00:09
Speaker
write down a one a Right right? You could drive all the way from Tampa down to Daytona. And that's where all the good Coke was. is ah there's this There's this old school Highly Court that's right there off of A1A in Daytona, ah real real near to actually Orange, Port Orange.
02:00:30
Speaker
ah And, uh, there's a bunch of dudes that would line up outside the highlight courts and they'd sell Coke to the old men, the old Cuban dudes that went to go see highlight.
02:00:41
Speaker
And, uh, those Cuban guys, they were serious enough about the drugs that nobody was going to sell them like fucked up dope. Right. So Dwight and I would go there on the way down to daytow.
02:00:55
Speaker
Incredible detail. I appreciate that. Yeah. The, uh,
02:01:04
Speaker
They would never, but Dwight, Daryl would never let me drive. I was ah a real shitty wheel man.
02:01:13
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there's no fucking way I was going to let Doc drive. He drove once and fucking nails shit his pants.
02:01:24
Speaker
So, nah, no way. Plus, he doesn't, he didn't know where the fuck he's going. he doesn't know the highways like i do. He didn't know all the best routes. know the best places to stop.
02:01:36
Speaker
the yeah Doc's a great wingman, but you know a wheelman? Nah, I don't think so, pal. Anyway. Cocaine use in the majors was no huge shock at this time.
02:01:51
Speaker
It permeated clubhouses throughout the league as much as performance-enhancing drugs would a generation later. Gooden became a seasoned user during the 1986 season.
02:02:02
Speaker
all while he continued to dominate on the field. In 1986, he went seventeen and six struck out 200 hitters, and led the Mets to the National League pennant, all while falling deeper into drug addiction amidst the party atmosphere that was the 1986 Mets.
02:02:21
Speaker
In the World Series, Gooden was less successful. In his first start in Game 2, Gooden earned a loss as he struggled and was chased after giving up six runs and five innings to the Boston Red Sox.
02:02:34
Speaker
Then in game five, Gooden lost again. This time he gave up four runs and four innings. Still, four nights later, the Mets won the World Series, and Gooden celebrated by doing cocaine until the sun came up.
02:02:49
Speaker
I mean, what else is there to do, right? We drove up to Canada. I mean, it was ah as a hell of a celebration. The only time got to ever drive with you was on the way to WrestleMania 18. Crossing the border into Toronto.
02:03:05
Speaker
We're crossing the border and like, we've got like, you know, I guess you would call them pills on us. And we're sitting there, prescription drugs. We're drinking wine. I'm drinking wine. He's not drinking wine.
02:03:18
Speaker
wasn't drinking that. No, you weren't drinking. Not until after. And so, as we're getting there, we realize, like, we're going over border we... We probably shouldn't have these Well we chose to drive instead of Because we both had like, they couldn't get us in because we've had couple of arrests in our lives.
02:03:37
Speaker
Yeah, I was young. I was not in full this foolish gangster anymore. But, so it's just like, we didn't have a whole lot pills with us. It was in one of those deals like we kind divvied them up and went like, instead of just being like, well we could throw them out the window. Yeah, you could throw them out the window could throw them down your throat. We went,
02:03:58
Speaker
So we threw him down our throat and we get to the place the guy tells us, pull over. Do look fucked up?
02:04:10
Speaker
Yes. The guy wants to get Wrestlemania tickets and we're in like, this is like the border, you know, the border, the Canadian border. It's like three or four. Yeah, it's three or four in the morning and Scott's got a Hallenberg and he's he's like, it's like, he's trying to get it up on the counter and I'm,
02:04:26
Speaker
like walking like I look at him, I look at him, and the guy goes in the back row and goes, Scott, look fucked up.
02:04:36
Speaker
He goes, dude, don't say anything. We got out, we went to Tim Hortons and ate donuts. I think we just sat there for a while. We drank coffee, just sat there. Luckily the dude was a fan.
02:04:50
Speaker
Didn't the office set us up with stuff in that event? Yeah. We had WrestleMania tickets, we had merchandise, we had everything. We had everything to get. like because evening They weren't sure even with the legal documents they going to let us in.
02:05:02
Speaker
We both had gun charges. Which is always good. They liked the gun charges. No, the one when everybody went to... Puken Park? No, not that way the one. The we wanted walked in and... it' ah and And we walked in, and but we're all just absolutely filled out our minds. We look there's like the cop convention.
02:05:24
Speaker
That was the one when they gave they give Sean the option to either go to hospital. What town? Remember? We left Indianapolis. We were going like... Is that the summit?
02:05:37
Speaker
No, it was a different time. It was the one where it was like, I sent Hunter around to get all the beer bottles. I think on the way, the thing was like, you were a pretty bad shape. You might not remember. You might as well play insanity. I'm crazy about that kind of stuff.
02:05:54
Speaker
You might not remember. I don't remember because it wasn't like it was one time. That one night we got wasted? Yeah, one night. How about the one when, I don't know if told this story, remember the one when Kid got all messed up and it was like when Hunter first joined us and Hunter, like everybody was smacking Kid, he'd go, come on Kid, get out of here. And Hunter smacked me wall and went, whoa, you're little bit new here and you slapped him that hard. You can't him.
02:06:22
Speaker
Right. That was great to have him. You're because after, see, Before you got there, well Sean always drove. i have no one I never drive unless it's with I'm a kid. If it's me and kid, then I have to drive. Because kid's the only wheel man worse than me. right But then when Kev came,
02:06:38
Speaker
sorry We'd be stumbling out of the bar. You gotta drive. Why? You're the biggest. have more body weight. ah So then I had to go to the 50 miles. I wouldn't get a buzz on the 50 miles outside the town.
02:06:52
Speaker
Everybody else would be just out of their minds. I'd just be driving. I'd see a sign. Dayton, 52 miles. I'm in. Gooden's drug use continued in the off-season. He began to have troubles at home despite fathering his first child.
02:07:08
Speaker
Dwight Gooden Jr. Rumors of his drug use spread like wildfire throughout baseball in his hometown of Tampa. All of this led Gooden to suggest that he would submit to a drug test to quell the talk.
02:07:23
Speaker
Gooden was arrested later in the offseason in Tampa. Then, early in 1987 spring training, he failed the test for cocaine. At the Mets urging, he entered the Smithers' The Waylon Smithers Alcoholism and Rehabilitation.
02:07:40
Speaker
Get in the moose. Talking baseball. Maine to San Diego. Daryl. Rehabilitation Center in New York City.
02:07:51
Speaker
New York City. Get a rope. This first stint in rehab cost good in the first two months of the 87 season and did not cure him of his addiction. No.
02:08:03
Speaker
off the field As we know, it took 12 times anyway. so Yeah, yeah, yeah. He finally got there. Off the field, by his own admission, he continued to drink throughout the 87 season, though he did stop using cocaine for a prolonged period.
02:08:21
Speaker
On the field, Gooden was still the dominant pitcher of the Mets had counted on since 1984.
02:08:28
Speaker
In 25 starts, he went fifteen and seven with an ERA at 3.21 while striking out 148. Gooden was also on form through the end of the 80s, though there were signs that all the innings and possibly the hard living were catching up with him.
Gooden's Career Decline and Brief Yankees Comeback
02:08:45
Speaker
In 1988, with still a strong Mets squad, Gooden stayed clean and was with a 3.19 ERA as the Mets won the
02:08:52
Speaker
as the mets won the in l east He was still off cocaine in 1989, though he missed two months with a shoulder injury and made only 17 starts.
02:09:05
Speaker
As the 1990s opened, there was a changing a guard with the Mets. Gone, or about to be so, were many of the key players from the playoff runs of 86-89. Gooden, however, was in great shape and pitched like it.
02:09:19
Speaker
In 1990, he went nineteen and seven while striking and two hundred and thirty two innings His number fell off the next three seasons, though he remained somewhat sober.
02:09:31
Speaker
That changed in 1994. Well, didn't it? Didn't a lot of things change in 94, Doc? ah Well, you know, it's you know ah that day at Wrigley Field, you guys you guys covered it already. There's not really much to say about it. but Yeah, that was a Harry's game, right?
02:09:49
Speaker
ah harry was Hey, a reason I wanted to take part. in the program today. I knew it. knew you were going to bring up the toughy game. Yeah, that was where we met you for the first time, wasn't it, Harry?
02:10:05
Speaker
It's true. Hey, i was ah I was happy to bring myself along to the ballgame. i I got to tell you, though, I've been listening to this guy talk about all of his exploits of drugs and alcohol abuse, and I got to tell you, I got to tell you, oh what a hero, what a champion he is.
02:10:22
Speaker
You big fan of that? I see. was big fan of, look, at the end of the day, we're only around on this, this, this rock for a short amount of time and you got to make most of it. You understand? Sure. I, ought but see, hot dogs and beer.
02:10:36
Speaker
Right. It's just my drug of choice. Right. No, I get that. Whether it's hot dogs and beer, cocaine and barbiturates. Sure. Doesn't really matter. Does it? No, no, it doesn't. But what I was going to say is I, see, I thought you were going to find issue with these men and,
02:10:51
Speaker
the way that they let their, uh, their predilections get out of hand. Whereas now, yeah, I mean, look at the end of the day, you gotta be a man. You gotta take control of your addictions, hold on to make them work for you. Right.
02:11:06
Speaker
As opposed to working actively against you, uh, the way these two men have and, uh, and then make jokes about it for some reason. You know, ah I make jokes about my addictions because I have that shit under control. Like Gabe does with the gambling, you know?
02:11:21
Speaker
Right. And as long as you keep your eyes closed, it all works, right?
02:11:27
Speaker
i what do you I don't got my glasses handy. I don't know what to tell you. i you just It's close my eyes and shake my head, and you make fun of me either way. So ah why don't you tell your story walking, motherfucker?
02:11:41
Speaker
Hey, don't talk to me like I'm stony.
02:11:46
Speaker
I gotta tell you, Harry, though, I always appreciate you as stony more than I hate I hate hearing Hawk call him Stone Pony.
02:11:56
Speaker
Why they call him Stone Pony? Well, I think it's because Hawk Harrison's a dumb bitch, frankly. okay I mean, he spent so much time with Wimpy, and Wimpy got raped so many times. you know he he He's got to call him Stone Pony, because ah what what was you can't call him Wimpy.
02:12:16
Speaker
you know ah Because Stoney, if a man tried to rape Stoney, Stoney would have him strung up before he could say what. That's true. That's a good point. I think didn't really put that spin on it.
02:12:28
Speaker
All right, I'm going to read about the Tuffy game, okay, Harry? Hey, get to it, pal. All right, thank you. That season, Gooden became a historical footnote when he gave up three home runs to journeyman outfielder Tuffy Rhodes on opening day at Wrigley Field.
02:12:45
Speaker
He kicked a bat rack and broke his toe. the in
02:12:54
Speaker
Oh, God. This is the most pathetic sense I've ever read. The injury required a rehab assignment, and during that time, Gooden began using cocaine again. Have you ever broken your toe?
02:13:08
Speaker
I hope you just started doing it because you were bored and not like for pain management. No, man. It's not a joke. like you can You can make fun of me all you want. but Outside of tooth pain, man.
02:13:21
Speaker
yeah you You break a toe, what's the doctor going to do Put a cast on your toe? No, you just got to suffer through that shit, man. And the cocaine helped the pain. i don't know what to tell you.
02:13:32
Speaker
I know. My little girl tore my pinky ligament. And it's still like six months later and it's not right. I understand that. It doesn't bend at the end anymore. That's fine.
02:13:47
Speaker
We're not the same. No, we sure not. We sure not. You not like us. Gooden's second relapse coincided with the beginning of the player strike in 1994. Here we are again.
02:14:03
Speaker
yeah we are again While at home, he continued to use cocaine in his room while his wife and children were in the house. Gooden failed another drug test and was suspended for all of the 95 season.
02:14:19
Speaker
Gooden entered Narcotics Anonymous with the help of Ray Negron, a consultant with the Yankees, an assistant to the assistant to the assistant of the traveling secretary.
02:14:31
Speaker
And he began working toward a comeback. Gooden's comeback began in the winter of 96. In February, he signed a free agent contract with the Yankees. During his early starts that season, he was largely ineffective, and it seemed that a comeback would be a short one.
02:14:49
Speaker
Still, Gooden rallied to pitch a no-hitter against the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium on May 14. He finished 11-7 with the Yankees and was firmly back in the majors, albeit as a journeyman.
02:15:05
Speaker
Gooden was back with the Yankees in 1997 and even made his start in the American League Division Series. He got a no decision as Cleveland defeated the Yankees 3-2.
02:15:16
Speaker
After the season, he signed a free agent contract with the Indians and went 11-10 over two seasons. Gooden pitched for Houston, Tampa Bay, and the Yankees in 2000. After a tough spring he chose to retire before the Yankees released him.
02:15:34
Speaker
It's been a joyous ride. Sounds like it, Gooden said. Gooden worked as a front office assistant for the Yankees, but began using cocaine again.
02:15:48
Speaker
This led to his third attempt in rehab, as you know there were 12, in 2004. Drugs were not Gooden's only problem during this period.
02:16:01
Speaker
In March 2005, he was arrested for hitting his girlfriend. Robin. Not Dana. At which point. Yes, yes. Not flat Robin.
02:16:13
Speaker
She doesn't make as much. At which point he left the Yankees. In August, Gooden led police on a high-speed chase in Tampa that quickly, yo, brother, I was down. i was driving i was driving the Charger down in T-Town, it was going by Paul Orndolph's house, dude. And then I saw Doc Gooden fucking, he was in a high-speed chase, and his ORV, dude, bullet holes.
02:16:39
Speaker
And I was like, shit, this is like the time I ate Wade at Godfather's. And then Brooke T.D. was like, dad, you're full of shit. That didn't happen. And I said, no, but her sister did, dude. What? He missed a court-ordered domestic abuse prevention class, which triggered a 10-day incarceration in Hillsborough County Jail.
02:17:00
Speaker
Gooden was sentenced to three years probation in community service stemming from the traffic stop and fugitive arrest. As part of this, he underwent rehab for a fourth time in 2006.
02:17:13
Speaker
After three months of sobriety, Gooden relapsed in the spring of 2006. This relapse was a parole violation, and Gooden's been sentenced to a year and a day at a maximum security state prison in Lake Butler, Florida.
02:17:31
Speaker
Ever been to Lake Butler? No. I don't recommend it. Thank you. I'll take that to heart. After the prison stint, Gooden tried to once again establish firm footing in his personal life.
02:17:46
Speaker
This included reconciling with the Mets during the final year play at Shea Stadium in 2008 and the first year of play at Citi Field in 2009. He was inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame in 2010 along with Davey Johnson and Daryl Strawberry.
02:18:01
Speaker
Despite this, Gooden relapsed again that year. a string of erratic behavior followed and Gooden was arrested on a litany of charges including child endangerment in New Jersey when he operated his vehicle under the influence of cocaine and Ambien with his son Dylan in the car.
02:18:21
Speaker
Well, he should have been fine then. Doc, that's just Doc being balanced, the cocaine and the Ambien. that's That's what we call Dwight.
02:18:34
Speaker
That arrest led to more spiraling behavior and Gooden was a recluse for much of the summer of 2010 while living in a hotel in New Jersey.
02:18:47
Speaker
Then, with the help of his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, Gooden attempted to reclaim his life. He appeared on TV's Celebrity Rehab. Gooden continued treatment in Bergen County, New Jersey, and in 2011 was placed on five-year special probation In 2011 on charges stemming from his last arrest.
02:19:10
Speaker
ah You know that Dr. Drew guy. Oh boy. he was He was the guy on Celebrity Rehab. I liked him. I've seen him lately though. I don't know what the hell happened to that guy.
02:19:23
Speaker
Like, ah ah he's he's, like, turned full on, like, Dr. Oz conspiracy theorist, dude. Like, I don't know if you saw him on Twitter or what, but, like, he's he's out there talking about COVID not being real, and he got all Republican and shit.
02:19:40
Speaker
I don't know. I think it's, ah like, Adam Carolla's money is just, like, warped his fucking brain. I was going say, you think Carolla had anything to do with that? everything He's had everything to do with it. Carolla built something for himself, right? like and Congratulations to you, right? You built a studio and you got podcasts. It's good for you. And he's got his buddy along with him. and ah He's just seems to have thrown his, his, the entirety of his morality out the window ah just to, to, to make a quick buck, which is real fucking disappointing, especially for a kid who used to listen to Loveline.
02:20:18
Speaker
I'm sure you used to jack off to it, didn't you? All the time. Fuck it. Yeah. Fuck it. Right. That's right. It's like, and it's like anything else.
Pop Culture and Personal Reflections
02:20:28
Speaker
That's what say. um You know who Corolla is to me?
02:20:33
Speaker
He is a shitty poor man's Norm MacDonald. That's that's yeah. Shitty. Yeah. Shitty poor man. and That's fine. Yeah. He's got the same kind of delivery for sure. He's trying to be Norm, but he's not because there was only one Norm.
02:20:50
Speaker
You you can't you can't do that. And it's he's he's like you know what he is. He's like if ah say let's see.
02:21:04
Speaker
I need one more. Okay. Say Ben Savage, Norm MacDonald, and Adam Sandler did third male procreation. That would be what came out of it. Would be Adam Carolla.
02:21:15
Speaker
Pretty good. Pretty good. So let's wrap. Good for you. yeah Not Fred. Ben. Needs to be Ben. Correct.
02:21:26
Speaker
When's Topanga going to get naked?
02:21:30
Speaker
The other one did. The redhead. The redhead from Boy Meets World that dated the older brother, Maitland Ward. She's doing porn now. I don't know who that one is.
02:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's later on in the run. You probably weren't watching anymore. I remember when um Sean gets the girlfriend and they they have to go 90s with it, do the jungle fever.
02:21:51
Speaker
The black girl. Yeah, yeah. She's crazy. um like Real life crazy. yeah Why do you know this? ah because we we had like the cast come to New York Comic Con. Oh, okay. 2020.
02:22:08
Speaker
I can't remember if it pre-pandemic or post-pandemic, but it was the first time they ever did a whole cast thing. And it was the last time they did it, too, because Ben Savage has recently gone a little nuts. Oh, yeah. Like, he ran for Democratic office in California and then, like, completely cut off all of his co-stars. Like, has not talked to any of them since. And they all have a podcast. He won't return phone calls. Yeah.
02:22:31
Speaker
um But maybe, you know what? Maybe it's not him going crazy. Maybe it's him just not wanting to do deal with celebrity anymore, which I can't really blame him for, frankly. Well, I got to tell you that his buddy's face really pissed me off, so I don't i can't imagine wanting to see him either.
02:22:50
Speaker
He had a gap in his teeth like Dave. Yeah, well. Ryder Strong. that was his name. Ryder Strong, yes sir. Bitch-ass motherfucker. Look, was Topanga there?
02:23:01
Speaker
Yeah. Do you smell it? It was fucking awesome. What'd you smell like? Look, look, look. Hey, this is for Papa, right? This is what we're talking about here. That's right. Let's do this, all right? This is what we were built for. You remember you you remember Herbal Essences, right? Oh, yeah.
02:23:19
Speaker
That's what I got out of the deal because like we were backstage after the main stage thing. That's right. ah I got a picture with her. I got to find it. I'll find it and put it on the Twitter or something. Send that to me.
02:23:32
Speaker
But basically, it's... ah So, i you know, you you take a picture and you put your arm around them, but like not on the waist because that's inappropriate. So it's like you're kind of just hovering. Right. but you Because you don't.
02:23:45
Speaker
You went a little lower this time, didn't you? Huh? No. Close enough to smell her hair. You know i mean? that's That was the key. And so, yeah, i I took a whiff and it was very, very like fruity and you know what i mean? Just really sweet smelling like that sweet shampoo.
02:24:01
Speaker
Yeah. Very, very, very nice. now not Not white diamonds at all. Now, let me ask you this, Gabe. Did she fart in front of you?
02:24:12
Speaker
She didn't. No. Okay. Okay. Look, I'm still in pop culture. There's there's a chance. Thank you, Papa. Baba booey.
02:24:25
Speaker
All right, let's wrap this up. As of 2015, Gooden has been sober since March 11th, 2012.
Dwight Gooden's Sobriety Journey
02:24:31
Speaker
What a weird fucking way to say that. i can As of 2015, that's right.
02:24:37
Speaker
Living in New York, he is the spokesman for PinkTide.org. a sports charity that helps in the fight against cancer. In 2015, he said he still loved baseball and especially the Mets.
02:24:54
Speaker
um Just as an addendum, ah in
02:25:04
Speaker
goodden returned to rehab disclosing that the first time he went, he was just 21. Here's what he said to the New York Post. I never thought I'd see myself at 54 going back to treatment.
02:25:16
Speaker
First time was at 21, but you know, ah basically I'm going away tonight to try to get some help to save my life. I'm very embarrassed, very shameful. I feel bad for anybody I disappointed or let down this time. I mean, at my age, I've been doing this for 30 something years.
02:25:36
Speaker
And so that's where we currently sit in Dwight's story. ah He's been sober since 2019.
02:25:46
Speaker
OTD, baby, as they say. Wait, no. ODT, baby. One day. ODAT. Fuck it. You know what they say, baby? They say ODB. They say, this old dirty bitch. I've got a lot of pussy. Pussy. Hey, did you have meat truck?
02:26:06
Speaker
yeah Yes. And it was bad like it was a bad barbecue sandwich. That's all it was. great You were both in Schamburg, right? Yeah. yeah What'd you get?
02:26:20
Speaker
I got a fucking pink eye. She farted in my eye.
02:26:25
Speaker
And with that, we leave you. Because we can't top it. That, my friends. What is it, Blake? This is a whole fucking ballgame.