Free Doc: A Memoir by Dwight Gooden, Ellis Henican Page B

hitter chase a pitch he was unlikely to reach.
    The whole thing fed on itself. The more strikeouts I threw, the more the fans expected—and the more I expected from myself. Just as Davey predicted, my pitch counts tended high. But I didn’t feel any soreness or discomfort in my arm. I only started icing it after games when I saw other pitchers doing that. I figured if the older guys were doing it, maybe a nineteen-year-old rookie should too. But the ice wasn’t reducing any swelling or pain because, in my case, there wasn’t any. Not yet.
    As summer arrived, I was starting to feel almost like a rookie rock star, and the energy from the spectators only spurred me on. As I got to know the hitters better, I could tell when I had someone in the palm of my hand. Especially if I threw inside high and tight or knocked someone down early in the game, I could really see it in the hitters’ eyes. Sometimes I’d notice a batter move his front foot out of the box just as I was releasing the ball. Once I saw a batter do that, I knew I could open up the outside part of the plate. I wanted the whole lineup to feel jumpy. Every few at bats, I’d throw something inside and hard. Even when the pitch was a mistake, I wouldn’t let the batter know it. I didn’t want anyone getting comfortable when they were trying to hit me.
    It was exciting playing in front of the home crowds. But it was out on the road, spending time together, where I really got to know the other Mets players. The road is where we genuinely grew into a team. The closer we got, the more distinct the individual personalities became. Mookie Wilson, our switch-hitting center fielder, was always cheery and up for action. Left fielder George Foster, who’d been a hard-hitting part of the “Big Red Machine” in mid-1970s Cincinnati, brought a real slugger’s swagger to our crew.
    Second baseman Wally Backman would storm through the visitingteam locker room like a growling dog, yelling that the guys we were playing were “horseshit” or “fucking pussies” who didn’t have a chance against studs like us. Sometimes, he’d look at me and just shake his head.
    “You know these fuckers are scared of you, don’t ya?” he’d say about opposing batters. “Your fastball comes in at their belt and ends up near their face. Half the time they’re swinging in self-defense. Use that to your advantage, Doc. Don’t back down from anyone.”
    Ever since spring training, Darryl Strawberry had been working on my attitude. Two years older than I was, with way more life experience, Darryl specialized in attitude. “You’re a professional now,” he told me. “So carry yourself like one. Act like you belong here. Walk with your head held high.”
    Darryl and I often got compared with each other. But we were very different people. I was Tampa. He was LA. I’d grown up with a doting father. He’d barely known his. What I took as nice and friendly, he saw as naive and vulnerable. He could be a kind mentor one moment and a loose cannon the next, spewing random venom from the corner of the locker room or the back of the plane. Darryl had no problem communicating exactly what was on his mind, even if he wasn’t always 100 percent certain what that might be. Frequently, he’d rip guys apart to reporters, then turn around the next day and quietly apologize. It took me a while to realize that if he was trash-talking other guys behind their backs, he might be doing the same to me.
    Darryl and I had a lot in common. But I also had the sense that I might be complicating things for him as I staked out my own place on the team. A year before I’d shown up, he’d been the Mets’ bright, shiny object of 1983, winning Rookie of the Year and crushing National League pitchers with twenty-six home runs. After I turned up, a lot of the talk wasn’t just “Darryl” anymore. It was “Darryl and Doc.” Once in a while it was even “Doc and Darryl” who were going to save the Mets. I