When Dwight Gooden Reached the Mountaintop

[batmagadanleadoff]

From Joe Posnanski's favorite 60 baseball moments series for The Athletic.... this is #28 and here's my favorite line (condensed), because it's so true and it's exactly as I remember it:

And it was electrifying game after electrifying game.... Our entire summer was spent either watching Gooden pitch or counting off days until we could again watch Gooden pitch. I've never seen anyone more thrilling in sports. I suspect I never will again.

https://theathletic.com/1867768/2020/06/12/60-moments-no-28-dwight-gooden-overwhelms-the-cubs/https://theathletic.com/1867768/2020/06/12/60-moments-no-28-dwight-gooden-overwhelms-the-cubs/

Edited June 12, 2020 by Guest

[Ceetar]

Gary Sheffield called him the "Michael Jordan of 1986" when talking about an incident when the police beat the shit out of them.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Not even Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan yet in 1986.

[batmagadanleadoff]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=38608 time=1591980759 user_id=68]
Not even Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan yet in 1986.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Click on this link and expand the leaderboards to see just how dominant Dwight Gooden was in 1985.



https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1985-pitching-leaders.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1985-pitching-leaders.shtml



But before you look ... the same pitcher led the NL in most Ks/9innings and least hits/9innings in 1985 and it wasn't Doc.



Guess who? No peeking.

Edited June 12, 2020 by Guest

[kcmets]

He made the mountain shake, the green and red seats buckled. Crazy times.

[MFS62]

John Tudor had 10 shutouts that year!

We may never see a pitcher coming into the majors this year never have that many for a career.

Later

[Ceetar]

oka y, sure, i dunno, i was 4. but typically when you're that good in '84/'85, and still very good the following year, nobody's really souring on you. Yes it was obviously before Jordan but Sheffield wrote that this week, he's simply trying to explain who/what he was when it happened.

[kcmets]

I took my Mom to this game (Umpires: HP - Bruce Froemming, 1B - Terry Tata, 2B - Eric Gregg, 3B - Randy Marsh

Time of Game: 2:58 Attendance: 51,102) and one per year for a number of years after. We had zero in common in

the 80's except baseball (no fault of hers) so it was good for us. What magic Shea was when Doc pitched!



[FIMG=750]https://www.leaptoad.com/mets/scorecard_graph.php?game=3619&font=1[/FIMG]



Box Score: https://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=3619&tabno=Ahttps://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=3619&tabno=A