Dammit, Doc.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Dwight Gooden charged with driving under the influence and other crimes-- including endangering the welfare of a child-- after getting into a two-car accident in Franklin Lakes, NJ earlier this morning.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/gooden_busted_on_dwi_charges_in_r0kzWwVANxBp4sXMO2Le8J

[Guest Edgy DC]

After reading that he was working on sobriety without support meetings, I'm sorta unshocked, and disappointed the Mets let him into the fold under such circumstances.

[metirish]

Nothing shocking here but damn it is right.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

The Franklin Lakes Police Department is also under fire for cleaning a spot in holding cell #3 where Gooden signed his autograph.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Swan Swan H wrote: The Franklin Lakes Police Department is also under fire for cleaning a spot in holding cell #3 where Gooden signed his autograph.

Written or genetic?

[seawolf17]

Fuckin' hell, Doc.

[Guest themetfairy]

Benefit of the doubt retracted.

[ashie62]

He didn't call his sponsor before going out.

Oh, he probably doesn't have one.

[Guest Kong76]

The douche-baginess contINuuuueewwwws ...

[Valadius]

It never ends with him.

[Guest Edgy DC]

It never ends with any of us. Until it ends.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Who was it that was worrying that the fans might not show up on August 1? We should be worrying that the guests of honor won't show up on August 1.

[G-Fafif]

When the HOF inductees were announced in January, I thought "I wish they'd have the ceremony sooner just so I'd know nobody will go AWOL [or DUI, apparently] before then." Then I thought, "nah..."

[Centerfield]

What do you expect from a former Yankee?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Centerfield wrote: What do you expect from a former Yankee?

Hilarious. I was at MFY Stadium last night -- first time EVER (new, old or really old) for an event in a Hospitality Suite. They set up the podium right next to a huge blowup of Doc celebrating his MFY no-hitter.

[metirish]

G-Fafif wrote: When the HOF inductees were announced in January, I thought "I wish they'd have the ceremony sooner just so I'd know nobody will go AWOL [or DUI, apparently] before then." Then I thought, "nah..."

I didn't read the article but the headline in the Snooze was that this would not keep him out of the HOF. Fred will officiate the ceremony in Gooden's cell.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I kinda think it maybe should. Maybe use that induction as a carrot.

[metirish]

I suspect his addiction is far stronger than that carrot would be.

What kind of home situation is there when he can be wasted at that hour of the morning(out all night?) and driving around with his five year old boy in the car, was he taking him to some sort of school or care?

[G-Fafif]

Even when one knows better, addiction is hard to overcome. I've been addicted to Doc for twenty-six years.

[seawolf17]

Let me tell you a little something about Greg Fucking Prince. Dude writes like nobody I've ever read. It's the same feeling I got when I first read Bill Simmons (except that Simmons has all that Red Sox mumbo-jumbo going on) -- it's like he's inside my damn head, all... the... time. He writes the same things I'm always thinking, except he writes them more eloquently than I ever could.

Kicks my ass, man. Every damn time. I'm honored just to be Facebook friends with the guy.

[G-Fafif]

Taking a break from interpreting inside Seawolf's head (where it's tough to read because every thought is expressed in the form of a question) to announce DOC DIDN'T DO IT!

Well, he did it, but it was Ambien he did, according to his agent.

Agent decries media portrayal of Dwight Gooden's arrest in Franklin Lakes Thursday, March 25, 2010 BY PHILIP DEVENCENTIS FRANKLIN LAKES - OAKLAND SUBURBAN NEWS OF SUBURBAN NEWS FRANKLIN LAKES � Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Dwight Gooden, whose budding baseball career was often eclipsed by spells of legal trouble and substance abuse, was arrested on Tuesday, March 23, for allegedly driving under the influence of drugs. Police say the three-time World Series champion, who won rings with the New York Mets and New York Yankees, was taking his 5-year-old son, Dylan, to school that morning when he bumped another car from behind. Police say he was driving south on Old Mill Road, near the entrance to MedCo Health Solutions Inc. Gooden�s agent, Ronald Goldstein, maintains, however, that his client was not intoxicated at the time of the accident and that his mottled background made him an easy target for police. Just three years after Gooden won the 1984 National League Rookie of the Year award, his off-the-field problems began. Gooden spent the first two months of the 1987 season recovering from cocaine abuse. He was suspended for two months in 1994 for using the drug and again, for the entire 1995 season, after testing positive. The Tampa, Fla., native stepped off the mound and released an autobiography, "Heat," by the time his problems returned in 2002. Gooden was arrested in his hometown that year for allegedly driving while intoxicated; the charge was later reduced to reckless driving. He was arrested again in Tampa the following year for driving with a suspended license. In 2005, Gooden was charged with domestic violence for allegedly punching his girlfriend and was sentenced to three years� probation later that year for fleeing a police officer who stopped him on suspicion of drunken driving. According to Goldstein, Gooden�s track record has unduly tarnished his reputation. "All the facts have been distorted by the media," said Goldstein, who also represents Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano. "He is a very good father and a very good friend. The amount of lies and untruths being spread hurts me." In a phone interview on Thursday, March 25, Goldstein said Gooden and his wife, Monique, recently celebrated the birth of their second child, a girl named Milan. Gooden has seven children, five of whom live in Tampa, he said. Gooden also was celebrating fours years of sobriety, Goldstein said, after his last arrest in March 2006 for violating probation by using cocaine. He served seven months in jail. Goldstein said Gooden was losing sleep lately because he was caring for his newborn daughter and because he had traveled cross-country signing autographs. Gooden was prescribed and had been taking Ambien, a sedative, to help him sleep, Goldstein said, and the drug had affected his ability to drive. "Four years of hard work have been destroyed," Goldstein said. "It�s just appalling." A woman who answered the doorbell at Gooden�s Shadow Lake home on March 25 asked for a visitor�s identity and, when informed, said, "No, thank you." Gooden lives less than a mile from the accident scene. Gooden�s attorney, Neal Frank, did not return a call seeking comment. Police Detective Lt. John Bakelaar said his department received a 911 call at 8:50 a.m. on Tuesday, March 23, from borough resident Ronald Schmidt, who said Gooden, 45, had struck his car. Schmidt, owner of Ronald Schmidt & Associates, an Englewood-based architectural firm, said he was driving to work from his Edgewood Road home when the accident occurred. A sports fan, Schmidt said he recognized Gooden and introduced himself. Schmidt described the exchange as "pleasant" and said Gooden told him he was taking his son to school, then returned to his car and drove away. Bakelaar said Gooden was arrested shortly thereafter, before he reached his son�s school, by Patrolman Jon Rynander and Traffic Officer Robert Lyon on High Mountain Road, near the Summit Avenue intersection. No one, including Gooden�s son � who rode, unbuckled, in the back seat of Gooden�s 2007 Chrysler Aspen � was injured, Bakelaar said. No ambulances were called. Gooden and his son were driven to police headquarters on DeKorte Drive, and were picked up by Monique Gooden after the former pitcher was released on his own recognizance, Bakelaar said. Gooden was charged with being under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, endangering the welfare of a child, driving while under the influence of drugs, driving while intoxicated with a child passenger, leaving the scene of motor vehicle accident, reckless driving, failure to keep right and failure to notify a change of address on his driver�s license. Bakelaar said police have probable cause to believe Gooden was under the influence of a drug, but that an investigation is pending on what the drug is. He would not speculate or say what, if any, tests were performed. Bakelaar said the most serious charge is child endangerment, an indictable offense that carries a 10- to 20-year jail sentence. Gooden made his first appearance in municipal court before acting Judge Francis Leddy Jr. on Wednesday, March 24, and pled not guilty to all charges. The case was referred to the Bergen County Prosecutor�s Office. Gooden most recently worked as vice president of community relations for the Newark Bears, an independent, professional baseball team that plays in the Atlantic League. Goldstein said he left the post in November after the team was sold. Goldstein said Gooden was supposed to assist the Mets at the club�s camp in Port St. Lucie, Fla., as a pitching instructor this spring, but withdrew because of his wife�s pregnancy.

[Gwreck]

For Doc and anyone else: if you are ever wrongly accused of DUI, insist on a blood test (no matter what field sobriety/breathalyzer/etc. test they give you).

Doc isn't the first person to blame it on Ambien. I seem to recall Peter Buck's "air-rage" incident was also blamed on the same drug.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

For Doc and anyone else: if you are ever wrongly accused of DUI, insist on a blood test (no matter what field sobriety/breathalyzer/etc. test they give you). Doc isn't the first person to blame it on Ambien. I seem to recall Peter Buck's "air-rage" incident was also blamed on the same drug.

R.E.M. Peter Buck? What the what?

And who prescribed friggin' Ambien-- or sleeping pills period-- to an addict?

[Frayed Knot]

Also, Tiger hasn't admitted it (at least not in public) but one supposedly in the know source leaked a story about him using Ambien shortly before jumping into his car that Thanksgiving night, hence both the accident and his sacking out right afterward.

I guess Ambien in the new Valium.

[Guest Edgy DC]

So many people are doped to the gills with prescription meds these days, it's not funny.

Which certainly doesn't make his agents account good, but probably more normalized than I like to think.

="Entertainment Weekly"]R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck is a shiny happy person, now that he's been acquitted in his British air rage trial. Buck had been accused of going on a drunken rampage during a British Airways flight from Seattle to London last April, with flight attendants saying he drank 15 glasses of red wine, verbally threatened them, tore up a printed warning from the cockpit, punched a wall, spilled yogurt all over a crew member and himself, and overturned a food cart. He was charged with one count of being drunk on a plane, two counts of assault, and one count of ''criminal damage to a quantity of crockery.''

In his defense, Buck claimed he'd had only six glasses and suffered an extreme reaction to the combination of alcohol and the prescription sleep aid Ambien, which a friend had given him and which he'd never taken before. Buck also claimed the combination had made him black out, and that he remembered nothing of the flight.

Buck hadn't mentioned the Ambien when police initially questioned him; at the time he denied being on any medication. In court, he said he was still delirious during his interrogation, but prosecutors accused him of lying to save his (and the band's) reputation. Attesting to that esteemed reputation were celebrity character witnesses, including bandmates Michael Stipe and Mike Mills and U2's Bono.

Of Buck's usual drinking habits, Mills said, ''He enjoys red wine with dinner, as do I, and he'll have a few glasses, and then after dinner he won't have any more.'' Stipe said, ''Well, he's in a pop band, I mean, he's had some drinks before -- we all have -- but he's not an alcoholic by American standards.'' (Stipe did not elaborate on what American standards for alcoholism were, or how they might differ from those of pub-crawling Brits.) Of Buck's demeanor, Bono said, ''He's actually famously known for being such a peaceable person.... I had to twist his arm to get him to go to a boxing match once because he's so sort of -- he thought it was an aggressive sport.''

After a two-and-a-half-week trial, jurors apparently found the celebrity testimonials convincing; They deliberated for just five and a half hours before returning a verdict early Friday. They also apparently bought the defense's description of Buck's actions as ''non-insane automatism.'' That's a legal term, not a medical one, though it is possible for medication to disrupt a sleeper during his dream state, causing him to act out. The medical term for that, aptly enough, is R.E.M. behavior disorder.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

It really does never end with him, sadly... until it does.

Monique Gooden said she and her children -- 5-year-old son Dylan and 4-month-old daughter Milan -- are living with her parents in their home in Columbia, Md., as the troubled 1985 National League Cy Young Award winner is nowhere to be found. "He's left us with no money," his slighted spouse said. "When I got here to Maryland, I had to go apply for social services, food stamps and health insurance for the kids. He has offered no financial assistance to us."

[Guest themetfairy]

Crap!

Is he even going to make the August 1 HOF induction?

[ashie62]

themetfairy wrote: Crap! Is he even going to make the August 1 HOF induction?

I sincerely hope not.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: It really does never end with him, sadly... until it does.

Paul Kelly wrote

about Doc.

[G-Fafif]

The Post story has no quote from Doc or anybody representing him nor even a disclaimer like "efforts to contact him were unsuccessful". This doesn't absolve Dwight Gooden but it doesn't convict him either. The whole story is one person's claim versus nothing from the person she's claiming it about.