Dwight Gooden, Switch-Hitter

[G-Fafif]

Perhaps some of you recall the word on Doc during his prodigy years was not only was he a good hitter for a pitcher, but he insisted he could hit even better from the left side, except management didn't want him exposing his right elbow.

Maybe you even remember that on the final day of the 1993 season, Doc, who'd been on the shelf for more than a month, came off the bench to pinch-hit a triple in Miami (a game, fittingly enough, that endured a rain delay in the ninth inning and was eventually called, putting a perfect capper on a perfect year).

FYI, this was the game.

Now, does anybody remember if on that occasion Doc was finally allowed to hit from the left side? I didn't see the game (I was out of town) but could swear I heard it referred to at some point in the years that followed as the time they let Doc hit lefty. I can find no evidence that I'm not imagining this, not in game stories, UMDB memories, career stats distinguishing this AB from all others or from the 22-year-old memory of one eyewitness I queried (who didn't kibosh it, he just didn't remember). It's quite possible it didn't happen, but I can't shake the idea that it did.

Why I wanted to know this in the first place barely matters to me anymore. I just want to know definitively. Any morsel beyond "I don't know, either" is greatly appreciated.

[ashie62]

I thought this was about bisexuality. oops.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Kinda remember that heroic winning streak at the end of that year but not Gooden's AB.