Gooden’s Arm Tested: No Cancer

Dwight Gooden had his pitching arm checked for a possible cancerous tumor, it was reported today.

“Everything is fine,” the New York Mets star told the New York Daily News. “There’s no problem at all. But for a while, it was in the back of my mind. I had no idea what to think.”

The newspaper said the scare began when an unidentified man, who claimed to be a doctor affiliated with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, called the Players Assn. last month and said the shoulder injury that sidelined Gooden for much of the second half of the season may have been the result of a tumor.

After he learned of the call, Gooden said, he discussed the possibility of cancer with Mets team physician Dr. James Parkes. Gooden then underwent a gallium scan, in which dye was injected into his shoulder to locate a possible malignancy. The results were negative, the Daily News reported.

“They did that scan, and everything is fine,” Gooden said. “I’m happy with the way Dr. Parkes has taken care of it.”

New York Newsday quoted an unidentified club source as saying the Mets did not consider a biopsy of the area--considered the most reliable way to detect a malignancy--because any such exploratory surgery “would probably end Dwight’s career.”

One club official told the Daily News that it is possible Gooden injured the arm years ago and that the lesion is scar tissue. There also is the possibility Gooden compounded his condition by pitching too soon.

Mets Manager Davey Johnson said, “It was a legitimate scare four or five weeks ago, but what I was told was that it was scar tissue.”