On the Day After, Gooden Welcomes Relief

The Dwight Gooden family scarcely mentioned the no-hitter Wednesday. Occasionally, reality overshadows history.

Instead, the Gooden clan spent the bittersweet day after the no-hit masterpiece huddled inside a Tampa hospital waiting room, anxiously awaiting the results of the double-bypass heart surgery of Dan Gooden, Dwight’s father. It was yet another crisis in the glory-filled yet tumultuous life of Doc Gooden, the returning icon. Although, unlike many of the other crises, this one was not self-inflicted.

Doctors told the family that this operation was anything but routine since Dan Gooden, 64, has diabetes and recently experienced kidney failure. They waited five weeks before operating to build Dan Gooden’s strength, and eventually they decided they didn’t have the time to wait two more. Baseball suddenly didn’t seem quite so important to the Gooden family.

Like the night before, when Gooden stamped his comeback a success and vindicated one of owner George Steinbrenner’s most controversial signings by throwing his stunning no-hitter against Seattle, the difficult wait preceded uplifting news. Gooden confidant Ray Negron, who said doctors estimated the operation’s success rate as 50-50 in this case, reported that the postoperative prognosis was much more optimistic. Negron said they expect Dan Gooden to recover fully. So relief followed exultation for the pitcher.

“I don’t think that game hurt last night,” said Steinbrenner, who visited Gooden, his pet pitching project, for 45 minutes at the hospital and was there for the positive news. “If you wrote it up and tried to sell it to Hollywood, they wouldn’t buy that it happened. They’d laugh you out of the room.”

Just before Dan Gooden was sedated for the operation, according to Negron, the patient bellowed, “My boy did it. My boy pitched his no-hitter.”

Negron said Gooden’s father listened to the final few outs of the 2-0 victory, which ended with Gooden being carried off the field by teammates in jubilation.

“He was very happy to hear that his father had heard about the no-hitter,” Negron said. “That was big for him.”

Gooden took an early morning flight to Tampa to be at his father’s bedside at St. Joseph’s Hospital, carrying the game ball to cheer his ailing dad. Negron said they expect Dan Gooden to be hospitalized until Tuesday, and his son will stay with him until his next start.

The pitcher spent most of the afternoon and evening at the hospital, waiting with family members, including nephew Gary Sheffield, who upset his uncle recently by publicly criticizing Gooden’s choice of the Yankees over Sheffield’s Florida Marlins. But as Negron said, “Family issues outweigh everything.”

Gooden’s career, floundering only three weeks earlier when he was removed from the rotation after three awful outings, is flourishing again. Apparently, it took nothing more than the faith of his bosses, Manager Joe Torre and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, and an adjustment in his delivery suggested by Stottlemyre.

“It wasn’t a major change,” Stottlemyre said. “It just turned out that way.”

The key to the change was the timing, according to Stottlemyre. In other words, Gooden, with an 11.48 earned-run average, had reached the near-desperation stage. He was in the bullpen without a role, so how much could the change hurt? According to Stottlemyre, Gooden noticed immediate improvement in his control with the new, shorter delivery.

Steinbrenner did not want to accept credit for signing Gooden, instead mentioning Billy Connors, Negron, Torre and Stottlemyre. “I did it for different reasons,” Steinbrenner said. “It’s too early to tell a kid at 31 that his life is over, that he can’t be productive.”