Almighty Fuji asks...
Who
were your childhood favorites (players)? Do you collect their cards
& memorabilia? If so, what's your favorite item (of your favorite
childhood player) in your collection?
And I answer. I had a ton of favorites. But one stands out: Dwight Gooden.
Dwight was amazing. He was young, dynamic, had the fastball from hell and man, were his stats out of sight! I was a little stat geek. If you know me now, picture me exactly the same, 2 feet shorter with pieces of paper with stats on them coming out of my ears. I could tell you most players stats in season up to the day. I spent hours on the box scores in the daily newspaper (that's like mlb.com or baseball-reference.com for those of you who are less than 25).
So Gooden's 24-4 record and 1.53 ERA in 1985, or his rookie record 276 K's really floated my boat.
His subsequent drop-off, both personally and professionally, has dimmed the sheer awesomeness over the years, but I still like, and even somewhat collect, Doc. I have all the cards from his playing career that I want except one.
Yeah, that 1984 Fleer Update set is brutal ain't it?
Oh, and to answer the last of Fuji's questions, here is my favorite Doc Gooden item in my collection:
It isn't much, but it is mine.
He's one of my childhood faves too. I remember the line was drawn among my buddies. You were either a Doc fan or a Clemens fan. I chose Doc.
ReplyDeletedude - it's your blog and your design...but...it's really hard for my old-ass eyes to read black text on dark grey background.
ReplyDeletejust sayin...
Sorry for the late reply, I'm way behind on my blog reading.
ReplyDeleteGooden and Strawberry, I was huge fans of them when I was a kid. I was also a Mets fan way back then so it came natural.