Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing,
Speaker 1: Peyton Manny Love. Peyton's still a big fan of Peyton. Uh,
Speaker 1: Steve McNair. My mom was very strict, you know, very
Speaker 1: directly stuff when my dad kind of getting a pass
Speaker 1: with a lot of things along as I was playing baseball.
Speaker 1: A few of us can do what professional athletes do,
Speaker 1: and even fewer athletes begin their pro careers with the
Speaker 1: immediate success of my guests. Today, I'll talk with former
Speaker 1: pitcher Dwight Gooden to hear about his historic rookie season
Speaker 1: in and how his major league career was affected by
Speaker 1: his struggles with drugs and alcohol. But first, Andrew Luck,
Speaker 1: currently enjoying his second season in the National Football League.
Speaker 1: We're the first pick in the two thousand and twelve
Speaker 1: NFL drafts the Indianapolis could select Andrew Luck. Luck was
Speaker 1: hired to replaced one of his heroes, Peyton Manning, as
Speaker 1: quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. Many doubted that the Stanford
Speaker 1: graduate could live up to the enormous hype generated by
Speaker 1: that first round pick, but Luck delivered, setting a new
Speaker 1: NFL record for most passing yards by a rookie Andrew Luck,
Speaker 1: a self described nerd, is nothing if not level headed
Speaker 1: when he talks about navigating the transitions from high school
Speaker 1: to college to pro football. They're definitely large differences along
Speaker 1: the way. But but I also know a lot of
Speaker 1: the challenges are the same. I think, fresh on my
Speaker 1: mind still, you know, finishing a rookie year, you know
Speaker 1: what what what what was similar about rookie year to
Speaker 1: being a sophomore in high school and starting on varsity,
Speaker 1: you know, wants to to being in college and started
Speaker 1: as a sophomore as well. I think you know the
Speaker 1: same things presents of how as a young kid. You know,
Speaker 1: how is a fifteen year old kid do you play with?
Speaker 1: Eighteen year old? How is it? How is the nineteen
Speaker 1: year o kid do you play with? Is that what
Speaker 1: you did? And? Yeah, how was it? It's weird? You know,
Speaker 1: you want to remember what do you remember about high
Speaker 1: school ball? So I just wanted to keep my mouth shut.
Speaker 1: You in Houston, in Houston, which they do have like
Speaker 1: a somewhat of a religious cult following, you know of
Speaker 1: high school football entype, it truly is, and you know
Speaker 1: it's sensationalized a bit with the movies, in the in
Speaker 1: the books, but people get into I mean we had
Speaker 1: we had fifteen thousand people watching games, you know, for
Speaker 1: for for a bunch of high school kids. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: but I do remember, you know, being a rookie, thinking
Speaker 1: back to you know, being a sophomone, how how do
Speaker 1: you how do you earn the respect to the guys
Speaker 1: older than you? You know, how do you how do
Speaker 1: you go in there? And so would you see that
Speaker 1: each step of the way if he was proving yourself
Speaker 1: to people who when you show up the vets are there,
Speaker 1: or the guys who have a few more seasons under
Speaker 1: their belt and you want to show them you belong there. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think describe it was like when you went from
Speaker 1: Houston to Stanford the same thing, you know, one it's
Speaker 1: it's it was. It was fun for me to be
Speaker 1: out in California and you were a scholar. You did
Speaker 1: very well in school. I did all right. I managed
Speaker 1: to get by. I studied architecture, which was fun for
Speaker 1: me and which I enjoyed, which I don't much better
Speaker 1: I think on projects than writing papers, you know. So
Speaker 1: so I'm glad I studied something I enjoyed. But do
Speaker 1: you think that that kind of pursued academically, like something
Speaker 1: that involves geometry and math and so forth, and measurements
Speaker 1: help you as a quarterback. I don't know. People have
Speaker 1: asked me to compare the to it. I you know,
Speaker 1: it can't hurt, but you know, realistically, how much could
Speaker 1: could solid a bath problem help a football game? It
Speaker 1: might be just intrinsic. How you just see things. You know,
Speaker 1: when that guy's going deep over the middle, maybe you
Speaker 1: something this looks like the Louve to me. And then
Speaker 1: when you went to Stanford, what was that like? You
Speaker 1: showed up there? When you talk about that idea of
Speaker 1: showing up and proving yourself, what was it like for you?
Speaker 1: First year was great? Didn't play? Red shirt? And which
Speaker 1: was which was? Which was difficult describe for people exactly
Speaker 1: how red shirting works. So red shirting is a process work.
Speaker 1: You know, you go to school and everybody has four
Speaker 1: years of eligibility to play. Uh, but you can red
Speaker 1: shirt a year. You still practice with the team, you
Speaker 1: still do everything with the team. You're just not allowed
Speaker 1: to play in a game. So it's theoretically you can
Speaker 1: another year. Yeah, and then you go to school for
Speaker 1: you know, being school for five years, so it gives
Speaker 1: you a year too, and you red shooted your first year.
Speaker 1: I recruited my first year. I wasn't ready to play
Speaker 1: and I needed to get bigger, faster, stronger, you know,
Speaker 1: physically wise and also mentally just catch up today. So
Speaker 1: when you come to a school like that, when they
Speaker 1: take you there and they and they recruited you, correct
Speaker 1: and when they recruit you to come, they recruit you.
Speaker 1: The red shirt thing was something they had in mind.
Speaker 1: So at that level, at the Stanford level, they have
Speaker 1: you come and they say we're gonna bring you here
Speaker 1: and we're going to develop you for the first year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and some guys in my class, we're we're
Speaker 1: good enough to play, you know as freshman. But but
Speaker 1: I know in my recruiting process that that was a
Speaker 1: thought that came up. They want muscle up and get stronger,
Speaker 1: and and and mentally too, I think mentally catch up
Speaker 1: to the playbook. Having to learn that and it definitely
Speaker 1: helped and I enjoyed it. And what was that experience
Speaker 1: like because someone said that to me once, They said that,
Speaker 1: you know, you go from high school and you're a
Speaker 1: dominant player in high school. Then you go to college
Speaker 1: and you're in a room full of high school dominant players.
Speaker 1: It's humbling. I'll say that. You get knocked off your
Speaker 1: high horse very very quickly. Everybody's in all so you
Speaker 1: go from being in you know, the top dogs probably
Speaker 1: starting on every you're the king. Yeah, everything you've ever
Speaker 1: played in. The cheerleaders want a date you. You know, everybody.
Speaker 1: You go to college and you're just you're carrying somebody
Speaker 1: else is bad exactly. So you read shirt that year
Speaker 1: and then you come back the second year and I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you were stronger and you had development, and did
Speaker 1: you and you felt better? You felt strong? No, I
Speaker 1: think I put on like pounds, you know, and my
Speaker 1: mind was working much quicker when you know, on the
Speaker 1: football side of things, we're getting ready, getting ready. And
Speaker 1: what happens in that second year coach hardball, who's who's
Speaker 1: Who's coach game Jim, he gave me a shot. I
Speaker 1: got got to play in all their games. I got
Speaker 1: hurt the last game of the season. And did you
Speaker 1: get smacked around a lot? I mean, you're playing football
Speaker 1: at Stanford. What was that like for you? That that
Speaker 1: threat every day and it's a pure adrenaline when you
Speaker 1: say to yourself, I can't think about that. I can't
Speaker 1: afford to think about that or every minute you're out there.
Speaker 1: Do you think these guys, man, they really if they
Speaker 1: hit me, it's really gonna hurt. Like no, I think that.
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't let yourself think about you have to.
Speaker 1: I think as soon as you start getting skittish about
Speaker 1: about being hit, then then your play is gonna plummet.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of pride involved in it too.
Speaker 1: I think as a football player, at least at least
Speaker 1: in my mind, I sort of enjoy getting hit every
Speaker 1: now and then and being able to stand back up
Speaker 1: and say, Okay, you hit me whatever. Man, you know
Speaker 1: I'm getting back off, not downright. You didn't get me
Speaker 1: down right, So so that I think, I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of players there's a bit of that. What
Speaker 1: did Hardball give you was a coach? What would you
Speaker 1: say distinguished him as a coach? I think he builds
Speaker 1: great relationships with players, everybody on the staff and he
Speaker 1: and he's he's an unbelievable motivator. On game day, you
Speaker 1: always felt like you know the guy was gonna you know,
Speaker 1: run through hell and back with you if you had to,
Speaker 1: you felt like you had your back, if you wanted
Speaker 1: to be in a brawl in an alley you wanted,
Speaker 1: you want to coach hardball with you? What's it like
Speaker 1: when you leave SAIM because you you you red shirted
Speaker 1: your first year and then played and you finished the standpord. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't leave three years. So I graduated. I had
Speaker 1: one year of eligibility left, but and you didn't and
Speaker 1: it was time to go. It was time to How
Speaker 1: did you know it was time to go? Uh? You
Speaker 1: know my degree? I got my degree, which really didn't
Speaker 1: make any sense to stay. Yeah, it didn't. I had
Speaker 1: I had enough fun. And then what happened? And then
Speaker 1: tell me where you're sitting when when you find out
Speaker 1: what's going on for you? NFL was how does that develop? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's it's actually sort of long process.
Speaker 1: And I was drafted before I graduated from school. So
Speaker 1: you finish your college season. I took a we were
Speaker 1: on the quarter system at Stanford, so I took the
Speaker 1: winter quarter off to go train and prepare that they
Speaker 1: have a combine uh where in Indianapolis, which you know
Speaker 1: it was funny enough was where I ended up. The
Speaker 1: combine is it a really interesting weird sort of dynamic
Speaker 1: where they fly all these players and they have all
Speaker 1: the coaches, they have all the team doctors and it's
Speaker 1: three days and you're there pick and you can Okay,
Speaker 1: this is before So this is a chance for all
Speaker 1: the teams to meet the players that to see the
Speaker 1: combines NFL one. It's not just Indie, it's it's his team,
Speaker 1: it's it's league. It's all the teams flying in with
Speaker 1: all their personnel. And I'll stay and then the players
Speaker 1: sort of cycle through. It's were like cattle in a
Speaker 1: meat market. Yeah. I remember, you know, walking up on
Speaker 1: stage with nothing but my little skimp he's on and
Speaker 1: they announced, you know, and Victoria's Secret runway Shop. You're
Speaker 1: on a stage with strength coaches, head coaches and all
Speaker 1: these coaches sitting and bleachers around you that that you
Speaker 1: walk up in the middle and it's you know, Andrew
Speaker 1: Luck Stanford University, you know, six four, two thirty five,
Speaker 1: and guys are there with ads going I don't like
Speaker 1: the ratio of USS to his rib cage. I don't
Speaker 1: like that they don't let that rib ratio. God knows
Speaker 1: what they're saying that God, and then you turn around,
Speaker 1: you and you walk off. That's just one of the
Speaker 1: you know guys where you're getting a hundred X rays
Speaker 1: on every part of your body. They move your your
Speaker 1: knee this way, but which which makes sense because there's
Speaker 1: so much money invested if I teams and the money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so that was an interesting experience. Then you sort
Speaker 1: of then to leave the comment. And I had I
Speaker 1: had a fairly good sense that I would be drafted
Speaker 1: number one by Indianapolis just from the signals I was
Speaker 1: getting from the team and other things, and I it's
Speaker 1: you know, how did you feel? I mean, you knew
Speaker 1: it was gonna happen kind of would everybody let you
Speaker 1: know that in advance? Everybody put the cats out of
Speaker 1: the bag. But when it happens, at the moment it happened,
Speaker 1: did you just feel great you would number one in
Speaker 1: the draft that year? Man? Yeah, I felt on top
Speaker 1: of the world. I'm not gonna lie now as soon
Speaker 1: as you are you the draft is over. I would
Speaker 1: assume there's a euphoria, but you snapped right out of
Speaker 1: it because like it's down to business now. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: wasn't you four? And then I wish it would would
Speaker 1: have been down to business. I had to go back
Speaker 1: to school and finish up. And you try sitting in
Speaker 1: a lecture. You know, after you've been you've been drafted
Speaker 1: by a team, you have a job, you know where
Speaker 1: you're going. I honestly, I honestly don't feel sorry for you,
Speaker 1: because I would. I can't think of anything I'd like
Speaker 1: more than to go back to Stanford having been the
Speaker 1: number one tracking. So you go back? How long you're
Speaker 1: back there? Back for maybe a couple more months to
Speaker 1: finish that last So now when do your report? Uh?
Speaker 1: So we report late July? Was when training camp starts?
Speaker 1: When you know the actual that's the formal training, formal training.
Speaker 1: You show up for your first pro training cap. Now
Speaker 1: you are in the center ring in a high school,
Speaker 1: in college and named Big ten and it's professional football.
Speaker 1: What's that like? I mean, does your ass tightened just
Speaker 1: a little bit? These guys are huge, they are they
Speaker 1: are the apex of physical freaks. You know, there are
Speaker 1: some guys that that are three hundred pounds, that are
Speaker 1: running faster than you know, running than your high school
Speaker 1: running back, that are just that are just absolutely physical,
Speaker 1: and you know, some of the guys you're walking along
Speaker 1: a room, you're you're playing with thirty five year olds,
Speaker 1: thirty six year old with with you know, with three
Speaker 1: kids in it in the house, and you know, a
Speaker 1: bunch of rookies are three years old that I don't
Speaker 1: know right from left. So so it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: different dynamic than college, where you're sort of, well, everybody's appear, yeah,
Speaker 1: with you with your your buddies, you're going back to
Speaker 1: the dorm, you know, you're hanging out. And the NFL
Speaker 1: it's different, which makes it fun when you win and
Speaker 1: come together as a team, you know, because you really
Speaker 1: do have so many different types of guys. And I
Speaker 1: would imagine that your teammates. I mean, on one hand,
Speaker 1: people in the pro like if you go to college,
Speaker 1: it's assumed under ordinary circumstances, certainly things can change, but
Speaker 1: under ordinary circumstances, you're going to be there for the
Speaker 1: four years. This is your team, this is your this
Speaker 1: is your family. But in the pros where people move on,
Speaker 1: where the teams have only their loyalty to the players
Speaker 1: only extends so far do you walk in there and
Speaker 1: people feel you out and you earn your way into
Speaker 1: that family or do they treat you like family and
Speaker 1: everybody coheses right away. No, it doesn't happen overnight. It
Speaker 1: doesn't happen in the first day. I will say that
Speaker 1: people gotta get to know you. Yeah, you gotta get
Speaker 1: you know, especially during training camp where you're gonna have
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred guys that are in training camp
Speaker 1: and then one day you wake up and look and
Speaker 1: there's only fifty three guys left. You know, those cut
Speaker 1: days are very sad days because you see buddies go,
Speaker 1: You see guys, you feel relationships, you know, guys you
Speaker 1: admired maybe yeah, absolutely, guys you looked up to, guys
Speaker 1: that helped you out, you know when you first walked
Speaker 1: in the door, and then they're gone and that fifty
Speaker 1: three players, that's when everything starts to cohes. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think that's when that's when you come together
Speaker 1: a little more. But but still, you know, even guys
Speaker 1: are traded in the middle of the season, you know,
Speaker 1: guys are cut, Still guys are picked up. So it's
Speaker 1: it is it's a lot different, you know, just to
Speaker 1: what you said that than the the you know, you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna be in college for four years. You
Speaker 1: know who's in your class, you know who's you know,
Speaker 1: you know the guys on the team. Familiarity, Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Now one thing I think about when I think about
Speaker 1: the NFL is this idea of the biggest, strongest, fastest
Speaker 1: men hitting each other in this very violent game. And
Speaker 1: the rules have been changed in order to protect players.
Speaker 1: The equipment has evolved. Obviously, there's a lot of discussion
Speaker 1: about concussions and so forth, over a lot of brain
Speaker 1: injury research and issues, and people donating the brains of
Speaker 1: their deceased suicide victims, a little a lot of heavy
Speaker 1: duty stuff. But I want to ask you when you
Speaker 1: go out there. I mean, it's a competitive game and
Speaker 1: people want to win. But at the same time, guys
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want to hurt each other the way they
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to get hurt either. Do you find it's
Speaker 1: a weird balance of those two because football is as
Speaker 1: violent now on one hand as it was before, but
Speaker 1: because equipment changes and rule changes, it seemed more violent
Speaker 1: back then. You know, I don't think guys are any
Speaker 1: less aggressive when it when it comes to hitting. I no, No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. And I think, you know, maybe there's a
Speaker 1: thought too that all these these equipment changes and and
Speaker 1: and you feel safer in it, so so you feel
Speaker 1: like you can hit harder. But there's also I think,
Speaker 1: you know, guys are are being taught, especially at a
Speaker 1: young age now too. You know how to tackle correctly,
Speaker 1: how to how to and I think there is a
Speaker 1: mutual respect between players where you know you're not going
Speaker 1: to try and take out someone's achilles or a cl
Speaker 1: You know, some guys maybe do you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Some guys play very aggressive and things happen.
Speaker 1: We understand, you know, we know what we sign up for.
Speaker 1: I think when you when you play football, and I
Speaker 1: like it and I love it. And as a quarterback,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm on the wrong side of the hit.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't ever get to dish it out
Speaker 1: per se, But you know that's fine with me. Right.
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about quarterbacking. Yeah, let's talk about what
Speaker 1: it's like to have that job where I played touch
Speaker 1: football with my friends until I was forty years old.
Speaker 1: We played every weekend during a season in the fall
Speaker 1: in New York in Central Park. And then that game
Speaker 1: moved to Los Angeles because almost all those guys I
Speaker 1: played with were my UH colleagues and the entertainment business,
Speaker 1: and of course, the difference between a sandlot game, the
Speaker 1: difference between a flag game and a bunch of geezers
Speaker 1: playing football. The difference between high school and college is
Speaker 1: the speed and the velocity of the game. And you
Speaker 1: drop back to pass, and on average, how much time
Speaker 1: do you have to throw the ball? I think a
Speaker 1: little between three and four seconds. You have that much
Speaker 1: time if the play is going in the perfect world,
Speaker 1: so you have three to four seconds to to read
Speaker 1: the defense, to drop back and ascertain who you're going
Speaker 1: to throw the ball to, who's open, who's more likely
Speaker 1: going to be open, because sometimes you're throwing the ball
Speaker 1: to someone anticipating they're gonna be open. Once the ball
Speaker 1: gets there, you throw the ball to a spot very often,
Speaker 1: unless it's a broken play and they come back to
Speaker 1: it's a come back. And then someone's improvising. What percentage
Speaker 1: of plays would you say, do you throw the ball
Speaker 1: at a spot that's a preordained route, and how many
Speaker 1: plays is it more improvised? What's the ratio? Well, every
Speaker 1: place is called you know hopefully it's not to have
Speaker 1: him for ries. You know you're gonna then you're up
Speaker 1: against the pro defense. Yeah, it breaks down probably a
Speaker 1: third of the time, a third of the time, half
Speaker 1: of the time. Colts fans don't care about the ratio.
Speaker 1: They just want Andrew Luck to bring a championship back
Speaker 1: to Indianapolis, and he stands a good chance. People say
Speaker 1: he bears a strong resemblance to Peyton Manning, the quarterback
Speaker 1: for the Colts for fourteen seasons, and one of Andrew
Speaker 1: Luck's own role models, big command and everything, never quit,
Speaker 1: never quit, was like a general out there, three minutes left,
Speaker 1: we're down by eighteen points, so much and he seemed
Speaker 1: like he knew where everybody was going all the time.
Speaker 1: There's no surprises for him. In a minute, Andrew Luck
Speaker 1: talks about going to the Manning family training camp in
Speaker 1: Louisiana when he was fourteen. I'm Alec Baldwin and here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Take a listen to our archive more in
Speaker 1: depth and honest conversations with artists, policymakers and pundits like
Speaker 1: George will Sports and particularly not baseball. Then, because it's
Speaker 1: a rich sediment of numbers, it was one of the
Speaker 1: first things a young person could peg up with adults on.
Speaker 1: But as you could know as much about Jimmy Fox
Speaker 1: as your father did. I'm love jim you know I
Speaker 1: love I wanted to be a lifeguard. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a gymnast. I wanted to work on the bars,
Speaker 1: ropes were I loved all that stuff. More from George
Speaker 1: Will and Debbie Reynolds at Here's the Thing, Dot Org.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Andrew Luck grew up in a football family. His father
Speaker 1: was an NFL quarterback for the Houston Oilers. But Luck
Speaker 1: isn't always hold up in a screening room studying films
Speaker 1: of his football heroes in action. At the end of
Speaker 1: last season, he headed to the Sundance Film Festival. Growing up,
Speaker 1: he lived in London and Frankfort, and he still travels
Speaker 1: overseas any chance he gets. But Andrew Luck knew early
Speaker 1: on that he wanted to play ball. He attended the
Speaker 1: Manning Passing Academy in lou Louisiana, run by NFL quarterbacks
Speaker 1: Peyton and Eli Manning and their father, Archie. So you
Speaker 1: know that the Manning family obviously sort of the first
Speaker 1: family of quarterbacks you know in the in this league.
Speaker 1: You know. So I was in eighth grade in Houston,
Speaker 1: and uh, I went to the camp as a as
Speaker 1: a camper, and this was this was hell. It's in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: It used to be Hammond. Louisiana is where I went
Speaker 1: as a camper. And then you stayed, stayed in these dorms.
Speaker 1: Looked like a Soviet era, like old Gray, you know,
Speaker 1: like like the summertime. It was so summer in Louisiana
Speaker 1: and you're in ye cinder blocks of your character exactly.
Speaker 1: But we had a blast, and I think I was
Speaker 1: on cloud nine when Archie Manning came up and said,
Speaker 1: how you Dylan Sign? I played with your dad. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm in heaven. Shoot me. Now I've lived. And then
Speaker 1: then you go to you go to college whatever, and
Speaker 1: then all these college quarterbacks to come down and be counselors,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a great thing. It's like it's
Speaker 1: a great way to meet, you know, thirty other quarterbacks
Speaker 1: around around you know, the n C A A, and
Speaker 1: then get to know them. So I went down to
Speaker 1: the past my last two years of college and you know,
Speaker 1: I got to know the Manning family obviously a little
Speaker 1: better through that and a bunch of bunch of quarterbacks
Speaker 1: from front from college. When you want to work on
Speaker 1: your passing skills, but I don't mean the timing and
Speaker 1: reading offenses, the mechanics of you throw. What's your primary
Speaker 1: set of exercises and work you Did you have a
Speaker 1: coach when you got to the pros? Did they come
Speaker 1: in as they often do and dissect your throwing motion
Speaker 1: and get into the mechanics if you're throwing again? Not
Speaker 1: not in the pros. Yeah, I think I think there's
Speaker 1: a thought that if you've made it this far, don't
Speaker 1: don't change your throw on motion. You've done millions, but
Speaker 1: not like Tebow where they're coming to you. You're not Tebow.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying people have the assumption then the pros
Speaker 1: they want to strip you down and say, okay, let's
Speaker 1: start all over again. But they didn't need to. They
Speaker 1: didn't feel they needed to re teach you how to
Speaker 1: throw the football now. Absolutely not, which I'm very full
Speaker 1: four because I don't think I would have handled it
Speaker 1: very well, And I think I think quarterbacks are are
Speaker 1: very particular about their own motion and a little bit anal.
Speaker 1: You know, stress is the way I throw, This is
Speaker 1: the way Because what muscles do you think you had
Speaker 1: to develop and if you wanted to improve when you
Speaker 1: were younger, when you added pounds, when you wanted to
Speaker 1: muscle up and strengthen. Not because I said that. Joe
Speaker 1: Montana once what I was doing a film and Montana
Speaker 1: came to visit the director on the set and I
Speaker 1: had the quickest, most fleeting conversation. It wasn't very real.
Speaker 1: I said to him, I go, what was your strength training?
Speaker 1: He said, I avoided weights as much as possible. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to get muscled up. He said. I took
Speaker 1: medical tubing like hose and I put a strap in
Speaker 1: a doorway and I just did the throwing motion over
Speaker 1: and over, you know, like a thousand times with this
Speaker 1: tension thing, just to strengthen the rotation. What exercises do
Speaker 1: you think it to strengthen your legs in your back
Speaker 1: as much as your upper body. I think I think
Speaker 1: your core and your asses can shoot a cannon out
Speaker 1: of a canoe. There were so much powers generated it, uh,
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's a lot of leg training.
Speaker 1: A lot of leg training, a lot of training or
Speaker 1: run training. I hate running, but yeah, you have to do.
Speaker 1: But I think it's more weight and just rotation. It's
Speaker 1: almost like golfers. You know, you're VeryE boxing and boxing
Speaker 1: you're very one sided. It's almost like throwing a right cross,
Speaker 1: you know, because you throw that punch, you're gonna punch
Speaker 1: absolutely and and you become very one sided. You're always
Speaker 1: torking in the same direction, so making sure your left
Speaker 1: so making sure you're evening out, you know, your right
Speaker 1: side of the body per se. But but I I
Speaker 1: and that's something that I that I learned more you
Speaker 1: know of in college and then the least you know
Speaker 1: how important your lower body is to throwing. I would
Speaker 1: play in sand a lot pickup games with my friends,
Speaker 1: and of course when you play for fun with guys
Speaker 1: when you're when I'm in my thirties and forties, just
Speaker 1: for fun. Half the guys bring their own favorite ball
Speaker 1: and the ball is deflated or inflated to the level
Speaker 1: they prefer, the ball is scuffed to the level they prefer.
Speaker 1: And when you pick up a ball in the NFL,
Speaker 1: forget about weather conditions. Is the ball always a Crisp
Speaker 1: Waxy brand new ball or do they allow you to
Speaker 1: treat the ball the way you want to for your preference.
Speaker 1: I hate the Crisp Waxy. I can't. I can't stand it.
Speaker 1: There's a our. Our equipment managers for the Colts, Frog Tea,
Speaker 1: and Danny, the three great guys that work with their quarterbacks,
Speaker 1: they have it. They have a top secret protocol for
Speaker 1: for for them to treat the ball. Treating the balls,
Speaker 1: it's secret. They won't tell me. I don't think they
Speaker 1: tell Peyton when he like, I know what it is
Speaker 1: by the women to tell you they pee on it.
Speaker 1: It's their own urine. They use their own urine to
Speaker 1: strip the waxy film off. Who is the baseball player
Speaker 1: that used to pee on his hands to avoid Callous's
Speaker 1: There was a Cubs player like yeah, but I know
Speaker 1: I've seen that they have a patented top secret like
Speaker 1: the one of the Coca Cola, and then the football
Speaker 1: is treated. But you do treat the ball, you do,
Speaker 1: and you sat out of the box. It's not out
Speaker 1: of the box. I've seen different stages of it, Like
Speaker 1: I know, I know they put the balls in the
Speaker 1: the sauna for like a couple of minutes that they're
Speaker 1: allowing to do something about that allows them to treat
Speaker 1: the ball. They did. Every team get to use their
Speaker 1: own ball, Like when when you come out on offense,
Speaker 1: we go get the box, we go open the crate
Speaker 1: of your opponents balls. Everyone brings their own ball on
Speaker 1: the field as long as it's the approved ball. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and for what I understand, it used to not
Speaker 1: be that way. It used to be like there's a
Speaker 1: certain you know, all the balls for Dame Day were
Speaker 1: open an hour before and each team use the same ball.
Speaker 1: But I think, uh, I think Peyton and and Tom
Speaker 1: Brady sort of this was before my time. I was
Speaker 1: let it, let a coalition against that and got it
Speaker 1: change where teams can use you know, what about the
Speaker 1: inflation level of the ball. Does the ball have to
Speaker 1: be inflated to a certain pount. I think it does,
Speaker 1: and referees check it and they mark the balls off
Speaker 1: before the balls that we approved in one way, but
Speaker 1: you're allowed to treat the exterior of the ball. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: So when you're there and you're throwing the ball, is
Speaker 1: it completely unconscious when you throw the ball and you
Speaker 1: think you're ineffective. Do you sometimes say to yourself, even
Speaker 1: at the pro level, that you've got to go back
Speaker 1: to a basic You gotta remember you're bringing the ball
Speaker 1: in behind your ear. What are you gonna do? What's
Speaker 1: the firing sequence in your mind of throwing a pass?
Speaker 1: I think you don't want to think about you know,
Speaker 1: you don't, And that's what I shouldn't say. Ever, when
Speaker 1: when you if you if you're going on a string
Speaker 1: and balls are dying on you and you see why
Speaker 1: what if you're having a shitty day and you're not
Speaker 1: throwing the ball? But yeah, and I think that that's
Speaker 1: when you when you when you maybe not during the day,
Speaker 1: you have the refresh button, you look at the film
Speaker 1: and you say, what am I doing different than than
Speaker 1: than you see? Sometimes you did? Yeah, I think you
Speaker 1: do differently. I think I look, you know, you're dropping
Speaker 1: the ball too low. It's and it's elong dating your
Speaker 1: whole wind up. You know, it's almost like a picture
Speaker 1: now instead of a quarterback, you know, instead of throwing
Speaker 1: a football. And that's what's causing you to be late
Speaker 1: on all your routes. You know, makes you know so
Speaker 1: so that that we can practice you're gonna work on
Speaker 1: keeping that ball, you know, higher and and and maybe
Speaker 1: shortening that that motion. Uh So I think it's you're
Speaker 1: still tweak it every now and then if if it's
Speaker 1: not working out, if you feel like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: inhibiting you from being better. Um. For fans like myself,
Speaker 1: when we watch you play pro football and you're doing
Speaker 1: your job and you're just and that ball out there,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're you're hitting that ball first downs, whatever,
Speaker 1: and the other guy drops the ball. Did he come
Speaker 1: back and apologize to you every now and then? Different
Speaker 1: guys are different. Uh you know, I I probably apologize
Speaker 1: too much for throwing interceptions to the guys on the
Speaker 1: line because I know they get fed up when they're
Speaker 1: blocking their butts off against some werewolf of a defensive
Speaker 1: end and they're doing a great job. I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: their quarterback throws an interception, Good job, QB. But you know,
Speaker 1: some guys apologize, some guys don't. It's just the nature
Speaker 1: of the game that we're humans. You know, human errors occur.
Speaker 1: Being only human did not get in the way of
Speaker 1: Andrew lux record breaking first NFL season. My next guest
Speaker 1: also had an extraordinary first season, twenty nine years ago.
Speaker 1: Dwight Gooden is known to baseball fans as the once
Speaker 1: brilliant nineteen year old pitching phenom from Tampa, Florida. He
Speaker 1: had a blinding fastball and a notoriously deceptive curve ball.
Speaker 1: Those two pitches earned him the Rookie of the Year
Speaker 1: award in four In five, he won the Cy Young
Speaker 1: as best pitcher in the National League. In eight six,
Speaker 1: he led the Mets to one of their best seasons ever,
Speaker 1: ending with the World Series championship. Gooden still had some
Speaker 1: winning seasons after that, but nothing matched those first three years. Instead,
Speaker 1: his public battles with alcohol and cocaine became the dominant
Speaker 1: story of his career, leading sports historians to write about
Speaker 1: what might have been rather than what was. At the
Speaker 1: very least, Dwight Gooden's addiction ruined what should have been
Speaker 1: the greatest day of his life, the eight six World
Speaker 1: Series win. After the game was over, I'm celebrating the
Speaker 1: clubhouse with my teammates. Then i going to bike in
Speaker 1: a trainer's room. I called my dad. We talked about
Speaker 1: the game, and he's happy and with celebrating. And then
Speaker 1: a night call went right to my friend who know
Speaker 1: the diller when my friend was the go to guy,
Speaker 1: told him I was coming by the later and my
Speaker 1: goal was to go by there, get some drugs, and
Speaker 1: meet my teammates at local bar after that. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you know what happened. Don't don't allow that, right, So
Speaker 1: your friend, a friend that you knew, called the dealer
Speaker 1: for you to tee up the ball for you to
Speaker 1: go score. Well, what it was is, um, I wanted
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. I wanted to party and celebrate. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: go to the house and projects in Long Island with
Speaker 1: the dealer, with the dealer, so I'm in there, what
Speaker 1: about ten people I probably know too. That's a friend
Speaker 1: from Tampa and the dealer. So We're sitting there partying
Speaker 1: and having good time. And now I'm thinking I'll be
Speaker 1: here for maybe an hour of them and cut out.
Speaker 1: But once those rails hit the mirror, Yeah, once your started, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was always my track record, and I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do a little bit. Then three days later you're doing
Speaker 1: the same thing. Dwight Gooden has been sober since two
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, when he went on celebrity rehab, and
Speaker 1: earlier this year he published a deeply personal book entitled
Speaker 1: doc a memoir, which chronicles everything from his complicated relationship
Speaker 1: with his father to his success on the field, to
Speaker 1: his drug abuse and the toll it took on him.
Speaker 1: You come from an error when uh, drugs predominate as
Speaker 1: much as alcohol or alcohol is one drug on a
Speaker 1: menu of drugs, because alcohol certainly is a drug. As
Speaker 1: you would you acknowledge that, yes, alcohol is definite drug.
Speaker 1: And the error I was in what like you said
Speaker 1: before me, was heavy drinking, you know in the seventies
Speaker 1: what have you, and probably pot from right here my
Speaker 1: errors basically, you know, cocaine and drinking. The alcohol is
Speaker 1: available and every club house you go to, whether it's
Speaker 1: on the road or at home, and even at home.
Speaker 1: And when you say alcohol was available, what was the
Speaker 1: kind of culture of that meaning when the game was
Speaker 1: over all professional ball players and management and coaching kind
Speaker 1: of acknowledged that when the game is over, we we
Speaker 1: we gave it our best for Pro Bowl players and
Speaker 1: we've earned a drink and everybody has a drink. So
Speaker 1: they had a full bar there. Yeah, pretty much it
Speaker 1: as normal like you go into the lounge where you
Speaker 1: have the food, you have the water, and drinks, and
Speaker 1: you got the beer and then the private stats and
Speaker 1: the bike with the hard stuff, especially like at the
Speaker 1: day game, was staying because you want to way to
Speaker 1: put the traffic that down and we just sit around
Speaker 1: talking baseball, talking about the games, and just drinking. You
Speaker 1: started your professional career when you were how old my
Speaker 1: professional drafted at seventeen, played a year in the half
Speaker 1: in the monitors. It's amazing at nineteen. And what was
Speaker 1: amazing was at the game. If we're on the road,
Speaker 1: there was always one of the veteran players say, Doc,
Speaker 1: you pitching tomorrow. If I said no, it's okay, you're
Speaker 1: out with us. And I remembers one time I did
Speaker 1: a commercial Pepsi commercial with Catfish Hunter and when Chicago
Speaker 1: at the day game, we go to this bar and
Speaker 1: the commercial comes on and the bartower look at commercially
Speaker 1: looking at me looking at the commercial. I think it goes.
Speaker 1: I don't think you don't have to be in here,
Speaker 1: you know, so you could hang around here, but I
Speaker 1: can't start any more. Ohol, what are the traps of famous?
Speaker 1: Everybody knows who you are, and then they know who
Speaker 1: you are in every level, But so how many games
Speaker 1: did you pitch the first season when you win the
Speaker 1: first season, I think I had about thirty two starts.
Speaker 1: You had thirty two starts. Yes, so they were all
Speaker 1: in on you. They wanted you. It was there, Yes, definitely,
Speaker 1: you were. You were in the rotation. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: in the rotation. I got a seventeen wins, seventeen and nine,
Speaker 1: made the All Star team my first year, led the
Speaker 1: league in strikeouts, and it was amazing because, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: when when I first got there, it wasn't too much
Speaker 1: of expectations. But after the All Star break, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of expectations. It was more seats, I mean
Speaker 1: more fans in the seats two days I would pitch.
Speaker 1: It was more media. Did you feel How did you
Speaker 1: feel at that time? I felt great, you know, because
Speaker 1: I felt get you high. It did, and then when
Speaker 1: you're off, you want to maintain that high. How do
Speaker 1: you do that? Well? My first year, it was definitely
Speaker 1: a drawing rush. Having all the fans they're teering for you,
Speaker 1: and you're striking out that you're winning, and you're winning.
Speaker 1: It was no better feeling than that pitch against a
Speaker 1: lot of guys you analyzed just a year prior to that,
Speaker 1: and then in the next year, I have an even
Speaker 1: better year. I have a career year, and you know,
Speaker 1: do you go out there, it's almost like, be did
Speaker 1: you do differently? The second year, We're just more confident.
Speaker 1: It was more confident reed, more like I had another
Speaker 1: year experience on my belt. And Garrett Carter came over
Speaker 1: that year. He was the all star catcher for me,
Speaker 1: which is a big plus for me. What did Carter
Speaker 1: bring for you as a catcher that helped you? I
Speaker 1: think the way he communicated with me, he didn't want
Speaker 1: to just win. He want to dominate and me even
Speaker 1: though I wanted to dominate. But like say, if I
Speaker 1: was winning a game to nothing and then or fifteen
Speaker 1: nothing and I started just messing around with pitches, he
Speaker 1: will come out there and get in my face that
Speaker 1: you know I don't like. No, let's just stick these guys.
Speaker 1: Think what you know, Let's totally dominate these guys. So
Speaker 1: when you're facing a batter, have you pre assessed before
Speaker 1: a game every single battery you're gonna face in that game?
Speaker 1: You know what I used to do. Um, We'll have
Speaker 1: the scouting reports saying it like the way to pace
Speaker 1: certain guys, but they was I only had two pitches,
Speaker 1: fastball and curbs. A lot of times they're like, this
Speaker 1: guy is a great fastball hitter and came through the
Speaker 1: guy curball for strikes, and I'm thinking, why shouldn't be pitching.
Speaker 1: I'm done, you know, but basically always pitched to my
Speaker 1: strength and make the hitter suggests. So if you have
Speaker 1: I'm not a baseball player. I love going to the
Speaker 1: to the ball game. I love watching a baseball game live.
Speaker 1: It's a great treat. So you're standing there and you're
Speaker 1: at the top of your game, and you look at
Speaker 1: in your mind that imaginary strikes on the knees to
Speaker 1: the shoulders. You've got the home plate there in those
Speaker 1: four corners high and tight, high and outside, low and
Speaker 1: tight low and outside. Could you basically throw the ball
Speaker 1: the festival anywhere you want. You can make it go
Speaker 1: where you wanted to go. Five without doubt. Five, it
Speaker 1: was like from the first game to the last, your
Speaker 1: spot I was just right there, and they have to
Speaker 1: think about it. Everything just came and basically go right there.
Speaker 1: I would saying I wasn't even where from to ninety
Speaker 1: who's the fastest picture in baseball that you know right now,
Speaker 1: who who was over the time was any time? Who's
Speaker 1: been the fastest? I think Nolan Ryan. What do you
Speaker 1: supposedly they say topped out of one on three. Now
Speaker 1: you see these guys still on a hundred ninety nine.
Speaker 1: But also you have to remember all the new stadium,
Speaker 1: they got the radar guns, and there they turned out
Speaker 1: like three or four miles hour faster. It just for
Speaker 1: the fans, and unfortunately found out the hard way. I
Speaker 1: went to Cleveland towards the end of my career. The
Speaker 1: clock's got me at ninety seven. I'm thinking, wow, my fastballs,
Speaker 1: I'm back. Unfortunately three Did I have a breakfast? Did
Speaker 1: they write it down to fortune? Three innutes later? You
Speaker 1: know I have given him seven runs, four home runs,
Speaker 1: who knows how many hits? So now I get knocked
Speaker 1: out of game. I going room with the guy that
Speaker 1: keeps the video, and then I see like eight, seven,
Speaker 1: eighty nine, and actually, what is the numbers here? Is
Speaker 1: that's your philosophy? I say, out there, have me throwing
Speaker 1: ninety seven? He said no, No No, I was turned up
Speaker 1: for the fans. So I found out the heart weight.
Speaker 1: A little bit of show business, Yeah, so now when
Speaker 1: you see all of these guys throwing in the comedy,
Speaker 1: that was the feeling. Give me an example of a
Speaker 1: batter that always vexed you, that really just drove you crazy.
Speaker 1: Chili David's hands down when he was with the SEC
Speaker 1: Giant sells the mens. Yeah, it didn't matter if I
Speaker 1: was on top of my game or not. He would
Speaker 1: get hits off me. And what do you attribute that too?
Speaker 1: I think it was the way you're both built. I
Speaker 1: think he was built to hit your ball. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the way he was he wasn't like um intimidated
Speaker 1: by because a couple of times I threw in his
Speaker 1: head to try to terminate him. It didn't matter. He
Speaker 1: just was staying. If I didn't have my good stuff,
Speaker 1: he was hitting home runs. If I had good stuff,
Speaker 1: he was getting basis. So when you go high and type,
Speaker 1: you do it to intimidate them. Most time, it's just
Speaker 1: you're not doing brush them back right. You don't want
Speaker 1: to hurt nobody or hit him in the head, but
Speaker 1: just trying to think, to start thinking and keep them
Speaker 1: for getting comfortable. But Chilian didn't phase him. And is
Speaker 1: weird because some hitters, when you talk to him some pitches,
Speaker 1: they just see the ball a lot better than other
Speaker 1: pitches because it's like our number five starter, so he
Speaker 1: couldn't get a hit off from him. But I'm like
Speaker 1: the number one starter and he's just wearing me out.
Speaker 1: How old are you now? Now I'm forty forty and
Speaker 1: I'm fifty five, And now for you, I wonder have
Speaker 1: you been able to kind of revisit because you talk
Speaker 1: about your childhood and you talk about the contradiction, and
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily use that word I was. I read
Speaker 1: it very carefully when you talked about, you know, the
Speaker 1: kind of craziness in your household. Your uncle shot your
Speaker 1: aunt in front of you. Was my it was you.
Speaker 1: It was your brother in law. You call him uncle W,
Speaker 1: uncle GW. But he wasn't really your uncle. He was
Speaker 1: your brother from your much older sister. So you were
Speaker 1: six years old and your sister was twenty years old.
Speaker 1: It was like a fourteen more difference, if I correct.
Speaker 1: So you're you're in that scenario and this guy shoots
Speaker 1: your sister in the head right in front of you.
Speaker 1: You grabbed that baby and run into the bathroom, and
Speaker 1: you lock yourself in the bathroom and I'm wondering. You
Speaker 1: talk about how much your dad cared about you, and
Speaker 1: how much your mom thought to hold onto your dad
Speaker 1: and put up with a lot of ship from him,
Speaker 1: and you watched all this, and you talk about the
Speaker 1: love you God and the support you got. But it
Speaker 1: sounds like your family like much of my family. There's
Speaker 1: love and supporting a lot of good things, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of nuttiness going on as well. And did
Speaker 1: you feel that that's what you needed to medicate yourself
Speaker 1: against sex, drugs, alcohol, all these things? Can you put
Speaker 1: your finger on why were you doing those things? Was
Speaker 1: it just boredom? No? I think the situation of early
Speaker 1: on him. In my career, it was boredom. Like when
Speaker 1: I would come home. I will come home from playing
Speaker 1: my season. Most of my friends were still in school
Speaker 1: while I was working, so the boredom was there while
Speaker 1: I just ride around, you know, drinking in a car,
Speaker 1: trying to pick up women, the ones that wasn't working
Speaker 1: in school, or just hang on the stress. Three corners
Speaker 1: hanging out And you came down there with a pocket
Speaker 1: full of money, right, so we'll hang out. Everything was
Speaker 1: on dwight. Yes, everything, So then like after the seasons
Speaker 1: I started doing drugs in New York. For the first time,
Speaker 1: it was more of the proper pressure. It was more
Speaker 1: of the media pressure and me putting pressure on myself.
Speaker 1: For example, everything was compared to a D five. If
Speaker 1: I won a game three nothing complete game, shout out.
Speaker 1: But if I only had, you know, five strikeouts, the
Speaker 1: first question would be happy you don't have five striks.
Speaker 1: They're picking you apart. So that's when I started medicating myself.
Speaker 1: Then it became pretty meditated, where every game I pitch,
Speaker 1: I think game I was gonna get high. I was
Speaker 1: needing gonna get high to celebrate the win. Alls dinna
Speaker 1: get high because I didn't pitch that well, to forget
Speaker 1: about the game, to put the loss behind you, right.
Speaker 1: And then like as you mentioned earlier about me um
Speaker 1: with my sister being shot. She got shot six times
Speaker 1: and at one time she got shot in the head.
Speaker 1: The but is still actually in their head, which you
Speaker 1: have seizures from it. Like grabbed my nephew and went
Speaker 1: in the bathroom and got into a pull current thing,
Speaker 1: thinking he's gonna come in and get us neakes. The
Speaker 1: thing that was weird. I didn't find out until basically
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven. I was my last treatment. Every time
Speaker 1: I would get high, I always go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: whether I was home by myself, whether it's a restaurant,
Speaker 1: whether it's whatever. That's what I'm talking about, to baths,
Speaker 1: ghosts and these echoes of what were up with. Definitely,
Speaker 1: so I totally relate to that. And I was going
Speaker 1: to bath and it was pointed to me that I
Speaker 1: never realized that I put it together. You know, for me,
Speaker 1: I remember when I started to work. Oddly, when I
Speaker 1: was thinking about your life and your book. It's similar
Speaker 1: because I did a daytime TV show, was soap opera
Speaker 1: here in New York for a couple of years, and
Speaker 1: I went to l A and you gelt called up
Speaker 1: into the big leagues, so to speak, and then you
Speaker 1: start to make big league money. I mean, you and
Speaker 1: I have more in common than I thought, because as
Speaker 1: I was reading the book, I realized that then I
Speaker 1: got called up to do other things and I started
Speaker 1: to make more money. And you know, when I was
Speaker 1: focused on that work, I mean the high that I
Speaker 1: I got high from the work, and when I would
Speaker 1: go home, there was this lull, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: like my adrenaline. I was. I was. I was high
Speaker 1: all day from the energy of being a young working actor.
Speaker 1: I went from one studio to the next audition for
Speaker 1: this movie. I get a part in three to five.
Speaker 1: That period was my white hot period because I'm in
Speaker 1: l A. My dad died. My dad died of cancer.
Speaker 1: He was fifty five years old. April three, and I'm
Speaker 1: out there and I'm booked. Man, I'm I signed deals.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't come back. I go to work,
Speaker 1: and when I were left work, I felt this tremendous
Speaker 1: kind of depression, like this kind of low, like I
Speaker 1: had to go do something else to get high. Did
Speaker 1: you feel that one? I had the same thing. My
Speaker 1: problem is trying to feel that void like you're talking about.
Speaker 1: A lot of times, the downtime of being bored is
Speaker 1: a dangerous spot for me to be in because I've
Speaker 1: never had a hobby. When baseball season be over, now
Speaker 1: you come home to Tampa. You know, it's not like
Speaker 1: in New York. You can go to concerts, you go
Speaker 1: to plays, you can go to movies and stuff to
Speaker 1: do with Tampa's total opously just come down and there's
Speaker 1: nothing going on. So I totally relate what you said.
Speaker 1: I would feel that time. We weren't taking photography classes
Speaker 1: down to Tampa at the Tampa Institute of Photography. So
Speaker 1: you come home, you got all this time. You got
Speaker 1: six months of um all season. Four months before you
Speaker 1: started training, I started hanging out at clubs, norm more drugs,
Speaker 1: you know, just basically trying to fill that voard and
Speaker 1: not No, are you thinking this is fun? Looking my dad,
Speaker 1: it wasn't fun. It caused more trouble than anything. Did
Speaker 1: Money caused your trouble to money calls me trouble too.
Speaker 1: I was saying, how much money did you make your
Speaker 1: first I mean, this is all public record. How much
Speaker 1: money did you make your first season throwing in professional base?
Speaker 1: But not not the Triple A, not not the farm
Speaker 1: I first got drafted, when you first got driving the
Speaker 1: first thing? For how long did that last? How many years?
Speaker 1: For a year and a half, because then I was
Speaker 1: in the major's right then he went to the majors.
Speaker 1: How much did they pay my rookie year? I think
Speaker 1: the minimum at that time was sixty thousand. But my
Speaker 1: rookie year was out to also bring I mean, more
Speaker 1: money off the field than I did my contry. How
Speaker 1: much your money did you make off the field that year?
Speaker 1: I probably made about one point five when they busted
Speaker 1: the minimum that was in the sixty When did they
Speaker 1: we negotiate your contract with the Mets. Well, I didn't
Speaker 1: get a long term deal to at that point. I
Speaker 1: got like I think it was five point five million
Speaker 1: for three years, and at that point is the highest
Speaker 1: paid player at that time. Dwight Gooden also earned a
Speaker 1: one foot mural in Manhattan which depicts did the ace
Speaker 1: mid pitch, arms outstretched just about to launch a fastball.
Speaker 1: The giant image of Gooden looked down onto Times Square
Speaker 1: for ten years. In a moment, Doc Gooden gets questionable
Speaker 1: advice from a doctor and takes it. This is Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball was hardly immune to the cultural excesses
Speaker 1: of the nineteen eighties and the eighties. Six Mets were
Speaker 1: known as a hard partying team. Even so, Dwight Gooden
Speaker 1: was able to set limits in a sense, I went
Speaker 1: from seven to ninety four. We're just drinking. How it
Speaker 1: did that? I have no idea without using I think
Speaker 1: part of me will help me do that because I
Speaker 1: was being tested right, and so to talk about what
Speaker 1: it was like back in the test policy, how did
Speaker 1: that work? The test policy was once you test poli
Speaker 1: something or if you're get in trouble some kind of
Speaker 1: with alcohol or drugs, and you did, then you get
Speaker 1: into the just testing programs. How do they know you
Speaker 1: were in trouble with drugs and alcohol? Why I went
Speaker 1: to rehab? And eighty seven describe that what happened obviously
Speaker 1: in eight six missing the parade and I go to
Speaker 1: spring train. I'm doing coke, you know, not obviously doing
Speaker 1: the games, but I'm doing coke. Like I said, that
Speaker 1: night in spring training, you have to be the ballpark
Speaker 1: really early, so I did. I'm coming in there. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it looked like I've been up, you know, all day,
Speaker 1: all night. So then they called me in and say,
Speaker 1: you know, well these rooms going, let's put the rooms risk.
Speaker 1: Can we test you? So sure you can test me
Speaker 1: because I know I hadn't did anything the night before,
Speaker 1: so obviously the tests come like positive. So they get
Speaker 1: my option. They say you go to rehab and we'll
Speaker 1: continue paying your salary or because suspending without pay, so
Speaker 1: I was easy. So I say, I'll go to rehab
Speaker 1: so I can continue being paid, even though still at
Speaker 1: that time I man treatment, but I'm still thinking I
Speaker 1: don't have a problem, so I'll just marking days off
Speaker 1: the calendar to the third days was up. Get out
Speaker 1: of rehab. Now I'm bike working out with the money teams.
Speaker 1: And then when get on the plane to join the team,
Speaker 1: right back to drinking. So from ninety four I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't use the drugs, but I was still drinking.
Speaker 1: So testing kind of scared you. Tests scared me, and
Speaker 1: plus it helped me for a little bit of a a
Speaker 1: period of time, but it's just amount of time I
Speaker 1: was gonna go back because I was still drinking. And
Speaker 1: so when so when testing helped to keep you in line,
Speaker 1: and then after ninety four, didn't write where were you
Speaker 1: that season? What happened was ninety four the situation where
Speaker 1: like I said, it was already premeditated that I was
Speaker 1: definitely used again given opportunity. So ninety four, the first
Speaker 1: game of the season, I break my toe, so I
Speaker 1: get put on the deal. So now I'm rehabing, getting
Speaker 1: back in shape. And so when Do's given a clearance.
Speaker 1: The sort of planning. I go down to the mono
Speaker 1: leagues just to get some in and in and build
Speaker 1: my own scrint up. And the right away the disease
Speaker 1: tell me, hey, they're not testing you down here. I
Speaker 1: can get high while I'm down here, I've relapsed. And
Speaker 1: now when I joined the team in Cincinnati, there's a
Speaker 1: guy from any Baseball waiting to test me. He tested me, obviously,
Speaker 1: it's positive, gets suspended. Then I go to our Betty Ford.
Speaker 1: I get out of there. So they wanted me to
Speaker 1: come back to New York to the Major League Baseball doctors.
Speaker 1: Before I went to Tampa. All I had to hear
Speaker 1: was the one doctor says, why don't you just drink?
Speaker 1: I don't do drugs. So as he said that, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: even though even though I know I shouldn't have been
Speaker 1: two treatments at that time, and I know I can't drink.
Speaker 1: So I said, wow, maybe I could do it different
Speaker 1: this time. And now I'm gonna plane and fly home
Speaker 1: to Tampa to see my family. I'm drinking the plane
Speaker 1: I got to that plane, I don't see my family
Speaker 1: for three days. You pick up right where you left off.
Speaker 1: Definitely definitely pick up right. What is what they say
Speaker 1: for me? I when I got sober, when I stopped
Speaker 1: drinking and I stopped taking drugs, which was many years
Speaker 1: ago when I was very young, it changed a lot
Speaker 1: of things from me. I made. It really changed my
Speaker 1: attitude work to what I do for a living. I
Speaker 1: began to see the potential. And I don't want to
Speaker 1: say that it made me overwhelmingly cynical. That may be
Speaker 1: true or less, but it definitely made me more thoughtful,
Speaker 1: and it made me more aware of where there was
Speaker 1: the unhealthiness and a lot of things we do relationships
Speaker 1: with people. You know what what was a healthy relationship?
Speaker 1: What was a healthy relationship with my family? And what
Speaker 1: was your relationship like with your parents? Uh, now that
Speaker 1: you're rich and famous and honored and you have all
Speaker 1: these awards and you're coming apart my mom she didn't
Speaker 1: care about that fame. And still they see she can
Speaker 1: come and see you. Did you spend time? She would
Speaker 1: come up like during the season and see me. But
Speaker 1: she whenn't. She maybe came to maybe two games. She
Speaker 1: came to one in Houston, my very first start. She
Speaker 1: came to also a game in and maybe two stories
Speaker 1: in New York. My mom is a real Southern girl.
Speaker 1: She's from Georgia where they grow their own vegetables and
Speaker 1: fruit and you know, working the cotton field all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So baseball she enjoyed it more when I was a
Speaker 1: kid than professionally because she don't like all the commotions, right.
Speaker 1: So for my dad, he kind of treat him in
Speaker 1: the same but at the same time, I mean he
Speaker 1: was enjoying all the stuff that was going on. I
Speaker 1: mean he liked that because when I started playing baseball,
Speaker 1: initially was his dream and then it became my dream.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned a book where a lot of
Speaker 1: my parents like they had me at a later time
Speaker 1: in the stage, like I have five siblars, three brothers,
Speaker 1: and I'm the youngest by thirteen years, so I came
Speaker 1: later on. So obviously I was a spot kid. My
Speaker 1: mom was very strict, you know, very direct with stuff.
Speaker 1: When my dad kind of gave me a pass with
Speaker 1: a lot of things as long as I was playing baseball.
Speaker 1: Without naming names, obviously, would you say that drug usage,
Speaker 1: I mean alcohol, it's uh, that's always been the case
Speaker 1: throughout history. But would you say the drug usage and
Speaker 1: particularly cocaine usage. Well, what what was the cocaine and
Speaker 1: drug usage like among professional athletes during the from when
Speaker 1: you started to when you finally got sober in two thousand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. Um. Obviously, in the eighties it was.
Speaker 1: It was available pretty much any time you wanted it,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people you knew were doing it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people doing it, and unfortunately the
Speaker 1: eight six Mass got labeled as a party team at
Speaker 1: that time in early eighties old teams was a party
Speaker 1: but because we're successful and within New York, we got
Speaker 1: pointed out. Um, a lot of stuff they say was true.
Speaker 1: But other teams and the police were doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: I think, who was a person that didn't party, who
Speaker 1: was kind of a straight arrow. Who is the boy
Speaker 1: scout on the team, who would come up with you,
Speaker 1: if any and wag their fingers in their face and say,
Speaker 1: shame on you. Don't you do that with several guys
Speaker 1: that didn't drink and didn't party, but they never like
Speaker 1: pointing finger. I thought this better. So no one came
Speaker 1: to you like a like a patriarchal figure and put
Speaker 1: his hand in and said, hey man, you gotta slow down.
Speaker 1: No prime example, Gary Carter. Great guy, I mean obviously
Speaker 1: it was a great problem. Even a better person off
Speaker 1: the field. He never drink, he never hung out with
Speaker 1: is anything that like. He would go out to the
Speaker 1: eat with us. But once we were saying we'll go
Speaker 1: out on the strip and he's okay, if you guys
Speaker 1: need me or whatever, I'm in my room. But they
Speaker 1: say it would come in with the red eyes, you
Speaker 1: know you hungover. He never judged you. He just said,
Speaker 1: you know you're okay, everything's good, you had a good time. Good, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get back to work. And that was it. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: what do you say to your kids? Your kids are
Speaker 1: high old. My kids are from three to twenty seven.
Speaker 1: So you have kids that knew how your top three
Speaker 1: oldest or how old seven one that I have an
Speaker 1: eighteen and sixteen right, so from sixteen and above. Let's say, uh,
Speaker 1: what do you say to them when they because they
Speaker 1: know all about you what's in the book. They know
Speaker 1: all about me with the book. And even before the
Speaker 1: book came out, I would talk to my kids, um,
Speaker 1: when you drink whatever I said, look, use me as
Speaker 1: an example, Um, like older kids. When I got to
Speaker 1: the point and felt comfortable. I had to talk with them,
Speaker 1: and I said, basically to tell you how powerful drugs
Speaker 1: are called it is, I basically divorced you, guys and
Speaker 1: your mother for drugs. I said, So just picture that.
Speaker 1: I said, you guys know how I felt when I
Speaker 1: wasn't around insidious it is right. And when I wasn't
Speaker 1: into school activities, when I wanted to game or if
Speaker 1: I was there, I miss a lot of that. And
Speaker 1: I say, you just think what that did to me.
Speaker 1: I say, and you guys know my heart. You guys
Speaker 1: know the type of person as I said, but once
Speaker 1: you get involved with that, you're not the same. And
Speaker 1: not only did you hurt yourself, but you hurt your
Speaker 1: loved ones like they forgive you. Like you guys, Yes,
Speaker 1: that was one of the things they forgave me. I
Speaker 1: only wanted me to be as healthy and be accountable
Speaker 1: to them. I don't make any promises to them, obviously,
Speaker 1: but I'm always there. I talked to him daily. Now,
Speaker 1: what are you doing with yourself now? I um. I
Speaker 1: usually my eight year old son and he plays baseball
Speaker 1: and football in Inglewood clips. He's here when I have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to help to coach his team. I do
Speaker 1: work with the mess sine Yankees. Um. I couldn't do
Speaker 1: that when Mrs Simer was living. It was only Yankee
Speaker 1: or nothing. So now unfortunately he's passed, I get to
Speaker 1: work a little bit with both teams. Do that, do
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff with the youth program and my
Speaker 1: true passions anything with kids. Your dad died when he passed.
Speaker 1: For where were you when your dad died? Icually? Um?
Speaker 1: I was in Tampa when it happened. Um, I usually
Speaker 1: the last game. My dad told me pitch wasn't no hitter,
Speaker 1: and I talked about that in a book where he
Speaker 1: had He had been struggling for a while with his
Speaker 1: kidding failures on dallas Is for like fifteen years. His
Speaker 1: health was deteriorating and they felt he had to have
Speaker 1: emergency heart surgery. They felt if he didn't have the surgery,
Speaker 1: he probably would last a month or two. And even
Speaker 1: if he had the surgery, can guarantee he's gonna last
Speaker 1: a month or two. But he definitely had a surgery.
Speaker 1: The day that piched on hid, I was supposed to
Speaker 1: fly home to build him that day because of having
Speaker 1: a surgery. Next morning, I had my flight, reservation, everything.
Speaker 1: But uh, when I woke up that morning, you know,
Speaker 1: I remember taking a shower and brash my teeth, and
Speaker 1: I just started reminiscent of all the days we spent
Speaker 1: at the park. Him teaching me to drills, made him
Speaker 1: going through the spring training games, made him watching games
Speaker 1: on TV. From him. I learned from him, like how
Speaker 1: to pitch, basically knew everything I learned about baseballs from him. Um,
Speaker 1: And would you learn from him as a father? As
Speaker 1: a father is putting family first? Understanding you believe he did, yes,
Speaker 1: definitely understanding in his way. In his way, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he might have it, didn't live it, but just
Speaker 1: telling me, you know, family comes first, family values, setting
Speaker 1: a good example for your kids as well. So that
Speaker 1: day I felt he will. Probably in some ways he
Speaker 1: didn't set a good example for you, well with the
Speaker 1: woman I was in or whatever. But that's that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I wonder if sometimes that's part of what happened.
Speaker 1: Was you trying to make peace with those two, because
Speaker 1: that's where I came to in my life once I
Speaker 1: got sober and I showed up to examine what was
Speaker 1: bothering me. When I began to realize was I did
Speaker 1: my parents were people? Yeah? Did you find that that
Speaker 1: was a part of what aid at you? No, the
Speaker 1: contradictions inside your dad with with him, No, I would
Speaker 1: say not at all. Um, he was there like a
Speaker 1: lot of things that he was doing. I thought you
Speaker 1: became a womanizer. Yeah, I became a womanizer. And the
Speaker 1: thing my dad's were doing with the drinking whatever, like
Speaker 1: I never actually saw him with the one whatever, so
Speaker 1: he kept it all the way from my parents never
Speaker 1: are going to find me. So I just thought it
Speaker 1: was you know, everything was great. So you're saying that song,
Speaker 1: daddy's got a girlfriend. You out he would getting water
Speaker 1: or something. You actually you accidentally threw him under the
Speaker 1: that's a thing you described in the book. That's really
Speaker 1: really cool. You you did the doctor Drew thing. What
Speaker 1: year that was two thousand eleven. So you went back
Speaker 1: because you went out again, Yes, and you went out
Speaker 1: when you were sober from when to win from the
Speaker 1: last time from two thousand and ten. I was very
Speaker 1: acting my addiction what I was going through this, But
Speaker 1: you were sober two thousand till when two thousand um
Speaker 1: to two, and then I went back out there and
Speaker 1: I was basically in and out of my addiction until
Speaker 1: so you eat and out for eight more years and
Speaker 1: you got busted. Uh two, yes, do something? You get
Speaker 1: busted where what what happened was in Franklin Lakes in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. I had got charged with child endangerment where
Speaker 1: I took ambien the night before I woke up to
Speaker 1: take my son to school. Obviously hit a car and
Speaker 1: they wanted to get me out into the field, sobriety tests,
Speaker 1: which as they're talking to him building off and Mr
Speaker 1: taken a couple of ambien. Yes, it sounds like you
Speaker 1: took well the one ambient. Right. So then you get
Speaker 1: charged child endangerment because you were in a vehicle with
Speaker 1: a child. Yes. How old was the child? My son
Speaker 1: at that time that was two thousand ten, you know
Speaker 1: he would have been five. You were married to your
Speaker 1: wife then? Yes? Newly married almost? Yes? And what happened?
Speaker 1: Did you go to prison? Did jail rather? No time?
Speaker 1: No time? Got probation and I went That's when I
Speaker 1: went to the dr. Juwe show what what what? What
Speaker 1: did you think was unique about that? What helped you about? Uh?
Speaker 1: Going to the doctor's room. I can help you definitely
Speaker 1: helped me. But I think the thing was I was
Speaker 1: ready to get help the times before with the treatment.
Speaker 1: I was just basically there during my time. As you know,
Speaker 1: in treatment, what you put in is what you get out.
Speaker 1: I was just ready. It was the time of my
Speaker 1: life where I knew I had been a you know, rehabs.
Speaker 1: I've been the institutions. I've been a jail. I've been
Speaker 1: a prison. The only thing waiting with the cemetery. When
Speaker 1: did you go to prison? I went The prison was
Speaker 1: six four for technical volation for it was a relapse.
Speaker 1: How long were you in there? Ten a half months?
Speaker 1: What was that like? Horrible? I mean horrible in Gainesville, Florida.
Speaker 1: That was horrible any time you get locked up across
Speaker 1: the fader Well facility. You were in a state prison,
Speaker 1: but going there at the age forty is horrible. State prison. Yes,
Speaker 1: you were in a state prison in Gainesville, Florida for
Speaker 1: ten months, and they all knew who you were and
Speaker 1: did all like the biggest time. I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: been making a joke here, but like the biggest, toughest
Speaker 1: guys in the prison who could probably beat the crap
Speaker 1: and even come up and tell you that they would
Speaker 1: protect you if you taught them the secret and how
Speaker 1: to throw the fastball. I didn't get into that. Did
Speaker 1: you take a ball, like show them how to things
Speaker 1: going with the laces? They leave you alone? You look
Speaker 1: at some guy, listen, ray, I'm gonna show this to
Speaker 1: you one time and then that's it. I want you
Speaker 1: to promise if you're gonna leave out and there you
Speaker 1: found out the first thing you're there, You're just a number.
Speaker 1: You're not even a name. It's horrible. Yes, who did
Speaker 1: you become friends with it? Did you any what kind
Speaker 1: of time? There's a couple of guys that I knew
Speaker 1: from as kids that I haven't seen since childhood and
Speaker 1: found him in are because they've been in and out
Speaker 1: their whole life. So but that it helped the time
Speaker 1: go by fast. It was just a horrible, horrible time
Speaker 1: harbor experience. When you got out of there, how did
Speaker 1: you feel it was different? And I totally agree, Um, guy,
Speaker 1: I was telling me when guys getting cross ready and
Speaker 1: you're there for basically ten months or longer, it takes
Speaker 1: that same amount of time when you get out to
Speaker 1: get back to your yourself. And I found that once
Speaker 1: I got out, I was still living like I was
Speaker 1: a prison. I wouldn't go anywhere. I was just stay
Speaker 1: in the house. I was just basically doing time on
Speaker 1: the streets. So it was a horrible harbor time too.
Speaker 1: I can get comfortable. Who helped you? I had all
Speaker 1: started going to the meetings after that. I got a sponsor,
Speaker 1: this guy Ron Do Now when you first went to
Speaker 1: meetings and to that, No, I went to meetings before,
Speaker 1: but I just got totally go back into the program.
Speaker 1: The program saved you. Yeah, they got me going and
Speaker 1: got me, you know, feeling good about myself again. How
Speaker 1: was your wife? Is she cool about it? No? Okay,
Speaker 1: that was tough time. Yeah, that was tough. Yeah that's
Speaker 1: a story for another day. But it was okay. It's
Speaker 1: a tough thing though, you know, it's very tough. That's
Speaker 1: that's the thing I'll tell my kids. It's tough not
Speaker 1: only on you, but it's tough on you all your
Speaker 1: loved ones. You've heard everybody else through it. Yes, you
Speaker 1: definitely A lot of stuff is on their times. You
Speaker 1: can't have them forgive you on your time because we're
Speaker 1: doing like right now. So they have to work through
Speaker 1: their things and get to a point where they accept
Speaker 1: what happened. We can't force him. That's the thing that
Speaker 1: I found out For all his years in baseball, Dwight
Speaker 1: Gooden says he's more of a football fan, and during
Speaker 1: football season, his Sundays are pretty routine. He goes to church,
Speaker 1: attends a meeting, and then spends the rest of the
Speaker 1: night watching the game. Was your team Giants, big giant fans.
Speaker 1: I a lot of heat from our friend Valing Tample.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our archive more in depth conversations
Speaker 1: with artists, policymakers, and performers like opera singer Renee Fleming.
Speaker 1: People go to sports events and scream at you know,
Speaker 1: the other team or even there of the people they
Speaker 1: like and their horse. The next day, we can't do that.
Speaker 1: We're doing the same thing, but we're doing it in
Speaker 1: a trained way, and you know, it is a hard
Speaker 1: art form to get right, but when it's right, it's
Speaker 1: it's amazing. Here more from two celebrated singers, Renee Fleming
Speaker 1: and radioheads Tom Yorke at Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing is produced by Emily Botine and Kathy
Speaker 1: Russo with Chris Bannon, Jim Briggs, ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops,
Speaker 1: Monica Hopkins, Trey k Sharon machehe, Zach McNeice, Canberra Monies,
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Speaker 1: the Thing. M h m hm