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Kids, as I keep telling you – you have no idea how good Gooden was…but former Cub Shawon Dunston does:

“Dwight had two pitches — no, three pitches,” said Dunston, now a special assistant with the Giants. “He had a fastball, he had a curveball that fell off the table and he had a fast fastball. You had no chance against that fastball. I always talk about Dwight Gooden with young pitchers who are just coming up, even Tim Lincecum. I tell them, ‘You’ve got nothing on Dwight Gooden.’ I’d put the first three years of his career against anyone’s.

Mark Simon spoke with several players about Gooden.  A must read.

Check out the very cool full piece on ESPN New York

Also…Straw was on with Michael Kay (audio) on Friday.

I think I linked to this the other day (brain foggy) but today is the perfect day to wax poetic about the young Dwight Gooden.

1985.  The best there ever was.

Mark Simon tells you all about September 1985 here. Kids in your black John Franco jerseys, read it and try to imagine it.  It was amazing.

(T)he newspapers reported that the Mets were suspicious that the Cubs had their signs. But whenever Gooden needed an out, he got one.

“In games you can’t afford to lose, there’s no better pitcher,” manager Davey Johnson, also being inducted Sunday, said after the game.

I’m heading out to Citi Field with all my kids and Mets Police Mom.   (Mrs. Mets Police is working).   I hope you join us.

As always, Greg Prince from Faith & Fear in Flushing is a much better writer than I.   Enjoy this excerpt:

You can express it any way you like. You can add up the complete games (16), the shutouts (8), the strikeouts (268), the wins (24) and the ERA (1.53). You can gawk at his September and remember that the Mets needed every single inning he gave them as they chased, caught, passed and fell — again — behind the Cardinals. You can go straight to his last start, at St. Louis, when he was not at all sharp and still managed a complete game victory with ten strikeouts to move the Mets within one of the division lead with four to play. You can note his Cy Young Award was unanimous, his fourth-place finish in the MVP voting ludicrously low or that Wally Backman summed up the Mets’ ultimate three-game deficit in a nutshell when he wryly observed that it was all Doc’s fault — after all, he did lose four games.

And now enjoy the entire article.