Mike Celizic

It is amazing how far some people can fall and still not hit bottom.

That’s what I thought when the news report hit the web about Dwight Gooden disappearing after fleeing a traffic stop. The officer who pulled him over said he smelled of alcohol, had bloodshot eyes and was slurring his words. Rather than get out of the car and take a roadside sobriety test, Gooden took off, leaving the cop holding his driver’s license. He turned himself in Thursday, three days later.

He’s been falling for at least 18 years now, ever since word broke during spring training of 1987 that he had tested positive for cocaine. A 60-day suspension didn’t break his fall, nor did a suspension of more than a year in 1994-95. Subsequent arrests in his hometown of Tampa didn’t stop him either, nor did charges of domestic assault earlier this year.

Even seeing his son, Dwight Jr., arrested for possession of cocaine couldn’t stop Gooden from plummeting further into the abyss.

Blame him if you will. But no one wishes such a life on himself. No one gets up in the morning and sees at the top of his to-do list: “Get drunk and destroy your life.”

Only recovering alcoholics and addicts fully understand what he’s going through. Like him, they, too, were once in constant free fall. Only when they hit bottom did they start to recover.

The bottom is in a different place for each individual, but it’s there for everyone. And there are only two ways the fall can end. Either you die on the way down, or you finally go splat and realize that you have to stop.

For Gooden, you have to think one of those two ends has to arrive sooner rather than later. For his sake, you hope the road he takes is the long climb back out of the abyss.

If you don’t know the man who erupted on the sports scene in 1984 as a 19-year-old phenom with the New York Mets, you may think whatever happens to Gooden is less than he deserves. But if you remember the wide-eyed, eager-to-please kid with the explosive fastball and infectious smile who conquered the heart of a city, you want to cry.

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He was Dr. K, a total innocent on a team of near-total decadence, a team that was on its way both to greatness and to ruin. The Mets of the mid-1980s were the last great team that partied its way to a world title, a hard-drinking bare-knuckle ball club that knew few bounds either on or off the field.

And Gooden couldn’t handle it. It was too much too fast for the kid who just wanted to please. Other players snorted coke and got drunk and chased women and survived. Gooden didn’t.

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