Darryl Strawberry, who preceded Gooden by a year and who would always be linked with him, also fell just as hard as Gooden. Back then, people thought Strawberry was the guy who dragged Doc down with him, but in truth they were never great and tight friends. Whatever Gooden did, he did to himself.

The fans forgave him, as they always forgive good-looking guys with easy smiles, a 24-4 record with a 1.53 ERA. Dick Young, the hairy thunderer of New York’s tabloid columnists, told fans to “Stand up and boo” when Gooden returned from his first suspension in 1987. They cheered instead.

Nine years later, no longer a phenom and coming off a year’s suspension, Gooden was forced into a start for the Yankees when David Cone went down. Gooden, whose father was in a hospital in Florida waiting to undergo a bypass, took the ball and threw a no-hitter.

The feat still makes most list of the top 10 moments in New York sports.

Even now, you can’t be a baseball fan in New York and help but smiling at the memory of what he was. Other pitchers have had better years, but not by much. But no season I’ve ever seen has had the electricity and sheer joy of Gooden’s rookie season of 1984 and his Cy Young season of 1985.

He was all but unhittable, his fastball crackling and alive, the curve a knee-buckling yakker that froze hitters in their tracks. The motion was long and loose, almost languid; it never looked as if what he was doing involved great effort.

His father, Dan, partly crippled by diabetes, used to come up to Shea Stadium to sit in a box seat on the railing to watch his kid pitch. Dan Gooden had been a good sandlot player in his day, and he taught the game to his kid. When Gooden was about 13 years old, Dan knew young Dwight was going places when he stood in the batter’s box and told the kid to throw his best stuff.

“He blowed me away,” Dan Gooden told me 21 years ago, reliving the moment.

In those days, nothing was impossible to imagine. Three hundred wins were out there along with 5,000 strikeouts and who knows how many no-hitters. He was headed for the Hall of Fame. Of that, there was no question.

Instead, he blowed his life away. Gooden fell into the whirlpool of money and celebrity and couldn’t pull out.

He’s falling still.

Here’s hoping he finally hits bottom.

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