10-13-2000
It’s Friday the 13th. Time for some ironic reminiscing. It looks like it is going to be a subway series, the Yankees and the Mets. What does this have to do with anything you may think? It brings me back to my childhood when I was a Mets fan. And when I think of those times I think of two guys: Daryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden. These were my two favorite players. Shea was the first stadium I ever saw a game at. And even though I was born and raised in LA until I was a teen, I was a Mets fan as long as I cared about baseball(also until I became a teen). It has always struck me that I became addicted to the very drug that also reeked havoc in the lives of these two idols of mine.
I am suggesting no correlation here. Not trying to blame or suggest any culpability. That would be silly. Still, knowing these things about people you have looked up to does have to have some effect on your psyche does it not? I lived in New York for a couple of short stints in 97 and 98. Funny that both of these men ended up playing for the Yankees just before then.
Going to Yankee games got me interested in baseball games again. I became a Yankee fan. So now I wait for this series very pensive. Brings back a lot of memories and raises a lot of questions about life. Both of my old heroes ended their careers on pretty good notes considering their pasts. But drugs derailed what would have been hall of fame entries in both cases. Strawberry’s struggle has continued off of the field and has been very public. I wonder will drugs hold me back from what I could have done. But you have to have a goal and try to accomplish it before you can ever figure that out.
I still don’t even know what I want to do. Playing baseball brings back some of my fondest memories…and some of the worst. But now it makes me reflective of a time when I had a lot less cares, a lot less troubles. I miss those times, but it is time to move on. They say cowards live in the past, and I believe it to be true. But we all have a little bit of the lion in the Wizard of Oz inside of us don’t we?
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