A rail-thin and frail Doc Gooden denied Monday that he has a drug problem — instead hurling insults at his former teammate Darryl Strawberry for trying to stage a public intervention.
The beloved former Mets pitcher — furious at Strawberry’s claim on the front page of the Daily News that Gooden was “a complete junkie-addict” — insisted he hadn’t relapsed on cocaine.
“Unfortunately it’s no friendship (and) bad judgment on my part thinking it was,” Gooden, 51, told The News. “(Never) once lied or said anything negative about him to the media, but teammates and people who really know us (know) who’s real and who’s counterfeit.”
Then Gooden threw a high, hard one at his former teammate.
“We’d been close, especially since ’86. I always thought we’d be brothers. But I was wrong. It hurts — I don’t understand why friends would do such hurtful things.”
“I am healthy. I don’t have a drug problem. I mean, I am an addict … that don’t mean I’m an active addict,” he said.
Outside his Jersey City apartment, the gaunt ex-Met insisted his struggles with drug addiction hadn’t resurfaced.
“I’m doing fine. There’s a lot more to the story than you’d think,” said Gooden, who is 6-feet-2 and weighed a healthy 190 pounds in his playing days.
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