MLB

Mets’ Dickey reveals sexual abuse as child; contemplated suicide in 2006

(
)

PORT ST. LUCIE — R.A. Dickey is telling his story with the hope he might help other victims.

The Mets knuckleballer reveals in his new autobiography that he was sexually abused as a child, and with his life spiraling out of control as an adult he contemplated suicide.

In the book, “Wherever I Wind Up,” Dickey says he was 8 years old when a 13-year-old female babysitter began sexually abusing him.

”The babysitter chucks the pillows and stuffed animals out of the way,” Dickey wrote. “She looks at me and says, ‘Get in the bed.’ I am confused and afraid. I am trembling. The babysitter has her way with me four or five more times that summer, and into the fall, and each time feels more wicked than the time before.

“Every time that I know I’m going back over there, the sweat starts to come back. I sit in the front seat of the car, next to my mother, anxiety surging. I never tell her why I am so afraid. I never tell anyone until I am 31 years old.”

In a separate incident, Dickey says a teenage male also sexually assaulted him. Dickey was 8 years old and alone playing a game with a tennis ball in a secluded area.

“There is just submission and so much sadness,” Dickey wrote. “I can’t do anything. I close my eyes and wait for it to be over.”

Dickey spoke with reporters yesterday at the Mets spring training complex and said he thought it was important his story surfaced to help others.

“A lot of times sexual abuse can be, it’s almost like the bullying stuff,” Dickey said. “Unless you talk about it and unless it gets out there, unless you know there are people that care about you regardless of what’s happened to you, unless you know that it’s hard to get to a place where you get comfortable not only talking about that, but talking about what it’s made you into.”

In the book Dickey also says he contemplated suicide in 2006, with his marriage in trouble after he had been unfaithful. Dickey had been married to his wife, Anne, for eight years at that point, but never discussed his sexual abuse. Then he told her the truth.

Dickey writes of being a professional baseball player: “It is a life that can make you a perennial adolescent, where your needs and whims are catered to, and narcissism is as prevalent as sunflower seeds, a life that is about as un-family-friendly as you can imagine.”

“Part of being sexually abused is you feel like you’re damaged,” Dickey said yesterday. “You feel like if people knew the truth you would be looked at in a certain light or you would be broken and fractured, so you don’t risk it, and that’s one of the things I wish I would have done better.

“But I just didn’t possess the equipment or the vocabulary to do that well with [Anne] and it cost me. It was tough on our marriage for a long time, so when I told her, and she loved me despite the ugliest parts of my life, it really did a lot for our relationship.”

Dickey also mentions finding a syringe in the clubhouse when he played for the Rangers in 2001, at the height of the steroid era.

“It may have been used for the most benign of purposes, but the mere sight of it makes me feel as though I am looking straight at Evil — like seeing a weapon somebody left behind at a crime scene.”

The pitcher also joked in the book about the Bernie Madoff scam affecting the Mets.

“Maybe we’ll be staying at Motel 6s on the road this year,” Dickey wrote. “I hope they didn’t have our per diem money with Bernie. Is it true David Wright is going to be piloting our charter?”