Dwight Gooden believes if he had died the moment the Mets won the World Series in 1986, he would have saved many people a great deal of grief – starting with himself.
The mercurial former ace’s downward spiral began just minutes after Jesse Orosco tossed his glove in the air to celebrate the Amazin’s comeback victory over the Red Sox, Gooden writes in his new autobiography “Doc: A Memoir.”
The first call Gooden made after becoming World Series champion was his father. The second was his drug dealer. That night, Gooden went on a cocaine and booze bender that ended up causing him to miss the Mets’ victory parade. Instead, he watched the celebration on television at his home – a moment he describes as the loneliest he has ever felt.
“As my teammates road through the Canyon of Heroes, I was alone in my bed in Roslyn, Long Island, with the curtains closed and the TV on, missing what should have been the greatest morning of my life,” Gooden wrote.
The book, written with Ellis Henican, will be released June 14 and there are excerpts currently posted on amazon.com. “Doc: A Memoir” goes into vivid detail of Gooden’s struggle with drugs, through repeated rehab attempts, and finally the breakthrough he made on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab.”
Gooden describes his mental state in the hours after the Mets won the title as desperately seeking drugs. Partying at a seedy housing project near Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island, Gooden even turned down sex to continue doing lines of cocaine with his dealer and strangers.
“This is where the coke was, so this is where I wanted to be,” Gooden writes.
He didn’t leave the party until after 6:30 a.m. and drove home high and drunk. When he reached his house, he had multiple messages on his answering machine – the first three from Mets PR man Jay Horowitz asking if Gooden was awake for the parade. He was indeed awake, but in no shape to interact with fans.
“I stared at the TV through narrow, squinting eyes,” Gooden wrote. “And that’s how I watched my own victory parade.”
The candid, dark book also chronicles Gooden’s rise to become one of the best young pitchers in baseball history, his years with the Yankees and his complicated relationship with Darryl Strawberry.
mraimondi@nypost.com