Gooden: A Fan Favorite

“When I talk to the fans today, I always tell them [the crowd] worked to my advantage,” Dwight Gooden explained. “Being on the mound at Shea Stadium any time I got two strikes on a batter the fans would be standing up clapping. So that would basically work to my advantage because I didn’t necessarily have to throw a strike though I would throw it close. I knew the umpire would call it a strike because if he didn’t the fans would let them hear it and the hitters they didn’t want to go down looking so they would swing.”