Dwight Gooden Throws No-Hitter.

Dwight Gooden Throws No-Hitter. The following report is from a June 1996 article in the Encarta Yearbook. . Baseball: On the Rebound, Dwight Gooden Throws His First No-Hitter Less than a month after nearly being released from the team for his poor performance, New York Yankees pitcher Dwight Gooden reclaimed his dominant form and threw a no-hitter in a 2-0 win over the Seattle Mariners on May 14, 1996. It was the former Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award winner's first no-hitter of his successful but troubled baseball career. Gooden's no-hitter came almost out of nowhere. A onetime New York Met star and the dominant pitcher of the mid-1980s, Gooden fell prey to a drug and alcohol addiction that eventually culminated in a suspension from baseball. After he missed part of the 1994 season and all of 1995 on drug suspension, the Yankees took a gamble and signed Gooden as a free agent. But the team's faith was tested when Gooden struggled early in 1996 and started out 0-3, putting his job in jeopardy. An injury to Yankee pitcher David Cone gave Gooden a reprieve, and he began working with pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre on changing his throwing motion. The adjustments showed immediate benefits, and Gooden got his first win in nearly two years against the Detroit Tigers on May 8. He finished the game by getting the last 22 consecutive batters out. Gooden picked up where he left off in his next starting assignment, his seventh of the year, against the heavy-hitting Mariners. In the first inning, Seattle shortstop Alex Rodriguez smashed a drive to center field, but Yankee outfielder Gerald Williams made a sensational over-the-shoulder grab. The play would loom large as Gooden piled up the outs, striking out five while walking six. Facing the heart of the Mariners' lineup in the ninth, Gooden got Ken Griffey, Jr., to bounce out, Jay Buhner to strike out, and Paul Sorrento to pop up. His teammates carried the emotional Gooden off the field to the cheers of the more than 31,000 fans at Yankee Stadium. No-hitters are a celebrated baseball event, with usually just a handful recorded each year. In the strike-shortened 1995 season only one no-hitter was pitched, on July 14 by Ramon Martinez of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Gooden's old team, the Mets, have never had a pitcher throw a no-hitter for them. But in 1996 major league baseball had two no-hitters in the first month and a half of play. Just three days before Gooden hurled his gem, Al Leiter of the Florida Marlins recorded a no-hitter of his own. In a game between the two teams that entered the National League in 1993, Leiter and the Marlins shut down the Colorado Rockies, 11-0. The hard-throwing lefthander dominated the Rockies, striking out six and walking two in recording the first no-hitter in Marlins' history. He retired the last 20 hitters in a row. Source: Encarta Yearbook, June 1996. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.