ex-Baseball Player Dwight Gooden chooses prison over rehab

[LynneSin]

Dwight Gooden chooses prison over rehab

MIAMI (Reuters) - Embattled former baseball star Dwight Gooden chose on Wednesday to go to prison for a year and a day rather than enter a drug rehabilitation facility after using cocaine while on probation, court officials in Tampa said.

Gooden, a Tampa native who won the National League Cy Young Award in 1985, had been on probation since he fled from police after a traffic stop in 2004.

Submission to regular drug tests was one of the conditions of his probation and he was sent to Hillsborough County Jail last month after testing positive for cocaine.

Prosecutor Pam Bondi said Gooden was given the chance to accept treatment in an inpatient alcohol and drug addiction facility instead of prison time before his sentencing.

Bondi said Gooden chose the minimum one-year-and-one-day prison sentence instead because the judge said Gooden would receive a five-year sentence if he accepted the rehabilitation term and then slipped back into drug use.

[beyurslf]

1. You can't quit until you're ready. I guess we know where he is.

[jukes]

3. FLORIDA!

maybe he cdnt deal w/ being "bible-thumped" into recovering...

that "faith-based tuff-love" forcing you to convert wd make me choose the joint 1st.

[johnnie]

2. Poor guy

Addiction is a fucking bitch.

[maveric]

4. This guy had it all. Youth, talent, a blazing fastball...

Think what numbers he may have put up sober.
Addiction is a monster!

[Oeditpus Rex]

7. Too *much* youth

Doc was 19 when he came up. That's way too young to be shoved under the billion-watt spotlights of New York City.

People are predisposed to addiction, but I gotta wonder if guys like Gooden and Steve Howe would've had the same problems if they'd been with, say, Cincinnati.

Or, for that matter, if they'd been gym teachers or accountants.

[Blue_Tires]

5. very sad

[GalleryGod]

6. I Recall all my Mets Fan Friends tellig me Gooden and Strawberry

were "locks" for Cooperstown !:evilgrin:
Yeah,SURE!