The New York Mets announced Wednesday that they will retire the numbers of pitcher Dwight Gooden and outfielder Darryl Strawberry during the upcoming season.
Gooden’s No. 16 will go first in a pregame ceremony on April 14 ahead of the Mets’ game against the Kansas City Royals. Strawberry’s No. 18 will get retired on June 1 ahead of a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The jerseys will be the ninth and 10th to be retired by the Mets.
“It’s the highest honor you can get from a team,” Gooden said over Zoom on Wednesday. “I always considered myself a Met, I always wanted to retire as a Met and now I get the opportunity. … I’m looking forward to this day and it’s the greatest honor in my baseball career.”
Said Strawberry, “Having your number retired, it’s bigger than going into the Hall of Fame. You play for a franchise that has not had a lot of homegrown players come through the organization and be able to achieve some great things. … My heart and soul bleed blue and orange, always. It’s a great honor.”
The pair were linchpins to the Mets’ World Series championship season of 1986. The Mets defeated the Houston Astros in the National League Championship Series and the Boston Red Sox in seven games in the World Series.
Gooden went 17-6 with a 2.84 ERA in 33 starts while striking out 200 in 1986. He went 0-3 in the postseason and in fact, never won a playoff game in his career, going 0-4 in 12 games (nine starts).
Strawberry hit .259 with 27 home runs and 93 RBIs that season, earning his third straight All-Star appearance in a run of eight straight overall. He slugged three HRs in the postseason and drove in six runs. The 1983 NL Rookie of the Year hit 252 career HRs in his eight seasons with the Mets.
Gooden went 157-85 in his 11 seasons with the Mets. The four-time All-Star was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1984 and won the NL Cy Young Award in 1985.
Gooden and Strawberry join Casey Stengel (No. 37), Gil Hodges (No. 14), Tom Seaver (No. 41), Mike Piazza (No. 31), Jerry Koosman (No. 36), Keith Hernandez (No. 17) and Willie Mays (No. 24) as Mets to have their numbers retired. Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 was retired across Major League Baseball.
–Field Level Media
