Director of Iona Sports and Broadcasting communication department Mike Damergis from hosted “A Night with Doc and Mookie” where Met Hall of Fame players Dwight Gooden and Mookie Wilson spoke to students and faculty in the LaPenta School of Business Atrium on April 4.
 

Pitcher, Gooden, and outfielder,Wilson, were part of the New York Mets World Series winning roster in1986.they They visited Iona and  talked to staff, faculty and students about their careers, winning the World Series and personal circumstances and difficulties they have gone through during their lives.  

The 1986 World Series Championship is one of only two times the franchise has ever won, the other being back in 1969.  

Damergis acted as the host and moderator for the event, leading the discussion in addition to taking questions from the audience.  

The former  players told stories about their careers from being drafted and called up to the Mets’ first team to random stand-out moments from their careers.  

Wilson described coming onto the Mets during their ‘dark ages’ and believing he could turn things around, but this never truly occurred until the 1986 season when Dwight Gooden joined the team , in addition to the Mets assembling a world-class roster capable of conquering the MLB.  

The pair then moved on to actually winning the World Series. The year before they had come up short with still a very good team, and they won 108 in the MLB regular season in ‘86. Still, many good teams had lost after winning this many games, and they almost did too.  

Wilson spoke about how after the team beat Houston, they felt as though they had already won the World Series and took the Red Sox lightly,and therefore, ended up going 0-2 and 2-3 down in the series before coming back to win. A mistake by the Red Sox in the sixth game of the series deflated them and led to the Mets winning it all.  

The event also had a more serious tone as Gooden spoke about the drug addiction he went through, which led him to calling a dealer the night after they won the World Series and not celebrating the win with his teammates like he should have and with people he did not know; he also missed the parade the next day.  

Wilson talked about how franchises, especially at the time, but even still today, , need to do a better job at looking after young players in pressure situations so they do not end up going through the same thing.  

Gooden now works with young people to try and keep them from addiction or help them with their addiction;he does not want people and families to go through the same things he and his family did.  

Both players also expressed the need for people like themselves to go back to their communities and areas where children are often poor to inspire them, not just in baseball, but in life.
 

The event concluded with questions from the audience and the attendees were able to take photos with the Mets’ legends after the talk.