Dr. K Strikes Out

The prince of baseball, who struck out the All-Stars as a rookie, struck himself out last week. Pitcher Dwight Gooden, 22, will start his fourth Mets season at a drug rehabilitation center in New York City. A urinalysis he was not required to undergo, but which he pretended to welcome as a remedy to last year's rumors, revealed traces of cocaine. Forestalling a certain suspension by Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, Gooden elected immediate treatment and a disabled status that could extend for months.

When he struck out 276 in 1984, shattering the rookie records of Grover Cleveland Alexander and Herb Score, baseball heralded a new pitcher for the ages. After an even better year, before his 21st birthday, Gooden was the National League Cy Young Award winner with a record of 24 and 4 and an earned- run average of 1.53. Only relative to his own special skills was Gooden's 17- and-6 performance last season, considered suspicious. The Mets won the world championship, but their ace lost two games in the World Series.

Off the field, the seemingly quiet high school star from Tampa increasingly found his way into the news. Problems that ranged from a quarrel at an airport rent-a-car stand to an acknowledgment of paternity culminated last December with a traffic violation that led to a roadside brawl involving four of his friends and a squad of Tampa police. He pleaded no contest to assaulting an officer and violently resisting arrest and was sentenced to three years' probation. Since he is undergoing treatment, indications are the probation will not be violated.

Probably wondering if other cleats will drop -- Gooden has not had the only erratic personality in the clubhouse -- the Mets gingerly begin defending their title this week. Gooden's season, even his career, is now in question since pitchers particularly seem never to regain their prowess after cocaine. It has come to that, drugs so commonplace that their havoc is handicapped position by position.