"After that game was over, we're celebrating and everything at the ballpark, in the clubhouse, and me and some of the guys went back out on the pitcher's mound and we had the big bottles of champagne. Then once everybody said we're going to this club in Long Island to hang out for a while, it was like, 'OK.' ...
"Well, my ride to the club I called a guy who I got drugs from, had him meet me there, was drinking, started using drugs. Then when the party started winding down, for myself a lot of times I get to a certain point of using drugs, the paranoia sticks in. So I end up leaving the party with the team, going to these projects, of all places in Long Island. Hang out there.
"Then you know what time you have to be at the ballpark to go into the city for the parade, but I'm thinking, 'OK, I got time.' And the clocks, I mean the rooms are spinning. I said, 'OK, I'll leave in another hour.' Then the next thing you know the parade's on and I'm watching the parade on TV."
Gooden, who told everyone he had just overslept, wasn't too high at the time, though, to realize that he was making a big mistake.
"Here I am in the projects in a drug dealer's apartment with guys I don't even know, with drugs in the house, watching it," he said. "It's a horrible feeling."
