Doc's Autograph a Prescription for Mets Controversy

Citi Field is everything that Shea Stadium wasn't: new, comfortable, well-outfitted, clean.

And the Mets are apparently obsessing about the clean part.

So when Dwight Gooden, who electrified Mets fans like no one else in the team's history, decided to christen the new park by autographing it, the team was not amused.

Someone thought it would be a nice idea if one of the greatest pitchers in franchise history signed a blank gray wall next to the bar. Gooden obliged, taking a black Sharpie and writing in script "Doc Gooden 84 R.O.Y., 85 Cy Young, 86 W.S. Champs."

Normally a Gooden autograph would make something more valuable. But not to the Mets.

"It's a brand-new building," said Jay Horwitz, the Mets' VP of media relations. "No one is supposed to write on the wall. It's going to be erased."

Lou DiBella, a Manhattan-based boxing promoter and devoted Met fan, was in the Ebbets Club on Opening Day when Gooden signed the wall, and he was there yesterday as the Mets lost 4-2 to the Brewers in the final game of a three-game series.

He's among a number of fans angry Gooden's signature likely will be gone when the team returns from a short trip to St. Louis.

"That's the same spirit that caused them to build a new ballpark that doesn't have any semblance of Mets history," DiBella said. "They charge $240 a ticket, and when your greatest pitcher tries to do something to reach out to the fans, the Mets make it seem like he did something wrong. It's so stupid."

We're not here to encourage defacing a public edifice. But this is Dwight Gooden. It was a light-hearted way of breaking in the park, and if it means it's .001 percent less pristine than it was, isn't it worth it to know that if the K Corner isn't still there, the man who inspired it still approves?