Bad Santa Doc in lap of luxury
Leave it to Doc Gooden to play Santa Claus getting a lap dance.
The oft-troubled former Mets and Yankees pitcher will be dressed in full Santa attire while having strippers from Vivid Cabaret NYC seated on his lap on Tuesday night — asking them if they’ve been naughty or nice, apparently — according to a release from the Midtown club.
Gooden, who turned 53 on Nov. 16, has battled years of drug issues both during and since his playing career, which began meteorically as NL Rookie of the Year in 1984 and included World Series championships with both the Mets (1986) and the Yankees (1996).
Gooden received a key to the city in a ceremony in April from Mayor Bill de Blasio, as a makeup for his missing the Mets’ 1986 victory parade because he’d been on a drug and alcohol binge the previous night.
He previously had made up with Darryl Strawberry following a public falling out with his longtime teammate over Gooden skipping a scheduled appearance together in August of 2016. Strawberry, who has endured his own drug addiction, had said publicly that he feared Gooden had relapsed. The Tampa native had served seven months in a Florida prison for violating his probation on a drug charge in 2006.