Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets struck out Ron Cey of the Chicago Cubs in the second inning – his 228th of the season setting a National League record for a rookie. Gooden passed Grover Alexander, who set the mark with 227 in 1911. New York won 10-0 behind Gooden’s one-hitter.

Just for the hell of it, I asked ChatGPT what were the highlights of the 1984 baseball season. This is what it came up with:

• “The Sandberg Game” (June 23): Ryne Sandberg hit game-tying HRs in the 9th and 10th innings off Bruce Sutter, lifting the Cubs over the Cardinals in a nationally televised thriller.
• Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield battled for the AL batting title until the final day. Mattingly edged him out (.343 to .340).
• Dwight Gooden (NYM) debuted and struck out 276 batters — a rookie record at the time.

I remembered Gooden, and the Mattingly & Winfield race. But in my mind “The Sandberg Game” was in 1983, which, of course, makes no sense. Memory is an “unreliable narrator.”

Gooden that year was amazing. Electric. For those of us who measured our summer days with box scores, the day after a Gooden start began with counting the rookies’ Ks.

In yesterday’s post I lamented about how quickly time had passed since 1995. Today, I add 11 more years to that same lament.

The baseball season of 1984 was a time of transition for me. In April of 1984, I was living in Chicago. I went to the Cubs Season Opener that year and to a number of White Sox games. From May to the end of August, I was living in Houston and going to the Astrodome for Astros games. And beginning in September of 1984, I was living and working in Saginaw, Michigan.

The constant that summer was, of course, baseball: Ryno and the Cubs getting into the playoffs for the first time since 1945, Mattingly & Winfield tearing up the league for the hated Yankees, and of course Doc Gooden boxscores.

ChatGPT missed a helluva good year!