Darryl Strawberry He has always commanded the room with his fascinating combination of size, talent and charisma, whether on the field as a player or in more recent years as a Man of Faith, preaching across the country in an attempt to save others from wrongs. that he committed. done in his own life.
Saturday was a powerful reminder of all that when Strawberry turned his number’s retirement ceremony into a joyous rebirth of sorts at Citi Field, celebrating family, former teammates and Mets‘ swells with the joy of a man with a new appreciation for life itself.
“It means more than ever,” he said into the microphone beyond second base, “after suffering a massive heart attack three months ago.”
Strawberry’s heart attack in March didn’t exactly make the news, except that on Saturday he offered details about how terrifying the experience was for him.
“I was about to lose my life,” he said in his press conference prior to the ceremony. “It is a gift from the Lord that I am sitting here today. I appreciate life more now because of it. And I have my wife to thank for that.”
Yes, she was Strawberry’s wife. Tracywho insisted on taking him to the hospital when he didn’t feel well.
“I didn’t want to go,” Strawberry said. “She made me, thank God.”
This isn’t the first time Tracy saved his life, as most Mets fans probably already know. They met in drug rehab 18 years ago, when Strawberry was still struggling with addiction issues that partly derailed a career that was on a Hall of Fame track during his eight years with the Mets, and she was the driving force behind Darryl established Strawberry Ministries.
“She’s the real heroine of Darryl’s story,” is the way Jay HorwitzMets’ longtime public relations director and confidant of both Strawberry and Doctor Gooden Put it on. “There is no doubt that she saved his life long before she suffered the heart attack.
“I remember going to Florida to interview Darryl in prison for our 40thth anniversary stories we were doing (as a Mets franchise). That was a terrifying experience. At that point I really didn’t know what could become of Darryl.”
Strawberry truly has had an extraordinary journey, surviving what he calls “a broken home without a father” to become the No. 1 pick in the Mets’ 1980 baseball draft, and then blossoming into a superstar whose at-bats at bat they were unmissable. TV, only to leave as a free agent when GM Frank Cashen He would not be given a long-term contract and would endure years of drug abuse before meeting his wife and committing his life to helping others.
“It’s really amazing to see the change in Darryl,” Gooden said Saturday. “We’ve both been through a lot. I admit I was skeptical about how he said he had changed her life, until he visited my mother years ago when she was sick and spent two hours talking to her, doing everything he could to make her feel better about her situation. she.
“That’s when I said, ‘OK, this is real.’ Forks. He does great things to help people who need to hear his story. For him to have his day, after I had mine in April, really comes full circle.”
At that moment Gooden smiled and noticed that there was a significant difference.
“He left on his own terms,” Doc said. “I couldn’t leave on my terms. But I know he didn’t really want to leave. He kept saying that he was going to do it, and even tried to convince me to leave. But I never really believed he was going to leave. If he had stayed, many things could have been different.”
Was Strawberry to blame for leaving the Mets? In part, sure, because as he said Saturday, “I was crazy when I was young,” and that translated into a lot of headaches for the Mets front office even when he was hitting 252 home runs in his eight seasons in Queens, the most in the majors during that time.
As a result, Frank Cashenthe general manager who built the 1986 championship team grew impatient with Strawberry and let it affect his better judgment.
“I wanted less disruptive players,” Horwitz admits.
As a result, Strawberry said Cashen offered him only a two-year contract, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to keep him from returning home to play for the LA Dodgers on a five-year, $20 million deal. Cashen instead went and signed Vince Colemanand the Mets went downhill from there, becoming irrelevant for several years.
“My relationship with the front office was broken,” Strawberry said Saturday. “But still, as I’ve said many times, leaving the Mets was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made as a baseball player.”
As it turned out, returning home led to unhappiness and drug abuse, and then a downward spiral of wasted seasons before his celebrated late-career resurgence with the Yankees.
His time in the Bronx was something of a happy ending to his baseball career, but like Gooden, he always longed for the opportunity to do things right with the Mets.
Took Steve Cohen buy the team to make it happen and, again like Gooden, Strawberry welcomed the long-awaited opportunity to thank fans in person.
“There is nothing like being at home,” he shouted as he began his speech. “I will always be a Met.”
His joy was evident when he thanked the different people who helped him along the way. He made a point of saying how much, in retrospect, he appreciated miki wilson and the afternoon Gary Carter for living the God-fearing life that he eventually came to live.
“They drank milk and I drank alcohol,” is how he expressed it in his press conference. “I didn’t have the courage to be like them at that time in my life.”
But most of all, Strawberry talked to the fans.
“My biggest thanks are to you, the fans,” he said. “You pushed me to be great. The curtain calls, the boos, everything made the eight seasons here the best of my career.
“From the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry for leaving you. “There was nothing better than playing in front of the fans here in Queens and at Shea Stadium.”
Fans reciprocated with roars of approval and chants of “Dar-ryl, Darryl,” which made Strawberry laugh. In fact, she exuded joy from start to finish, which created an appropriately festive atmosphere.
Only when he hugged his wife, before addressing the microphone, did the emotion of the day, and surely everything that has happened, including the heart attack, bring tears to the eyes of both Darryl and Tracy. And so they hugged for a long time, each one finally drying her tears.
On such a great and memorable day for Strawberry, nothing seemed more meaningful than that hug.