Darryl Strawberry Explains Barry Bonds’ Greatness, Mets vs. Yankees, & Choosing Baseball Over Hoops

Darryl Strawberry pulled up to All The Smoke for a powerful sit-down. The 8x All-Star and 4x World Series champion opened up about his recent heart attack, growing up in South Central LA, and why he chose baseball over basketball after a standout run at Crenshaw High. He reflected on his smooth swing, life in the 80’s MLB, and unforgettable moments with Doc Gooden, Keith Hernandez, Lawrence Taylor, and Mike Tyson. Strawberry also kept it real on Mets vs. Yankees fans, his regret over joining the Dodgers, battling substance abuse during his career, and the recent controversy around Pete Alonso breaking his Mets home run record.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Arizona.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
We got something special for y'all. October third, Ela River
Casino in Phoenix. Straight Game Times All the Smoke Live Show.
Doors open at six thirty, show start to seven thirty.
Tickets on sale through Ticketmaster. Just google Straight Game All
the Smoke Live Show or check the link in my bio.
Catch me, Stack Bib and my dog, eat house and

(00:22):
special guests. Make sure you guys pick up a ticket
and meet us there. Welcome back to All the Smoke
Day two at the pump Galla. Day one was the success, Sir.
We stepped to the cocktail event last night and saw
a lot of Man legends and old friends. We had
a good time. Shout out Dana and David. Today we
got a good one man, a Cringehaw High School legend,

(00:43):
Matt's Hall of Famer, eight time All Star Teeth, three
time World Series Champions Man, one of my favorite players
growing up. Huh four time? Oh shit four two? Will
excuse us. We'd love to be corrected. Four time champ
I U.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
R Yeah, man Man, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Daryl Strawberry's Yeah, Hey, we've been Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
I've been working on this for long day.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I've been working on this for like three years, right, I.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Know you have man assistant. I appreciate you. Yeah, I'll
check on you too.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Every time I wouldn't ask you to come on show,
I was checking on you and checking on the family.
We would talk a little bit. But I'm I'm glad
we finally got to make it work.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I appreciate you your real brother man, yeah, and everything.
So I appreciate that. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
The past year has been a little hectic for you.
You suffered a heart attack in the past, You've been
diagnosed with cancer.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
You look good right now.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
How is life? How is your your health? How is
your mental and how's Daryl today?

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well? Thanks for asking, man, I'm I mean it's life.
You know, life gonna show up, but are you going
to show up? Right? That's the whole key in this
game of life. You know, no one ever said it
was gonna be easy. You know, if it was an
easy road, we'll all be on the winning side of
it all the time. So, you know, growing up in
South central l A. The struggle from there made me

(02:05):
understand life as I got older in life and became
an adult and had to deal with things. Because when
you grow up in the hood, uh, you got to
you gotta push through. You know, if you don't push through, somebody,
somebody gonna check you. And that's what I learned so much,
you know, as a kid growing up. Is you know,
when you get into your life situation, when you get

(02:25):
older and you start being successful and achieving things, and
then you go through things, you go through health problems
like later on, like all gonna go through that. You know,
it's just a part of it. You're just a part
of uh staying strong through it and walking through it
and and and basically doing what the doctors tell you
to do. Listen, you got to take your.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Mad I don't like to listen to the doctors neither.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
I know. You don't know, brother, like listen list.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Trying to box and lift weights. He just had backing
spine surgery.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Like, oh no, I've been there too, back surgery. I
get it. But he's an athlete. So that's what we
get up.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
What did you have to kind of change in your
I mean working out, eating health? Like what's your day
to day now?

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Nothing? Okay, you know, just you just you, you know
what I mean. Look, I worked out for twenty five years.
I feel that, so I don't really have to work
out anymore. It's not like I got to run to
the gym, say I gotta stay fit, you know, it's
it's life genetics. Yeah, and you grow up like this
and you know, my body's in great condition. That's the
thing about it. When I went in for the heart attack,

(03:28):
the doctor says, man, you're in great shape. They said,
most people walk in here when their hearts at forty
percent like that, they die. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
So do they say, what had your heart at capacity?

Speaker 1 (03:38):
No, I just had a blockage, you know, I had
the blockage. I was running around the country, traveling and
doing what I do, ministry and stuff like that. And
he said, I was in heart attack mode for about
five days, you know. So you know, you're just knock
on wood. The fact that you you could be an
athlete in your keep yourself in shape, you know, like
you guys are. Most athletes don't keep themselves in shape,

(04:00):
you know, they just let everything go. I never got
to that point of letting everything go. You know. I
stayed fit. You know, I eat well, you know, and
of course you know our rest now, you know, because
I'm not out doing the electric slide anymore. That's what
you know.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
I mean actually doing when you buy you out doing
your ministry, you're seeing a lot of people taking on
a lot of different people's like ups and downs, stuff
like that.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
That can be a lot to put on yourself as well.
Oh yeah, it is a lot, you know, But we've
been gifted to be able to encourage others because of
what we've been through, because we had to face the
adversity of folks always yelling at us, So we had
to learn how to deal with that. You know, can
I control myself? Can I deal with it? So it's

(04:46):
kind of the same thing in what I do today.
It's very easy for me because I'm used to being
around people and used to knowing how to handle because
we had to learn how to handle people because of
being athlet because everybody always has something to say about
me because I was you know this, you know, black
gifted baseball player, and we were like kind of the
first young black baseball players really coming on the scene.

(05:09):
The time I was coming into baseball, me and Eric
Davis and we just knew that we was going to
play at the highest level and we believed in that
and getting it done and then getting to the major league,
you know, So everybody has opinions, right, you know they're
gonna always have those opinions about it. So I mean
it helped me be who I am today when I'm
in front of people. But I think what most people

(05:31):
fail to realize. As great athletes, we have great compassion
for people, right, you know, because we know how hard
it is to get to where we got and work
and become successful at doing it. Everybody always want to
snatch it from us, but we worked hard to get there.
So when I deal with people, I just have a
lot of compassion for them because I know how difficult
it can be. Are you and Eric Davis the same age,

(05:53):
around the same age? Yeah? We we old old men together.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
So did you guys play against each other high school?

Speaker 1 (05:58):
He went to Fremont, I went to Crenshaw. So you
play basketball? Okay, what was that he hooped too? Yeah?
He was.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
He told me about the last night. Yeah, I seen
last night. Tell me tell me about he was smooth?
He was he had game, He had a game point guard.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Can you can you compare him to anybody's game plaster present?
As far as the point guard, I would probably say
like an Irison type, Yeah, because he could he could,
he could dribble, he could shoot, and he jump jump,
he could score. Let me find out. You have to
look back on it. He was over trust Man told
me last night, what was your game? Like? My game

(06:32):
was more of like a forward, you know, playing power forward,
you know, uh, great defense and always going to the hoop,
you know, and and really had this X factor on me,
you know, because you know, like you know, you're in
high school. A lot of a lot of guys in
high school like to talk trash, you know, we like
Crenshaw and they like freemond Lock, you know, and all
those and the coming to the Cougar Den. We just

(06:53):
had to put it on him.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Man, Happy, Happy fortieth birthday, the Nipsey Man today he
would have been forty.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Man Live.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Your jersey number eighteen was retired by the Mets last summer.
What did that mean to you?

Speaker 1 (07:09):
It meant that I really accomplished them, you know when
you think about putting on a jersey and performing all
those years and what does it really mean to the franchise,
What does it mean to the people of the city
of New York And for me to be able to
get to that point where the new ownership comes in
and say this guy here was a big part of

(07:30):
this franchise turning around because it was the start of
me and Doc Gooden as the two young black athletes
that came there with the hype. I see, most people
didn't come in with hype. I came in with all
the hype, as Ted Williams Sports illustrated out of high school.
Can I perform? Can I stand? Play on the stage here?
And I did? You know? I went there and I
got busy with it. And Doc did too. He came

(07:52):
after me. He was nineteen and he came and played
on that stage like that and got busy because it's
the expectations that comes from the media more than anything else.
But as a player, when you go out there, and
when I ran on the field, I realized, you know,
I'm the best player on the field. Yeah, I mean
me personally. I was always like that because I had
an attitude, you know, because I, like I said, I

(08:13):
come from South Central and the ghetto. When you grow
up in that, nobody gives you nothing right. You know.
You work for that, you know, and when you have
worked hard for that and you finally get there, you
know who you are. And that's what it was for me.
When I finally got there, I started to know who
I was, and I started to craft my game. I

(08:34):
started to be a master at what I was doing.
You know. I started to learn how to, you know,
sit on the deck and I don't. We didn't have
computers like they have today, and they go all looking
in the computer. I used to look at the picture.
I used to look at the catcher and get the
idea how they operate and how they move. And I said,
this is the part of game I want to learn,
because if I learned this part, I'm going to kill it.

(08:56):
And that's what I did. I learned that part of
the game.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Peterso recently broke your Mets record. Obviously, records are meant
to be broken, but he drew some criticism when he
says down goes Straws. A lot of Mets fans felt
like he disrespected you when he did that. How did
you personally find.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
I'm glad they felt like that. I didn't feel like that.
My career is over. My number is sitting on top
of the stadium, man. You know, so I don't have
anything to prove to anybody. I don't have to voice
my opinion to the players today. I think so many
people get wrapped up into that of these guys today.
And we had our chance, and we did what we
had to do, and he's doing it. He broke my record.

(09:34):
Of course, the records are meant to be broken. He
think about it. I played eight seasons that I hit
two hundred and fifty two home run. You had a
stuck another eight season I would hit another two hundred
and three hundred home runs. You know, probably there, but
it didn't work out that way. Oh well, So what
is important is not the criticize or critique these younger
guys because I think a lot of times their feelings

(09:56):
get hurt. My feelings don't get hurt, but their feelings
will get hurt. If I responded back, And I know
a lot of Met fans wasn't really thrilled about, you know,
him coming out and saying that, because they considered me
as a true legend for that organization and winning the
championship and they hadn't won one since eighty six, since
we were the last last team to do it. They've

(10:17):
had moments, but you got to still win. New York
is all about winning, and if you don't win, there
then people are are really not gonna talk much about
your your status after your career is over. Give me
the difference between Met fans and Yankee fans. Yankee fans
are always happy, always winning, They're always winning. So MET
fans are very disturbed and lonely inside. Yeah, they they've

(10:43):
just been they've been torn apart from me, and I
love them because they're my fans and that's my fan base.
It's because they want to win, you know, they want
they really want the team have some type of success
and then behind you like crazy and they'll show up,
they'll come to the ball park. But if you don't win,
like now they haven't been winning, you probably go on

(11:05):
to chattel line of social media and everybody talking about
how they suck, keep rid, everybody, every fire, everybody going
to change everything. And that's what happens when when they get.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Mad Quenshaw High School super start raised in LA in
the sixties and seventies. What was it like growing up
with you in the sixties and seventies in LA.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
That's a good question, bro, That's a real good question
and strong crush. And I was wondering if you guys
were gonna ask questions like that, Yeah, think about it,
because most people don't know what it's like growing up
in South Central, you know, like sixtieth and seventh Avenue.
And when I was growing up, it was either you're
gonna you're gonna be in the gangs, or you're gonna
play sports, you know, and you know, my one of

(11:42):
my brothers chose to be in the gangs. I went
the other way sports, you know, because I remember how
it was in the hood when we were all like
down in the hood gambling, shooting dice and everything, and
then somebody come run and with a shotgun and shoot
the shoot the gang up to rob the you know,
everybody get hit a buck shot, everybody get hit a
bucks shot. But he didn't have buckshots in it, but

(12:03):
he shot with fire came out, and that was the
last time I ever went around there, because I realized,
right there, you go get killed around here, you know,
over us sitting on the street light shooting craps and
trying to win. And it's from the own neighborhood that
people that do that stuff. So I realized I didn't
want to be a part of that anymore. So I
shifted and went the other way. And started playing sports.

(12:26):
And then I remember what it was really like going
to Crenshaw when we had a homecoming day one day
and I had a guy that I knew from my
neighborhood from the sixties named Greg. He started fighting with
the trays there and we're standing there in home coming.
He's about to jump off and boom, he gets hit
with a hammer in his heart and he's you know,

(12:48):
it's a hole in his heart. Now he dies right there,
you know, on the high school ground. And that's when
there was trouble, you know, that's when in the sixties
the trades started clashing and started shooting. And I used
to have to come home from basketball practice. When I
hit Slauson Avenue, it came up across Slawson. I had

(13:09):
to start jogging home, you know, after practice because everybody
was shooting in every neighborhood, so it wasn't safe. So
that's what it was really like. It was some real
challenges in those neighborhoods growing up, and you had to
figure out and you had to navigate yourself through those
waves around there during that time because they didn't really
care who you were, even if you were someone that
was probably playing sports at Crenshaw. You lived in that neighborhood,

(13:32):
and it was like they could take your life just
like that. And a lot of people didn't even know
I grew up under all that. But I'm glad I
grew up under all that because it made me. It
made me tough, it made me appreciate life. What neighborhood
you grew up in on sixty seventh Avenue right Slausson
and Crenshaw Prenshall Boulevard, Yeah six. So I was like

(13:55):
deep right in the neighborhood where all the young guys
started to have this this tuggle war against you know,
the bloods, cribs, you know, make a decision. I mean
I made a decision. You know, I'm gonna stick with sports,
and which was cool because you know, all the you know,
all the guys that was in a gang, they used
to be like, you cannot mess with Struwberry.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
I was about to say, he screnched out high.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
You know, he's he's balling, he's playing basketball baseball. That
area you cannot touch. You cannot touch that guy. You
can touch other people, but you can't touch them. That's
the way they were. They were very very protectively. I
like that. No more, it's not like that, no more.
I know, I know it's not like that. Well, because
most people are not not from those neighborhoods. They don't
grow up in those neighborhoods. They might come from a
different place, but they never grew up in that atmosphere.

(14:42):
And that's what the neighborhoods used to be. Like. Everybody
had everybody backing, everybody knew everybody, everybody knew everybody, and
everybody was down with everybody, cool with everybody. No matter
what those guys were doing, they were still my family,
right because I knew all of them, and they realized that,
you know, I wasn't going in that direction that he
wanted to place sports. So they would always come to
the games and say he's our hero, He's our neighborhood hero,

(15:04):
and which was really cool because when you get that
support from your neighborhood, it means a lot, I mean
the most. Yeah, more than anything. Start forward and crunch
out high basketball team.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Not if you said a lot of people don't know
about your hoop skills and go don't give it to us.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, they really don't know about it. They don't really
don't know about it. You know how it was. You know,
I was one of those guys that had that focused determination,
you know, because I didn't grow up like, you know,
playing you know, league basketball or anything like that, because
you grew up in this dysfunction at home. And so
my dad was crazy. So I really got into sports late.
You know. I kicked off from playing baseball when I

(15:38):
was fourteen, and then I got into basketball playing, I said,
elementary school, that's where I learned how to play, like
that little pick up basketball, That's where I learned how
to play. And you know, I used to be down
there talking trash all the guys, older guys in the neighborhood,
lefty lefty balling, dunking on them. Remember how Grims wasn't
that high, so you dunk on them. Into elementary school
and you know, and I was talking trashhold maybe like Royniet,

(15:59):
you better tell you a little punk, Rother than shut up.
But it was really cool and I learned. I learned
how to play there, man. And then I went to
Crenshaw and then I played football my first year in
high school, and I was quarterback and they wanted me
to like prepare me for quarterback. And because I thought
I was. I really thought I was Kenny Stable. You know.
It was because it snake, because I was left handed.
A lot of people they were like, why don't you

(16:21):
come to the basketball. Of course, I got hit well
and black got football got hit. I got blindsided one
time playing quarterback, and I said, okay, told the coach.
I took the uniform off it and I went to
kriss Shot. I went on my way to start playing
basketball for coach West and Joe weekly Man. And it
was really cool because what happened there was they they

(16:42):
really bought discipline to me. Basketball coaches, you know, because
when you play, you got to do right. In school,
you can't be tripping, you know. And I got tripping off,
you know. A teacher one time kicked me out of class.
And the coach tapped me on the bench, you know,
and benched me and said you can't act like that.
And and he sent me on the bench. And I
didn't play till the third quarter. When third quarter, after

(17:04):
the third quarter came to the fourth quarter, I walked
up into the locker room and got dressed to forget it,
and he said, that's all right, let him go. I
came to practice next day. He was like, he's like,
you ain't picking them the ball or nothing. Me and
another guy, he said, you're gonna be on this line
running suicides all day long. We was on that running
suicides all day and my buddy was talking about quitting.

(17:27):
I was like, no, man, you can't quit, man, you
can't give up. That's the easy way out. So I
just kind of pushed through all that and learned through
that and got that discipline and went on to learn
how to play. And man, it was really cool. It
was really good because Elie's city has always been about
competition between everybody, all the different schools. You know, Dorsey High, Lock,
you know, Freemont, Crenshaw, UNI, and Hamilton wasn't no competition.

(17:50):
Westchester was neither, so they wasn't in the race back then.
Must be your school.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Sports Illustrated College of the Black, Ted Williams early on,
and you said you played basketball. Were you just that
much of a stud in baseball that you just had
to throw a basketball all the way?

Speaker 1 (18:09):
I did? I mean, I realized that from my coach,
my high school baseball coach, because in my junior year
in baseball, we played at Dodger Stadium. The City Championship
against Grenada Hills against John Lway. Now we lost to
them to the championship at Dodger Stadium nineteen seventy nine.
So I come back in eighty and I'm playing basketball
and my coach is always baseball coach. I'm wonder why

(18:31):
is he at all my basketball games? Because he said
he was always cringing, you know, the fact that I
might go up and dunk on somebody and get hurt.
And I didn't know. He said all these scouts had
been calling him, and all these programs in school have
been calling him, and they were talking about, you know,
he's like the next Willie McCovey. And I was like, man,
I'm only eighteen. What are you talking?

Speaker 2 (18:53):
But you didn't start You said you didn't start playing baseball.
Team were fourteen fourteen damn so you got like so
you started pretty much your freshman year and by the
time you were in your senior year.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, by the time I got to my senior year,
I walked out. After the basketball we won the city
champ championship, we went to state. We lost the state
in Oakland, and in the tournament up there, came back
one day of practice. First day was baseball season, and
my first day out there there was it was packed
with like fifty scouts. I was like, man, who they
here to see it? Of course are they are here

(19:22):
to see you? I was like, oh wow. I punched
out three times, so I was like, oh, man, you
come to see me. I'm I wasn't even ready for baseball,
so and I had to cross, you know, I had
to get back into baseball shape after being in basketball
that whole year, and I got it going. And by
the time the season was over, there were like, You're
probably gonna be in the first two three picks of

(19:43):
the draft.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, So that was really cool.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
What's what's it like being the number one pick at eighteen?
I probably it was just the wrong time. I only
got two hundred thousand then, but now they get ten million.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Difference A big difference. No, but it was it was
It was really for my mother, you know, she was
a single parent, and she dropped me off at school
that morning and she was nervous and I was like, mom,
I don't be nervous. I said. They said, I'll get drafted.
I don't know where I'm going to go. And it
was a big deal to her, and it wasn't like
a big deal to me. But I wasn't really concerned

(20:17):
about it because I knew that I had put myself
in a position to be drafted from that year, my
senior year, and when I went to class, you know,
they pulled me out of class and said, well, okay,
pulled me over and said you've been drafted. You're the
number one picking the jaff. I says, okay, And they
said the New York mess draft for you. I said, okay,
where the heck is New York at I had never

(20:40):
been out of LA you know, we all played here.
You know, we played out in Compton, you know. So
you know, baseball was always the thing for all of
us growing up because you know, all the great players
that came out of California, like myself, Eric Davis, Chris Brown,
Chilie Davis, Olie Smith, you know, Eddie Murray. You can

(21:00):
go on and on how many great players that come
out of here to play baseball. And we were just
a part of that package. And we were just really
happy to be a part of that package. Me and Eric,
you know, because me and Eric played together in the
Little league and summer team. He was the leadoff bat
and played shortstop. I hit third, played right field out
in Compton, and he said that team like, God damn well,

(21:23):
they used to call us like we were the moose.
Our team was called the moose, and then we come
to the park, they say the moose is on the loose.
You know. They got E d and Straw and got
Chris Brown hit at playing third base. It was just
the monster team. Man. We were just We were coached
by Earl Brown and we were just man. We were
good man at a young age, and we just knew it.
Me and me and E knew it that we wanted

(21:45):
to play in the big leagues. And he got drafted
later in that draft that year and he went on
and signed before I did, was Cincinnati. He was like, dog,
I'm out of here. You know. He said, I'm just
gonna go do it. You know. I said, yeah, man, no,
I'll catch up with you. Man, We're gonna do it.
And we did. You know, we didn't just get drafted.
You We had a program for us in the off

(22:06):
season where we were at Harvard Park. We went back
to Harvard Park and we put our trash cans up
and we had ourselves throwing VP, and people just say, man,
you guys millionaires, Why you guys not up at UCLA.
I was like, man, we didn't play in no Ucla.
You know, we want we played in the ghetto. We
want to teach young kids to know that you could
come out here. You know, you can come out of here.
You don't have to be fancy or anything else. You know,

(22:29):
Me and Ed would always buy the Major League baseballs
for the group, but we put the trash cans up
and they had to pitch to us and Duck and
say thank you can because we said bullets back up
the middle and to hit the can. But it made
you hungry, It made you not get complacent, and it
made you not sit there and think, wow, I'm great
because I'm already in the league. And that's what was

(22:50):
our driving for us, for us to keep going.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Tell me what the jump was like from high school
to the minor leagues to the big leagues.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
We glad you asked. That's a really good question because
three different levels. Yeah, there's three different levels. And when
you jump from high school you used to be in
the star and when you jump into the minor leagues,
now this is really tricky. This is different because the
minor leagues are more like where am I going? You know,
I'm eighteen year olds years old and coming out of
Crenshall High all Black High school, and I'm drafting and

(23:23):
sign Now I'm going to Lynchburg, Virginia. No, well, I'm
going to Kingsport, Tennessee. First I got to Kingport, Tennessee.
I was like, oh my god, I still don't know
where that is. Middle of nowhere. Culture shock, you know,
is at eighteen years old and you're the number one
pick and everybody's talking about you. And had it not
been for my coach, Chuck Hiller making it comfortable for me,
I wanted to come home. You know. I kept calling

(23:45):
my maman, come to the house. You know, She's like,
you know you, this is what you wanted to do.
So then I go to the next year, I go
to Lynchburg, Virginia nineteen eighty one. Now we're Lynchburg, Virginia
is in the middle of with Liberty University all that
kind of middle of nowhere. So I get there and
I'm playing there and now I got to go through

(24:07):
these racial things with people in the crowd of the
home ballpark that I'm playing in calling me boy, called
me nigga in word and say, well, you're not that good,
you know. And my coach was like, don't look up there.
They ignorant, you know, because I knew he knew. He
was thinking, Man, this kid gonna go up there with
his Louisville slugger. He's gonna eliminate some folks up there,

(24:29):
eliminate some because because they didn't call you all that
when you were in high school. And and so I
experienced that, and I almost quit, you know, I came
close to quitting, you know. I was when a wall
didn't show up to the ballpark and the team wondered, what,
you know, what's happening with him? I was at home
smoking weed every day. I was like, I'm not dealing

(24:51):
with this, you know, I was. I was. I was like,
I'm not dealing with this. I just like checked out,
you know. And then I finally came back and and
then I finished up that year, and they said I
was going to quit baseball, and they were like, give
it another year. And I gave it another year, and
I came back in the next year, in nineteen eighty two,
and I went to Jackson, Mississippi, and I ended up

(25:14):
like hitting thirty four home runs still in forty five bases.
You know, that's when I really became a ballplayer. I
really knew that I was on my way after that,
you know, And I always think about it. It's just
like for all of us, if you quit, you never
know a lot of what ifs. Yeah, it would have
been on a lot of what ifs if you quit,
because there's a lot of things happen after that. For

(25:35):
me not quitting to be able to get to that
next level and the big leagues. You know, when I
got to the big leagues, that was a whole level
of adjustments. I had to really do some things different.
I had a coach, hitting coach, aint Jim Pry. I
was nineteen eighty three when I was in the Big Leads.
I got to the Big Leads at twenty one, and
I was supposed to be at the ballpark like at one,

(25:56):
and I didn't show up to three o'clock, and he
got in my face, is I'm never going to wait
for you again. If you want to be great at
what you're doing here, you'll be at this ballpark early
every day. I was learning how to be a profession
exactly That's what he taught me. Right. There wasn't about
the talent. He goes, you got the talent already, Yeah,
you got you got the talent. He was like, but
you have to learn what this is all about, you know.

(26:18):
And that's what I had to do because I was
going to the ballpark and it wasn't just about working
out all the time where you'd like to sit in
the dugout and you look at the stadium, he says,
look at the stadium. He's like, now you can own this.
If you do this, this this this can be this
can be yours. And he walked me into that. And
I went on to win Rookie of the Year that

(26:39):
year because he walked me into that. Because I got
off to a rough start, but he walked me into
being Rookie of the Year and showed me how to
master this, make this, make this your paradise. You say,
it's important.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
Guys like that important to when young guys coming in
and they don't have it in the NBA no more.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
They don't know they used to have that right everywhere
he had. Yeah, I know you guys had it. I
know they don't have it now. I mean these guys
have it. Everybody's young. Yeah, yeah, what were you? What
were your numbers? Your workie year, my hit but twenty
six home runs that year. I think I seventy four ribies.
I think I got I got there a month after

(27:16):
the season, so I missed the first month and I
didn't come up till May because I went I went
to Triple A and then I stayed a month down there,
and then I came up and I got to a
rough start, and like I said, I started to work.
It started to focus, started to learn, and the learning
lessons are the key, you know, for any athlete. If
you learn them, you can elevate yourself to the next
level of playing. Set the stage for MLB in the

(27:36):
EIGHTIESLB in the eighties it started to rock there. That's
when black players started to come along. That's when it
truly started to take a shift, and not just black players,
but young black players. Yeah, you know, that's when a
big difference of what baseball was all about. I know
it's a different game today, you know, with more Latin players,
But when we came up, it was all black players.

(27:57):
You know. I came up, Eric came up, A lot
of others came up, from different teams, you know, that
were young and that were exciting, and they made a push.
You know, I think this was the first time but
baseball started to shift to make a push for young
black players, you know, and they were really going after them,
they were really drafting them, and just so unfortunately dropped

(28:19):
off because major Major League Baseball used to be about
the young African American players, you know, and they changed
it so much, and it's heartbreaking to see that because
you know, they took they took away what was important
for the kids in the hood, you know, because of
those those ballparks, you know, those dirt fields. We grew
up on planning on them. That's how you learn how

(28:40):
to play. They had rocks, whatever bricks. We had to
learn how to make a play on them, those fields.
And they removed those fields, and then they started building
academies and Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and all these other places.
So the black kids in their cities suffered because they
didn't have the academies in the place like you like,

(29:03):
most of these other players had. And these other players
had a better chance to get to the major leagues.
And our avenue to the major leagues was like, you
better be tough. Yeah, you're gonna have to fight through
it to get there to stay, and you're gonna have
to be good, really good. You stand out. You're gonna

(29:23):
have to be a standout to be able to play
and stay in a major. You couldn't hit two thirty
and being the majors when we were coming up, they
was like, no, you ain't ready for this. In two thirty.
You know, you're going back down to the minor leagues.
So you you really had to turn your game up
and you had to really know how to play. And
and the thing I say about playing is like me
and Eric Davis, you know when we came through, we

(29:43):
wasn't like a one to two player. We were a
five to two player. You know, we did it all first.
We wanted to. We wanted to make sure our game
stood up at a whole whole different level where people
would look at us and say wow. You know, And
that's what I always think about athletes, Black athletes you
know that play BA you know, don't don't just do
one thing. Learn to do do everything you know and

(30:05):
work at it. If you work at it, you can
get good at it and excuse man places.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Like dr as you was talking about. Just now, they
take baseball way more serious. You know, they do have
the academies, like you say, like as kids like like
you say, that's really the only way out. They know
that's the way approaching it. They know that's the way
off the island. Yeah, that's all they got. So that's
and that's why so many, so many them were good

(30:29):
these days.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
That's why they're so successful because they do take it
way more serious. Yeah, we do over here, and we
have more opportunity. We have we have more stuff, but
we don't have the opportunity like they do. So they build,
they build academies over there. So you know what, they
join the academies like when they twelve thirteen years old
because they don't have anything else to do. So they
train them up, you know, to be be ball players

(30:52):
and everything like that. They tell them, if you want
to get off to this island, baseball is off ya.
And they're doing it. They killing it. They making the
most money. Now you're looking major League Baseball as the Latinos,
who are are the top players? Yeah, in the game
of baseball.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
I saw some on Instagram not too long ago where
there was an old man flicking bottle caps to a
little Latin boy and he was smacking that ship, but
flicking bottle caps, bro not whiffle balls and bottle caps
and show.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
I was like, Oh, that's the old school way, that's
that's the way you train them up.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
And I coordination one of the most beautiful swings the
game has ever seen.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Where'd that swing come from? Smooth? I don't know, just
just working at it, you know, looking in the mirror
everything left handed lick swing though. Yeah, most of the time,
when you look at all all left hand hitters, most
of them have just still like a swing that just goes.
It's kind of all it goes the same way. It's
just a different size of a player, but it's kind

(31:53):
of the same swing, you know for a left hand
hit her. And I think working on it and you
when I say working on this, because a lot of
times they say you won't be able to hit like
that in the big leagues. That's what they said about me.
That's what they said about Ed you know, because he
had held his hands here. He never hit yep, And
they said my leg kick was too high. Never you're wrong,

(32:16):
That's that's what scouts say. You know, you know, the
scouts say, you know, you can't he can't dribble, he
can't pass, you can't do this, you know what I mean,
you can't do that, right, I can do it. We're
just yeah, exactly. You know that's what they failed to
realize about us. You know, you point out us and
say we can't do that. No, you mean you can't
do that.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Facts the steroid era, when did you feel like you
saw that creep into baseball?

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Was that while you was in there, before you got there,
you started, you saw the change, you saw the shift,
You saw the shift the guys that wasn't home run hitters,
and all of a sudden they hitting.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Fifty around What year did you feel like you saw that?

Speaker 1 (32:51):
I was in the nineties, Yeah, I was. You saw
guys hidden, You saw guys hitting balls in the upper tank,
upper upper tank, which is not normal exactly, which is
not normal, you know, and and right there you knew
something was different. You knew that they were they were

(33:13):
on a totally different level of whatever they were doing.
And the talk was around but it's okay, you know,
it's it's part of it, part of sports. You know,
Drugs has always been around, part of sports, but players
taking I mean I was on the fetam's my whole career,
so I was wired playing you know, every night. So

(33:33):
it's not like it was surprised to me that this
new time has come in and something has changed and
these guys found something at work. You have to find
something that works. Unfortunate, but it's real. Everybody got the thing.
Everybody's got their things, you know, and you you can't
sit you cannot sit around and criticize, you know, a
different generation of players. You know, I didn't, you know,

(33:55):
from when I saw that, I was like, well, these
guys are having fun. You know. It's and they realized that,
you know, getting to that place. I'm gonna make more
money fast, you know, because now all of a sudden,
my numbers are gonna jump up and I'm gonna become
a second basement. I've hit forty home runs. You know,
it's only one one one second basement that was hitting

(34:16):
forty home runs. That was right Sandberg? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
he was the only one. And now all of a sudden,
you got you got mediocre hitters, they dropping forty five.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
And so being on drugs during your career, like what
did it because I know I smoked weed before I played,
and it allowed me to first of all, take a
good nap, wake up, study, film, focus, and then lock
in on. I was guarding the best players in the
world every single night. Like what it playing on on
whatever you were playing on to do for you.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
It was in fetamies. You know. I didn't play on
the hard drugs. You know, hard drugs was on off
the off the phil you know, the nightlife and party
and you get into that, you know, and you know
the girls drugs. You know, that was after the games.
Oh yeah, that was after gaining hard or you know,
you know, it was just a lifestyle. You know, it
was the eighties. There was it was there. Nobody was

(35:05):
complaining about it, you know, and you know, you just
have to be young and you get caught up into
that whole visious cycle. But when I when I was playing,
you know, I was on the anfetamies, and it just
kept me wired, you know, to focus, you know, in
the game, stay in the game. It kept my attention
on what I was doing, especially the picture, because when
I wanted to see that ball, that baseball was coming

(35:26):
out of his hand, that ball looked as big, really
you know, and when it looked that big, I was like, oh,
it's it's it's feeding time. You got to feed yourself. Yeah,
you gotta definitely need It's got to be a part
of it. But you know, the whole life of drug addiction,
what I got into was just really fast off the field,
you know, I fell into it. You know when I

(35:46):
got out here in California mostly and and and I
was born and raised here, and I knew better and
I still because I knew every back backstreet. You know,
I used to take it back run, Yeah, to take
the back treet. So I knew. I knew I was
running in the wrong direction, doing the wrong things. At
was this I was in early thirties, you know, when

(36:10):
I started diabbing and playing around when and drinking and
and and getting out there and and just doing whatever
I wanted to do. Because you live, man, you live
this life for yourself. You get one shot at it.
We do it. Ain't no blue friend, there's no blue friend.
There's no book there to say you can't do it right. Yeah,
that's not a.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
Book, especially for a young black man where we come from. Yeah,
there's a lot of stuff we got to learn now.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Because we ain't had no male figure teachers, nothing, So
I had to learn all these things by myself to
get out there. And they were they were some learning,
hard learning lessons, you know, and I'm grateful for it today,
but you know, it was part of it was part
of my journey. And people said, well, he could have
been this, he could have been there. Well, maybe my
journey wasn't meant to be. You know, everybody's journey is
not meant to be in the Hall of Fame, you know,

(36:55):
just because you have talent, most folks don't know where
you come from. They don't know what you been through. Absolutely,
they just assumed that you should be well because you're
getting a paycheck, especially in your era too.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
Now athletes, I mean, we caught the beginning of social
media at the end of our career. But what they saw,
what they read in the paper or anything like that
was the gospel. So there was never really time to
really show what you just said where you come from.
And then the struggles and all, it was just, hey,
you get a ton of money, you're a superstar.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
You gotta perform, right, and that's that's all it was,
you know, And today, you know, today is different. You know,
the guys get to be more careful about it because
of social media. You'd be a fool if you was
out there like I was in the eighties. When we
were out there, we didn't have no social media. I
had no cameras. I had nobody video on me and

(37:44):
following me, which was a good thing. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
That's such goodness, Doc goodness, greatness his first three years
and leagues. This is stats fifty nineteen two tween are
thirty five complete games, thirteen complete game shoutouts, seven and
forty four strikeouts and good second year he had one
of the best season seasons ever twenty four. That's like
my game status on two K no MLB. Okay, I'm

(38:13):
like twenty four to one in my season twenty four
and four one point five to three. E.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
R A and the Cy Young talk about how great
DoD Goodon was. It was the greatest I've ever seen,
the greatest pictures I've ever seen at such a young age.
And the why I say that because when he was
nineteen years old, when he came up, he had command.
He came from Florida, came from Tampa, Florida. Jack Yeah,
Gary Sheffield's his nephew. They come from that baseball of playing.

(38:39):
But Doc was amazing. I used to play behind him.
I was like, Doc, you're a trip. You don't let
nobody get no action off Gabe. The sitting everybody down,
sitting everybody down, nobody getting you know, they getting hits,
but they're like bloopers this and that, and you know,
nobody really crushing the ball off. So, I mean, he

(38:59):
was ninety when he came up, and you know, he
had so much poise for being nineteen years old at
the major league level, and great command of getting his
breaking ball and throwing it where he needed to throw
it and getting his file. He could spot his fastball anyway.
And when you when I saw him blowing people away
like Mike Smith Andred Dollars heat Rose, I was like, wow,

(39:20):
you know. And I mean, and I just remember that
eighty five year you talk about that was his cy
young year. Now, this was the greatest year I ever
seen any picture. And I don't think any picture has
been as great as he was in that year at
twenty years. So twenty four and twenty four and four
with one point five, twenty three or two years ri
I mean, man, night after night he just when he

(39:42):
went out there, we packed the stadium. Okay, he packed
the stadium, but he was the pack of the night
he was pitching. Yeah, the parking lot is full before
you better get to the ball bar three o'clock because
four o'clock that pregame parking lot was full. They gonna
pack the stadium. I got a guy up in leftfield

(40:04):
corner with a K corner and docs pitcher. Docs, Doc's
gonna get twelve thirteen, fourteen ks, you know, on a
on a major league level at twenty years old, eating
hitters up. I mean, I mean guys used to I
remember how guys used to be. When you see the
opposing team, they take their vps and some guys in
the lineup and then afterwards they scratched they're out of

(40:26):
the lineup. Well, something happened to my next Yeah, doctor,
I'm not gonna take these three punch outs because he's
gonna embarrass you. And I tell you, man, that was
the greatest season man to watch watch a picture pitch
like that. Incredible, that's dope.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
How was it to have a lot of success and
start them with them on a couple of magazines together?

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Like yeah, I mean It was really cool because we
were young, we're.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Black, missus New York too. It was New York's biggest
media market in the world.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
But the fans loved us because we brought great joy
to a team that was never nothing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
I mean, I think, what seven straight losing seasons before
you got there.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
When I got here in eighty three, yeah, and they
were always the last place team, and we turned that around.
From eighty four we finished second, eighty five we finished
we finished second, eighty six, we finished first. You know,
within when I was twenty four years old, we were
playing in the World Series. You know, at twenty four,
you think it's gonna happen. It just happened overy night
every time, but it's not, you know, and a lot

(41:26):
of times guy thinks they're just gonna get there all
the time and in every sport. But it's not that easy. Granted, yeah,
it's it's hard to do. And we got there, and
we should have had a couple more times of being there,
but we were living in New York and we were
just having fun and it was a wild, crazy team,
you know, just had fun. We I mean, you didn't
want to mess with the match. Back in those days

(41:46):
when we were straight on and off the field, on
and off the field. But New York was crazy. You
had Mike Tyson, Lawrence Taylor. You know, oh, y'all was
in the streets. I got a Tom Machine has spent
a day with him in New York. You know what
I'm saying. I was, I want a knight, I need
a knife, man. It was you know, you think about it,

(42:08):
it was it was lt. Tyson, The Mets, the Yankees
wasn't even talked about in eighties. We controlled the city
in the eighties, those years from my eight years there
after after my rookie year, we controlled the city and
we took over the city. And it was about the
Mets and about the Mets winning. It was about the giants,
like you said, Elk, and it was about Mike Tyson

(42:29):
came along. Mike Tyson showed up to say, say, Stadium
eighty six. He goes, I want to meet Doc Gooden
and Darryl Struberry. So he came and it was we
met him. He wasn't even the heavyweight champion the time.
He was still young and he was talking about him.
But being a heavyweight champion. That's that. When you see
that picture of him getting ready to punch Doc. That

(42:50):
was that was eighty six that he came to see us,
and he.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Right here, Yeah that picture right there, young young Mike
about nineteen.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
I was. I was like, Doc, go ahead. I was like,
go ahead through your punch. Now. You said you're gonna
knock him out, Doc. I was telling Doctor to his
punch day it was greasy. He said his ship was greasy.
He saw what he was pitching and how he was sweating,
and the curls and the grease just come off with me. Man.
He probably was Mike's idols like during this time, Like

(43:22):
like you said, two black baseball players at the time
was the North young and that's what Mike came to see.
He was like, man, I gotta go see these guys.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
You got the off the field stories you could tell
with Michael LT.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Not really, I mean LT was. I mean I didn't
see Mike a lot in the city, but we saw
l T every party. Yeah, yeah, that's LT said. He
had no other way say, he didn't want to know
other way. He was with everybody, you know, but you
know he was he was l T was the man
of New York City and everywhere he went it was

(43:53):
just like L T l T because he had a
big l T lightning rod in the area. Yeah, and
you know when you saw l T, everybody just there,
there's Lawrence Taylor. One of a kind and he was
you know, he was one of a kind. He was
very special. But at the same time, he wasn't he
wasn't over the top. He was really cool. You know
what I'm saying down to earth. You know, like we
all played together in the same city, and you know,

(44:15):
it's like we won big family because we all here
in New York City. When I say his name Keith Andandez,
what comes to mind. I love Keith. Yeah. I have
my battles with him, of course, because he had said
something to the press about my contract negotiation and spring
training and I just kind of went after. You know,
I'm just like a hood right, It's like, why are

(44:37):
you talking about somebody else? Yeah? So, but I loved
it because he taught me so he taught me so
much how to play the game. He taught me how
to hit left hand pitching and showed me what to do.
And I went on and I like hit twenty home
runs off of left hand pitching. Was he a leader.
He was a great leader. Yeah, he was very tense.

(45:00):
His leadership skills were phenomenal because we were all young
and he had already been in the Big League. She
played in Saint Louis. You'd already want a championship, want
an MVP. And so with him coming over to the match,
he really helped us because we were like young players
and he helped the young pitching style. He helped us

(45:20):
elevate our game to the next level. I know he
helped me elevate my game to the next level because
when he taught me how to hit left hand pitching.
It's like if the guys, if the guy is not
throwing hard enough, get up in the box so you
can catch it before it breaks. For guy throwing hard,
get deep in the box so you can let the
ball get deeper and then you can hit the ball
the other way. And man, man, that man so much

(45:41):
to me, that's the game right there. Heard never heard
nothing like that. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, that's what
I'm saying. He wasn't show that on the game. So
now you could take that advice though, Yeah, yeah, it
was great advice man. And and if you listen to
some guys like that, then then you become productive, more

(46:03):
productive at doing what you're doing. You already have the
skills to do what you do, but you listen to
a guy like that knows how to do it. He's
been there and done it. Man. Man, I was like, man, wow.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
All sports missed that. I'm trying to stress that to
our fans. This eighty six World Series team was loaded.
Harry Carter, Keith Hernandez both top five and NBV voting you,
Lenny Dyke, Strech, Anny, Mookie Wilson, Kevin Mitchell.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Pitching staff was tough. Doc Ron Darling, Ron Darling, Bob.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Ojea, Ojeida Said Fernandez all top ten, and Cy Young
voting loaded teams.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
I just like saying his name, Ron Darling. He was
the darling because he went to Yale University. But he
was like all he was like always smarter than everybody else,
you know, because Yelle grads.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
And so he's like, talk to me about that team.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
That was an incredible team, incredible group of guys who
loved and cared for each other one that's why we
want That's what was so special about it. Because we
had lost the year before against the Cardinals and eighty
five and we had won ninety eight games that year
and our last game in Saint Louis. I remember eighty five.

(47:11):
Our locker room was quiet after the season was over,
and we just felt like we're coming back with the
same group of guys. But we felt like nobody's gonna
ever put their foot on our neck. Again. You know,
We're never gonna let that happen again. And we came
into eighty six that year and our first day and
spring training, David Johnson goes, we're gonna win it all,

(47:32):
and we just kind of looked around and thought to ourselves, Yeah,
we're gonna win it all. And we got off to
a slow start, and then the media was like, yeah, right,
they're gonna win it all, and we just took off.
And when we took off, we didn't look back. And
the thing about us is you didn't want to mess
with us because we're gonna put these on year. It

(47:53):
was real. It was real, this team here, the eighty
six men, not all the other teams, you know, because
we had guys like Kevin Mitchell.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Then Mitchell like he used to have a go too
when he played for the.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Hand. Yeah, but mich but Mitch was something man because
every time we got in the fight, we always had
to look for Mitch because he he would always have
somebody in the choke hold and he's straight trying to
kill him because he had one guy in Pittsburgh, Sammy
Khalif he's like miss let him go, Miss like kill us.
He hadn't locked up, and it's like you gotta let

(48:29):
him go, Mitch, you know. But but he was a
part of it. You know, he was a part of
everything that we did. You know, as far as the team
and the players, we all had each other back because,
you know, if if we went out, we went out
in the group because we knew that people were gonna
like be trying to, you know, pick at us. So

(48:49):
you know, players went out in the group. And then
when they got into trouble, you know, they got in
the group fight like it's in Houston. They got in
the group fight in the bar and they got arrested.
And the secret chary he called me and he goes, Straw,
he goes, good thing you in bed and he was
like what happened? He was like, your boys got arrested.
I was like, damn, I missed it. I was saying

(49:10):
to myself like that, I'll say what happened? He said,
they got into a fight in the bar, and I
was like, wow, man, I hope they didn't get hurt,
because those are your boys, you know. You know they're
gonna be there for you, you know, through through it all,
because you know, when I used to charge your mount
and I couldn't get to him, they got to him,
you know, by the way.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
You know, did they get to play the next day?

Speaker 1 (49:33):
The guys, Yeah, we got to play the next day.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
I'm talking about the guys they got arrested, got out
and still played the next day.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Yeah, we still played, and they still played the next day.
And we were in Houston and the fans were like,
you know, they had like signs up with the match
being arrested behind bars and stuff like that, and yeah,
the same thing what they had, Like the fight. They
hadd me in the cardboard cut out with my face.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
But it wasn't just it was the life the light
of the jail uniform from life and had my face.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Oh that she was a classic.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Talk to us about one of the most unfortunate but
memorable plays in the history of the game, that Bill Buckner.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Well everybody wants to blame Bill Buckner for that play. Yeah,
of course he missed the barker. He was trying to
beat Mookie to the base. But you think about Stanley
and Sharoti, they couldn't get nobody out. That was two hours.
That's where it started. That's where it started right there.
You know, they just go to the Bill Buckner player,
right and Sharati couldn't get nobody else. Stanley comes in,

(50:31):
he throws a wild pitch and he's bitch a scores.
Mookie comes up, he battle, he hits the ground ball
to Buckner. Buckler knows that his knees are bad, and
he tries to beat Muoki to the bag and he
misses the ball and Ray and that comes in the score.
Buckner was a great player, you know, people he almost
had three thousand hits. You know, people don't recognize how

(50:53):
good of a player he was. But he was late
in his career and he had some injuries, and he
just made a play where he didn't make the play,
and that's all it was, you know, And and they
crucified him and Boston. He couldn't even go back there.
He couldn't even stay there and live there. I wouldn't
want to live there anywhere in Boston. You know, those

(51:15):
people there, man was something else, you know, for the
way they treated him and his family and everything, and
it was really sad. And then they finally after they won,
they were like, okay, we forgive you. Well so so
he said, his knees is bad from all the years
of playing. His knees is already bad, already bad bad
hip bad knees bad.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
And you got Moviie Wilson flying down the base.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Movie coming down that back fast too, and it would
have been a close play. But you know, I think
he went to get the ball and he looked up
and saw Mookie and the ball rope right under this.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Stuff left the midst of nineteen ninety the John the
Dodgers said, that was the biggest regret of your career.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Why, well, because that wasn't nothing against you know, my
hometown and the Dodgers. It was against the fact that
I was used to playing in New York Major bed
with the Mits. You know. I was eight years there,
you know, and and didn't realize that I would miss
the animals. You know, of what I call fans. They
act like animals when you don't play well. And I

(52:14):
love that. I got off on that, you know, because
they come to the ballpark early and they never leave
and they sit over the dug out and they yell
at you and tell you suck when you're sucking. And
I thrived off of that. That was big for me.
I wasn't. I wasn't one of those players that felt
like that that was a problem. I was like, I suck.
I was like, man, I'm finna hit two off the schoolboard.

(52:35):
I remember, I remember Deebo Dr Boston, he was like,
came over and was playing with us. I remember he said,
what're you gonna do tonight, strong man? I said, Man,
I'm gonna hit two off the schoolboard. They're gonna call
me out for curtain calls. I ain't coming out from
the curtain calls. I'm going down in the tunnel, smoke
me a heater, smoked me a heater. And then yes,

(52:56):
yes he's a new one. But it also happened. He did.
I used to do it all the time, go down
there first bam off the school but they called. They
stand on their feet. I'm down there puffing new porch,
gonna smoke me, and they say he said, they say,
what you go do that? I said, I'm gonna hit
another one. Bam, I hit another one. He said, you're

(53:17):
going out curtain cars like, man, I'm going down there
and puff me. They tripping. They were born just a
minute ago. And that's that was That was part of
what I miss. You know, sometimes players have to play
in places where it drives them, you know, and that
was just one of those particular type of players. New
York fans really drive me, you know, they make me go.

(53:40):
Can you talk about your deferred money contract? Was one
of the first ones to do it actually still getting
paid me from the nets. Now you got teams like
the Dodgers abusing it. He abusing this. Yeah, deferd was
a big thing back then. You know when I signed
the contract, when I signed a contractor was nineteen eighty four,
after my rookie year, it signed eight year in deferred

(54:01):
money and and put it away, which is which is
a which is a great idea. Yeah, which is a
great idea because if you don't you he me, you're young.
Come on, man, you're gonna be running through them dollars
now you're gonna be buying everything cars and another car
just to have another car, you know, yeah, exactly. And
I did all that and and I realized that, you know,

(54:21):
if if I did hadn't done that, you know, would
have never had that there, you know, for it for myself.
And it was it was a big part of you know,
my agent doing that for me, because when you're young,
you don't know about you don't know about you know, finance,
and you're not thinking twenty years from now. You're not thinking.
You're not thinking afterwards once you're done. Uh, where am I?
What's gonna happen? What's next? And and and I think

(54:43):
I was sitting in that place just like mostly everybody.
But now the way they deferred money, they're gonna be
paying players forever, yeah, for a long time. And you
started it, and they can they are franchise you know,
franchise franchises can do that because of uh, they're never
going out of business, right, so they're gonna alway being
able to have you know, money in, money coming in,
money going out, money coming in. So you got a

(55:05):
chance to play when you were Barry, Yes, how was that?
Barry is the greatest player I ever ever seen. I
saw Barry when he first came up with the Pirates.
Never seen nobody like that. I was like, Wow, who's
this guy, A little skinny kid they got Pittsburgh. He
turns a ninety five mile Parol fastball, Doc Gooding around,

(55:26):
hitted out the ballpark. I said, man, he's special. Then
I saw him play. I was like, there's nobody, nobody
like that. And I mean nobody. I don't care how
many players have played this game. There's never been a
player like Barry Bond. Never. Boy could do everything good
and he'll let you know it, which was which was

(55:48):
great because I know and understand why he was like that,
and you know, the media didn't know and understand why
he was like that. But it was like that because
they treated his father bad and his father was a
great player, and he never got the credit for, you know,
the kind of player he was. See what a lot

(56:09):
of times what people don't understand this. Black players never
get the credit for how good they really are and
what they do because you know, the media always want
to make it out of well, well, well you should.
You make it look so easy. This is not easy
what you're doing. I mean, this is hard what we're doing,
you know, out there on the ball field and trying
to be a complete player. And that's what Bobby Bonds was,

(56:31):
and that's what Barry Bonds was. Barry took right after
his father being a complete player playing the game of baseball.
I have never seen nobody ever that good.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
From the second youst step in the batter's box, timing,
what's going through your mind?

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Well, I'm gonna get two good pictures, so showing them
I got to hit may follow one off. You know,
picture may think he's got me, but I'm gonna get
another good one.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
You gotta wait on they meet ball. Huh, I'm gonna
get it, yeah, because pictures are dumb. Ship, They're gonna
throw a ball.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
I'm just telling you what I what I know about him,
you know, because I bade him in like you know,
you're thinking, oh, he got me all. He got that
fastball by me. No, you got to him all my hands.
But next time I'm to extend these hands and I'm
gonna get him out because he's coming back in here.
Many of them used to do that. I got straw
on the inside because he filed it off. He came
right back in, got the hands out quicker see you

(57:24):
you know, And that's just part of the game. You
learn how to play with them if you if you don't,
if you don't know who you are, you could never
elevate your game if you don't know who you are
when you're facing somebody that think they got you, because
if you don't, he's gonna get you, because it's already

(57:46):
hard enough to do. But I had that. You got
to have that mindset of you can't beat me, you know.
And that's what I did. I had that before I
even stepped in about his box. I'd be on their
own deck circle. And this out, well, a lot of
people don't know how the game. I learned how the
game was good. I'm on their own deck circle. I'm
watching the catcher move in and out because see when

(58:10):
he moves in, its fastball in, when he moves away,
his fastball away, when he sits in the middle of
the plates, breaking ball. So when I get up to
the plate, I don't have to look back. I can
feel him moving and I know I know he's coming in.
I can feel him when I can feel him when
he moves in, because you know how to catch you
you know, it's how to catch it. He's always looking
up at the hitter. But I never had the peak,

(58:31):
you know, because I knew why you feeling the field
that I got from you, You're gonna move. And when
you move, if it's away, oh I got you. That's
a fastball way. You can't throw a breaking ball away.
He's the only time he sets up in the middle
of the play is when it's off speed. So that
was always fun. So I want to one more question
a BYuT that.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
So he's saying, when they throw an inside, you want
to get your beat out early.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Get that. Yeah, get my hands through. Okay, I just
got to get my hands through to the zone. The
basket gonna come. It's all about It's all about your
It's all about your hands when you there. And if
you don't get your hands through and they dragging like jam,
you're gonna follow it or you're gonna jam it. But
if I get those hands through, the batch coming, and
it's gonna take care of that point first.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
The first thing to come to minds about about these
players and situations. You win the World Series with Jeter
in ninety six, his rookie year, thoughts on that team
and in him his first year.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Jeter was incredible, incredible teammate. Was he getting donuts and
ship as a rookie? Uti? No, I mean he didn't.
I mean, he didn't have to do rook Yeah, he did,
not mean because he rolled in there and he was.
He rolled in there and he was he was so
cool and so good man, I mean, and he just

(59:48):
he was just one of those players that had it
okay because everybody didn't like him, and everybody wanted to criticize.
But he wasn't that good man. You played for the
New York Yankees, the short stop of the best team
in baseball. Who cares if they don't like And people
used to say things. I used to think to myself, Man,

(01:00:09):
dere God, I don't know how you don't come back
and say something about it. I was like, man, food's
talk about say something to me? Like man, I was
all up in their face. And I don't care teammates
or not, you know. But he wouldn't be that guy.
He wasn't that guy. He just let it go and
he just went out there and played every day man,
and he became like just a solid player, uh and
became the captain of the Yankees. What I love about

(01:00:33):
him is he kept his life private. Man, that boy
had some women. Boy, I ain't mad at him. Yeah, yeah,
that's what I'm saying. But he kept his business out
of the paper, you know, and he didn't let he
didn't let nobody know anything about him. And that was
a good thing about him. And he was smart. He

(01:00:54):
waited till his career at the end decided well, now,
you know, let me settle down and let me get married,
let me have a family. So, I mean he did
it the right way.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
George Steinbrenner, how instrumental for you?

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Oh, the boss was incredible. I mean, he loved his players.
The media was always negative saying things about people, Oh,
he shouldn't get this guy, shouldn't get the guy George.
It's like I think he was like, more like, who
are you to tell me who I should get? You know,
George was all about people. He was all about helping people.
You know. I think he probably knew a lot about

(01:01:28):
people that struggle with different things and he just had
great compassion for that, you know. And and the media
never wanted to give him credit for that because you know,
he was helping this guy, helping that guy. This guy
had a problem, This guy had a didrug problem. Helping him.
Why is he helping these guys and most of the
most of the people and ownership and stuff like that,
and people in front office would turn it back and

(01:01:49):
looked the other way, and a lot of people complained
about him. You know, when I was going to the Yankees,
and he was like, man, screw you, guys. This guy
is a New York guy here. You know, he's coming
in here and he's gonna play for the Yankees. He
gonna play for me. So I was always great, you know,
grateful for him and his family and what they did
for me and my family. Mariano rivera moe. Couldn't hit him,

(01:02:14):
couldn't figure him out, nobody, and he only had one pitch,
a cutter. They threw it like ninety five and when
it came across that plate, it may look like it's
straight on television, but when that hitter is up there,
that ball is not straight. That ball's cutting like that
cutting is cutting on your hand. And that's hard. That's

(01:02:34):
a hard pitch to hit when it's coming that fast
and it's got great movement like that. Because guys didn't
the guys couldn't get the head out. You know, he
sawing off bats another bats all though, so he was
lights out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Legendary brawl versus the Orioles came off the top steps
of the dugout with the flying punch.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
You remember that situation, A mindo beneath their do I
remember it? Yeah, we're pretty crazy. Yeah, you know it's
it's like we're the Yankees. Man, when you play in
New York, you better either stand up or people are
gonna and try to push you over. And Benita's hit

(01:03:17):
Martinez Uh in the back after Bernie just run and
then we got into the bra and we was all
in there. Man. I was in the dugout fighting minute.
It was like crazy, Man, I got hit, somebody busting
me in my face. You gotta but you know you
will get hit in these bras. You know why you
gotta keep it for. You got to keep moving, you know.
But I hit and I fell in the dugout. Now

(01:03:37):
I get hitting the dugout. Now we're going bra and yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah, he called me off guard. But you know what,
great hit. Yeah, but I didn't fall out. Now you
got you got a good one there. Why I came
but I I was right there and standing up and
he hit me and we went at it and was

(01:03:58):
on was that the dude? That was someone else hit you? Right? Yeah?
Because I was like felling the dug out. I was
coming back up like you landed on your feet. Though
He's like bam. I was like, okay, yeah, that's that's
good right there. It's part of it when you were.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Team team, Team, Team, Girk make the dream or real
quick before we get to quick hitters. Obviously, steps and
abuse was an issue throughout your career or excuse me,
at some part of your career. How did you manage
that and was still out there every day as a pro?

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
I guess because of a life like I said, before
growing up and when you grow up like where I
come from, you you know that you have a window
of chance and opportunity and you make the best out
of it. You don't let anything destroy that for you.
Even though it was destroying me, I still didn't let

(01:04:55):
it destroy the fact that I can go out there
and perform. And that was a uh, that was a
great thing. Like I said, from where I come from,
and when you when you come from those areas, man,
you got to be tough. I mean people, I think
a lot of people talk about it Stephen though, I
mean he he comes from that. You come from those areas. Man,
you you cannot be in between. You got to know that,

(01:05:19):
you know, regardless of what that, I could still get
up and do what I need to do. Uh as
hard as it is, uh, but we do it. And
I think that that all comes around from, you know,
the area I come from and school and all the
things that I had been through.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
When was enough for enough for you? When did you
did you seek help? Was one day? Just stop it?

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
It was a long journey, you know, I mean it was. Man.
I ended up in the Florida State Prison with a
T one sixty nine because of addiction down there in Florida,
messing around in Florida in the South, and they were
talking about I was a mester society. The judge was like, no, not,
he has the drug pubm. He ain't killed nobody. You know,
what are you talking about? People have drug problems or
are illed. You know, it doesn't mean that they're bad.

(01:06:03):
People have. The people in their courtroom got then thing
they do everybody, Yeah, exactly, that's it. That's all it is.
They just hide it better because you you do know
that when you've been around it and you learn and
you see they have the same everybody. Everybody they got
they got some of them got the same problems. People
in high places got the same problem. You know, they
could be see you all over company. He's got the

(01:06:24):
same kind of problem. And just like you said, they
hid it better. And you know, when you on the
spotlight and you're a professional sports, they're gonna they're gonna
hammer you. They're gonna put you on the spotlight and
they will keep that beam on you until they destroy you.
Use that's their whole purpose is to destroy you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Yeah, it is quick hitters. First thing to come to mind.
Let us know, smartest picture you ever faced.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
The best people you ever faced with. Nolan Ryan. Okay,
Nolan was old school. He had a different demeanor, a
big old country boy. He was standing on their mound,
his legs just big, his shoulders just big, and he'd
be like looking at you, like you better get in
the box. You know I ain't playing. And if you
didn't get in the box and you dig in, he'd
be like you better not dig in either. He had

(01:07:05):
just looked like, don't dig in, get in the box,
because if you dig in, he's coming right up under
your chair. You don't care who you are. School. He
was the old school baseball. He's like Bob Gibson, Tom
sever those guys like pitch up and in on you
and get you off that plate. Yeah, Robert learned the
hard way. Are you sure who's the goat? Who's the

(01:07:25):
gold in baseball? Barry Bonds? No doubt. One album you
can listen to on repeat? Oh? One album George Clinton Uncadelics, Buncadelics. Yeah,
I can't go wrong with that. We grew up with that.
I mean I grew up with that in high school.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Rank them, Jordan Kobe Brown, rank him, Jordan Kobe.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
Labron. Yeah, yeah, childhood crush. No, you have one, especially
New York at eighteen with that bag. I don't know.
I mean I had to be what's your name? Jane Kennedy.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
I don't want said that before us the first time
hearing the funniest teammates you ever had?

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
In what team? Was it? Funniest teammate had to be
Lenny Doctor there with the match and you know he's
just dude, dude, you have a slur, he said like
he used to. Yeah, do you think the girls wanting?
You think the girls I was like, yeah, dude, they

(01:08:40):
love you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
If you can see one guest on our show, who
would it be? But you have to help us get
your answer on the show. One guest on your show?
Oh Man, who would that be? No, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
I'd like to see I would like to see Derek
Geter come on you guys show. Yes, yes, I would
got to be so definitely welcome Derek, Jesus well Dale. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
We appreciate you, cringe yall, legend, baseball legend. Thank you
for sitting down and spend some time with us.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
Man, thanks for having me bro appreciate you, guys. Manager,
you sir, you sir, you sir.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
That's a rap, Daryl Strawberry. You can catch us on
All the Smoke YouTube and the DraftKings Network.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
We'll see y'all next week. M hm mm hmmm, h
m hmm.