December 10, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, he made eight consecutive all-star game appearances and captured four World Series championships, but his talent was overshadowed by his destructive life outside the ballpark. Here's Darryl to share his story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
There are some of our favorites. After years of hard.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Living blowing through more than thirty million dollars, former slugger
Darryl Strawberry found his true calling and sat down with
Greg Hangler to share the story. Daryl didn't waste any
time getting to the heart of his dysfunction. Here's one
of Major League Baseball's greats, Daryl Strawberry.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Pretty much probably my parents, And you know that's really
where my story started from. You in my life. And
I think it was more of the dysfunction, you know,
in my life because of my father. You know, he
was more of a you know, abusive man, a very
you know, alcoholic and drank a lot and came home
a lot, you know, with just so much confusion. And
then there was for the last time he came home
(01:08):
with the confusion of being drunk again and then pulling
out a shotgun and said that he was going to
kill the whole family. And had it not been for
my mother, me and my brothers would have killed him
that night had it not been for her getting us
out of the house, because we were like really fed
up with it because we had seen this so many
times over and over again, and we just had reached
(01:30):
the point. You know, I was only about fourteen years old,
so me and Ronnie, my brother Ronnie, my brothers that's
a one year ahead of me. Me and him had
the real run ins with my father about every little thing,
every little infraction that came up. You know, it was
always a beating. You know. He had to take our
shirts off, make us take our shirt off, and there
across the bed and you know, like a vacuum vacuum
(01:52):
clean extension court. He used to use that to beat us.
And it was like there was no love there. You know,
there was no love and you know, there was no understanding,
and we just we just kind of grew up. We
grew up in a place of hating him and you know,
kind of wishing, you know the fact that we used
to sit in the rooms and saying wishing that he
was dead, you know, because I remember my brother Rannie
(02:13):
said one time, after he got a beating, he goes,
I'm going to kill him one day, you know, And
and and we came closer that night. You know, Ronnie
was the first one to grab the butcher knife, you know,
and I grabbed a frying pan, and we came really
close to killing him that night. And like I said,
had my mother not gotten us out the house. This
is the relationship that I had with my father. It
was a brutal relationship. And you know, I just I
(02:35):
just needed some guidance. I needed some some some men
in my life that you know, could really help me
understand what the importance it is to be a man. So,
you know, the beatings from my father and the rejection
from my father left me and my brothers like really
cripple inside. And my pain would eventually lead me to
my greatness, and my greatness would eventually lead me to
(02:58):
my destructive behavior. So always say one is not well
on the inside, eventually it will play out in their life.
I think a lot of people look at celebrities lives
and think that we should should have it all together
because they have everything, but they don't really know what
the childhood was like and where you actually come from
and what happens to a person. So my father background
(03:19):
was really hard. You know, he was the only child,
you know, finding out from you know, some of his
cousins and stuff. His father was very abusive, and his
father was alcoholic, and he saw his father actually beat
his mother over and over in front of him. So
he kind of repeated the same same habit that his
(03:40):
father had, and I would go on to repeat the
same habit my father had two So learning that it's
a generational thing and not until it's broken, it cannot
be fixed. And I realized that, you know, in my life.
But I realized that my father had a lot of issues,
and it was probably because of what he saw growing up,
you know, watching his father, you know, be the man
(04:02):
that he was, and you know, all the things he
probably experienced in his household he brought into his life
when he got married and had kids himself. I was
brought up in Watch, California, and it was it was
so weird and so different, you know, living in a
place like that, he was very challenging. It was a
lot of you know, a lot of crime, you know,
(04:24):
and you know, we were kids, but we were most
of the time we were in the house at night,
but you can hear the gunshots, and you can hear
all different type of things, you know that we grew
up around, and you see all type of things on
the streets, you know, during the course of a day
growing up as a kid. And you know, we really
never got into a lot of things because we liked sports,
Me and my brothers. We were always in activities, liking
(04:46):
the play sports. And then it was the coach that
was close close by us that that saw us, the
three Strawberry boys, and he wanted all three of us
on the same team. You know, we were all young,
you know, and he put us all on the same team,
and he just thought all of us and he just said,
I need to raise these boys right, because they don't
look like they have a father figure in their life.
And he raised us right, you know, been taking us
(05:08):
into places that we never thought we could ever imagine,
be going to play play ball at ballparks and stuff
like that. So I grew up in a very broken,
empty neighborhood. And I think that was because my mother
always wanted to get out, but my father just didn't
want to move forward. And then she finally moved us forward,
(05:29):
and he moved forward with us too. When I moved
over into the south central area of Crenshall High where
I went to school and everything, and from there, you know,
after experiencing that time that night, my mother put him
out and he was never there anymore. So it was
just us and her, raising five of us by herself.
(05:50):
So it was it was very challenging for my mom.
She was a wonderful woman and she worked very hard
to you know, make things work for us, and she
kept food on the table for five overs. There was
an incredible job that she was doing just to take
care of five kids by herself. She was the secretary
you know, at the Pacific Bell and she worked there
for a long time. She had a steady job. My
(06:10):
mom was a very bright woman. You know, she's well educated,
She spoke well, you know, and she had just such
a great piece about herself. And she raised us right.
That's the thing about it. She raised us right. She
raised us with principals, respect and everything else. And she
always made us understand that you're no better than anybody else.
And those are the most important things growing up in
(06:35):
our household, because we had to respect our household because
you know, I thought I was like a really big
shot baseball player, little league, baseball player, high school, whatever
it was. And I would come in the house with
that hat on, and she was like, you better take
that hat off your head before I knock it off,
you know. So there were some real things there, you know.
And my mother was little and I was big. I
(06:56):
was a big kid, and you know, and I would like,
say someone on the side, out of the side of
my mouth, and she would say, what did you say?
And I was like, oh, say no. She said, come here,
and she popped me right in the mouth. You know.
So that was the teaching of us how to have respect.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And you're listening to Darryl Strawberry and what a story.
And the pain, well, he said it led to his greatness,
but his eventual decline. More of this remarkable story Darryl
Strawberry's story here on our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
If you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
(07:54):
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more. And we're back with our American Stories
and the story of Major League baseball player Darryl Strawberry.
(08:15):
We last heard Darryl tell the story of how his
mom once punched him in the mouth after we talked
back to her as a big shot baseball player at
Crenshaw High in southern California. Let's return to Darryl and
his story.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
You know, you think about it, raising five kids, black kids,
all by yourself, and it's a struggle with no father.
But I think we were so broken and depleted from
the fact that my father was such a raising alcoholic
and the rejection that was so real it just left
it left me and my brother Ronnie real cripple inside.
And we did. We ended up going down some really
(08:48):
dark roads and you know, growing up, and I went
and when I say dark roads, I mean like junior
high school. I got kicked out of like four junior
high schools because I was troubled inside, and you know,
burning up bathrooms I was in marijuana every day, and
and then I finally went to high school. They finally
like pushed me on through high school and got me
out of the junior high because I was so so troubled.
(09:09):
And I remember my first year in high school, I
got kicked off the baseball team because I was so
troubled inside. And a lot of people don't even know that.
You know, I became a big star, but I was
troubled in the coach. Me and the coach butted heads,
you know, because I walked off the field one day
and he thumped me on the head. And this is
all black high school, and my baseball coach was white,
and he was incredible. His name was Brooks Hurst. He
(09:31):
coached all black black team, and you know, he was
he was right about it. I just thought I was
a young hot you know, pheenom out of you know,
out of Rancho Park, you know, leave ball and coming
into high school and being in on the varsity tenth grade,
and I kind of walked off the field like like
it was no big deal, and he just stumped me
in the head and I took the jersey off right
(09:52):
there on the field during the game, and I threw
it in his face and I quit, and he was
just trying to build character in us to you know,
to to be something different. You know, I think, you know,
he's coaching all black players, and so you can imagine,
you know, what he's got to go through. He's a
white coach, you know, in a black, all black high school,
and he's coaching all these great talented black players with
(10:15):
egos flying everywhere. You know, he's got to maintain whatever
he has to maintain to make us understand that we
need to hustle, we need to be players to play
the game the right way. And boy, that was that
was a lesson that I had to learn right there,
really hard not to ever quit again and learn to dig,
dig through and fight through situations. And you know, the
(10:37):
coach was the coach was remarkable. You know, after my
freshman year, I came back and played my junior year
and we sat down, had a talk and I told
him I was wrong, and you know, I just really
needed to learn grow up and learn about myself. And
he accepted that and allowed me to be back on
the team. And then we go on to be this
powerhouse baseball team in high school, you know, with myself,
(11:00):
Chris Brown, who was our third basement and he got
drafted by the Giants and he ended up playing the
big leagues with the Giants. And you know, I played
with Match and Eric Davis was my friend. He played
at Freemont, and you know, we just all just grew
up together, and you know, we played in high school.
But I just remember how good we were in high school.
We went to the city championship nineteen seventy nine, were
coach Hurts. He bought so much discipline to us, and
(11:21):
we ended up losing the city championship at Dodger Stadium
in nineteen seventy nine, Granada Hills, John Elway and them
beat us in the city championship. And the issues inside
of me were stuffed down so far because of being
multi talented. And I took my energy in high school
to use it for basketball and baseball and sports, you know,
(11:42):
because sports is a great outlet to not think, you know,
because you can't think when you play sports. You have
to either be there are you not there? Because I've
seen a lot of players that were probably better than me,
and a lot of great players in our high school,
but their thinking process was just too much and they
could never fulfill the promises over their life. And I
was just one of those guys that didn't think. I
(12:02):
just actually went in there and I performed, you know,
because I wanted to play. I mean I was driven
because of my father rejection. I think it drove me
into greatness because he said I wouldn't be anything, and
I was like, I'm going to show you that I'm
going to be something. I'm not going to be what
you are, and you know, I'm gonna have a family
one day. And I used to talk to myself in
(12:24):
the room and watch baseball and says, I'm going to
play in the big leagues one day. And you know
that was that was my driving for us, you know,
because of the rejection, and it drove me into my
It drove me into being who I was and loving
the game. But the issues were always there. You know.
We we need that affirmation, We need that approval from
(12:46):
a male figure that we it's okay. And a lot
of times, a lot of by the boys don't see
their dads around because they're so busy, uh in life
and because that's what life make it is. We live
in a society that makes you where you have to
be busy, you have to be working, and you don't
pay enough tens. And this is what I've seen happen
(13:07):
in our society because what happened to me, I've seen
happen to so many young young kids. I mean, I
used to run a treatment facility and and I've seen
so many young white suburban kids all addicted, you know,
to opiates and heroin and all kinds of stuff because
of rejection and no one's around. Your dad's wrong because
(13:27):
the first thing I asked him is where's your dad? Well,
he's too busy, wearying about business instead of worrying about family.
And and you leave, you leave people so broken from that,
and we don't understand that it's so real, especially in
the times that we're in now, and everything that's out here,
you know, it's it's out here at the fingertips of
them to be able to get and be exposed to.
(13:48):
And you don't realize that, you know, they get exposed
to all the wrong things because they search for so
hard for that fatherly figure because Mom's gonna always be there,
Mom's going to take care kids. Aware is that male figure,
you know, But at the same time, the girls look
for the same thing too, because I just didn't see
boys in there. I saw the girls in there, you know,
(14:11):
broken and been slaves to addiction because they didn't have
a male figure in their life. And you know, people,
we don't understand that as a society. We think, you know,
it's just about going and doing it. Yeah, we have
to do we have to provide, but also at the
same time, we have to make time. I was just
me and my wife, just spent the last week with
my girls here with their boyfriends and just being dad,
(14:32):
you know, and those things, all those things are important
to me. My kids have never been broken because the
curse was broken off of me, and they were young
when I was in the midst of using and playing baseball,
so they didn't get to see a lot, but they
heard a lot. And people said, well, your dad was
a great baseball player, but he had so many struggles.
And my daughter's be like, no, my dad, my dad's
a preacher. You know, what are you talking about? You know,
they was, so they see me as a different person,
(14:54):
but I had but I explained to them who I
was before I got to this place here, and I
explained to them, you never want, you know, be in
a place like this. I told them you could pick
your sins, but you can't pick your consequences, because they
are real great. Pushing things that pushing things down was
really hard, you know, because you really don't know who
(15:14):
you are. I mean, yeah, I mean I played baseball,
and I knew I was a baseball player, and I
knew I was achieving all these great things, no question
about it. But that really doesn't define who you are.
I think, I think that's what you do, and I
think I think so many people get that confused. And
that's why you see so many guys, whatever celebrities they are,
you know, that have problems, you know, have deep problems.
(15:35):
They're a lot deeper than just being successful. And most
people think, well, you have everything happen. Everything doesn't make
you well, you know, And that's what it was for me.
You know, things were stuffed down so far. And the
things that were stuffed down in me had to do
with my childhood. I had to do with growing up
and not having the father around and being rejected. I
think that left me more broken and empty more than anything,
(15:59):
because you know, when you think about it, my father
didn't see me playing a little league He didn't see
me playing legion ball. He only saw me when I
was in high school and saw me when he heard
about me in high school. So I was left in
a place where I was sold. I was so so shallow,
y'all know. I mean I knew I was I knew
what to do far as playing, but as a person,
(16:20):
you know, I didn't have, you know, great confidence in
myself and belief in myself because I was left with
all this pain inside and I just wanted to be
free of it. And a lot of that had to
do with, you know, my father, the rejection and being
broken for so long. And I did all these great things,
and you know, I won championships, I hit home runs,
I made All Star games, you know, all that. All
(16:42):
that was great, you know, from a standpoint of being
Darrel Stovey the baseball player. But who am I as
the man? You know? And I struggled with that for
a very very long time. My goal was to get
to the big leagues as soon as possible and be
able to take care of my mother. I think that's
because she had taken care of all of us, and
(17:03):
me being drafted was exciting. It was an exciting day.
When draft day was coming, you know, because I knew
I was going to be somewhere in the mix of
the draft because the year before that, four players got
drafted off our high school team, and all the scouts
were asked and coach, well, what about the left hand,
and he's and the coach said, well, he's a junior.
(17:23):
He has another year of playing. And they was like,
he's a junior. He's like, yeah, he's he's a junior.
He's got another year. There it goes wow. And I
was playing basketball too, and and coach her, she used
to say, well, a lot of scouts didn't want me
playing basketball. They said, well he's the next He's like
the next Willie mccubby and the next Ted Williams. And
(17:44):
I was like, well, who's Ted Williams?
Speaker 1 (17:47):
You know, when we come back more of Darryl Strawberry's
journey here on our American Stories, and we're back with
(18:09):
our American Stories and with Darryl Strawberry's story and my goodness,
so often on this show we talk about fatherlessness and
the effect on both males and females. And when you
heard Daryl say, we searched me and my brother so
hard for that father figure, where is that male figure?
And my goodness, we asked that question a lot and
(18:30):
hope to inspire folks by these stories to be better dads.
A lot of our problems will be solved in this
country if that happened. Let's return to Darryl Strawberry and
by the way, his dog, who will briefly be interjecting
some background barks.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
You know. And my coach would come to he would
come to my basketball games and he would see me
dunking on people. He would see me falling. He was
just like cringing and saying, I hope he doesn't break
his ankle. I heard himself out there on the basketball court.
But I was just a competitive part. And then I
go on to be drafted in my senior year by
number one draft pick in the country, and there I was.
(19:06):
I wanted to make a decision to play. I had
a scholarship to go to Oklahoma State to play basketball
and baseball. But I was the number one pick, and
I was sitting there and I said, I want to play.
I want to go through the professional ranks and see
what it's really like because I saw these other guys
go through it, and three of them screwed up their
first year, and Chris Brown continued to go on and
he ended up playing in the big leagues just like myself.
(19:28):
My brother Michael was also drafted. He was drafted by
the Dodgers. Later on in his college he went to
college and Southwest College and he ended up being drafted
by the Dodgers. I recredit my ability to play to
all the coaches that were in my life. Man named
by mister Mosley and a man named by Earl Brown.
(19:49):
They were my coaches in summer league ball, and they
taught me the fundamentals of how to play baseball. And
I think it's so critical for people to understand the
fundamentals of bay or what's gonna make you be able
to play at the highest level. I think sometimes people think, well,
if I could half do it, you know I can
make it. And a lot of guys never made it
because they half did it. It's those that you know,
(20:11):
really stay focused and work hard on them. And I
think that's what happened to me. I stayed hard on
working on everything that they were teaching me, and I
was a good listener. I had listened to what the
coaches had to say. I didn't think I knew it
all because I wanted to get better. They saw something
in me that I didn't see it myself. And a
lot of times that's really what happens to us as boys.
(20:33):
You know, we don't see it in ourselves. We know
it good, but we don't really know how good. And
the coaches, you know, one coach, mister Mosley, was my
baseball coach, and he used to tell me the importance
why he would come pick me up every day because
he was like, wanted to talk to me about, you know,
how great you could be and what it could be
like for you. But he also showed me most of
(20:54):
these guys don't make it because of the girls. You know,
they allow the girl to hook them in the nose
and take them by the nose and take him away
from going to practice and all that stuff. And he
didn't want me to ever get into that, and I
didn't when I was young like that. You know, I
was always on the ball fields and I was always practicing,
and he was you know, he taught me a lot
about that. You He told me that there are major
(21:14):
distractions out there for you, and that's what a boy
needs to hear and a lot of guys had talent,
but they got distracted because the girls, because of partying,
because of this and that, and I didn't get into
all that. I didn't get into all that until I
got in the big leagues. Yeah, I went to the minors.
I went to Kingsport, Tennessee. It was my first year
and it was like, oh my god, I've never been
(21:35):
out of southern California and I ended up in Kingsport, Tennessee,
the middle of nowhere. I was like, oh my god.
That was a shock culture shock to me. I was
I couldn't believe where I was at. And then the
next year I went to Lynchburg, Virginia, you know, and
it was Lynchburg, Virginia, and I was like, oh my god,
and I was down, deep down in the South, and
(21:57):
I didn't really want to play NOM. I almost quit
that year because I had to go through so many
racial issues and you know, of you know, the fans
yelling at me and saying things and calling me up
boys out of my name and calling me inWORD and
you're not that good. And it was really tough and
I came close to quitting and I told the match
I didn't really want to play no more baseball. I
want probably go back to college and probably try to
(22:18):
play some basketball. But they said, we'll give you one
more year, and then I gave it another year. I
went to Jackson, Mississippi. And then when I went to Jackson, Mississippi,
that's when everything just took place. I became this great
baseball player, and I just knew I was going to
be at another level of playing from that point in Jackson, Mississippi.
So I went on from there and I won the
(22:39):
Texas League MVP, and I went to Tiewater for one
one month and next year in nineteen eighty three, then
I was up in the big leagues right away. You know,
I got involved in the heavy drinking. Once I got
into professional sports and got to the major leagues, I
became an alcoholic at the age of twenty one. I
knew I was an alcoholic already, just like my father,
but then I got to introduced to you know, the cocaine,
the art drugs, you know, at the major league level,
(23:02):
and that was really that was really it. That was
the defining moment of what would change the course of
me inside, because now I had found some team that
would allow me to escape, you know, the reality of drugs.
People don't think, you know, nothing's wrong with you know,
you know marijuana. If you're a kid and you grew
(23:22):
up smoking marijuana, eventually, somewhere down the line, you're gonna
switch and you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna try something else,
and something else is going to change you. And that's
what it did for me. You know, I got I
guess they call you graduate from you know, the the
minor leagues to the big leagues. Welcome to the major leagues.
And you know, my first trip on the major league plane,
(23:42):
you know, a veteran player sent me to the back
of the plane said, welcome to the big leagues. Kid.
There was the introduced me to cocaine. And I went
back there and I hit it and I liked it.
I wanted to be a part. I wanted to be
a part of the guys, you know, because there was
a missing inside of you know, being being a part
of something, because you didn't have a file figure because
he never showed you that kind of you know, uh
(24:03):
there there there are consequences behind your action. I believe
that's what you didn't learn. And so I just picked
up all these things, you know, from age of twenty
one being a big league ball player, going on to
win Rookie of the Year, and you know, there was
already drinking party. And they took me to a club
one night, you know, the night on the first road trip,
(24:25):
and showed me the girls, and you know, I thought, wow,
you know, this is this is really cool, this is
what it's all about. And little did I know that
that would be a devastating part of my life, that
would bring about a great destruction in my life, because
you know what, it's all at your fingertips, and you know,
and and the thing about it is, you know, when
you're there and you become a star like I did,
(24:47):
nobody's gonna tell me no. They'd be like, yes, you
can do whatever you want to, you know, whatever kind
of party you want, whatever kind of girls you want.
I mean I had women everywhere I'm married, you know,
just living any old kind of way, and you know,
outside relationships girls here, girls there, you know, uh, and
everybody think that's you know, everybody thinks that's great. They
what they you know what they they This is what
(25:08):
they celebrities life it's all about. They love they love
that lifestyle. They love it that they can live any
kind of way, doesn't matter who you have at home
and who you hurt. You can do what you want
because you're touch and such and and this is what
this is what's been created for a long time. It's
still going on, you know, with Hollywood and athletes and everything.
(25:29):
It's created the craziness of the craziness of a chaotic
life style. And this is why nobody stays married, nobody
stays together, and everybody's broken up, and everybody's broken. We
leave this one because I meet the next one. And
it's just the most insane way to live. And I
think people think, you know, well, I wouldn't do that.
(25:49):
You don't know what you would do if you was
in that. It's a hard situation. It's a hard lifestyle
to be able to understand when nobody tells, you know,
when everybody says, yes, you can do whatever you want.
It's sin fun, yeah, but it's consequences behind it, you know,
and you you won't You'll never understand it if you
never come to understand God's grace always. That's why I
always preach about, you know, if you don't understand the
(26:11):
grace of God. Then you don't understand God is grace
is something you don't deserve, and He gives it to you.
And when you when you come to that place to
understand that, that's how you have a real transformation. Because
I don't deserve to be here, but He has given
me the grace to be here.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And my goodness, what a lot of unpack there. And
I'm sure you're going to want to hear this story again.
Go to alamericanstories dot com. Play it for your kids,
play it for family, Play it for boys who don't
have fathers, especially, and girls who don't have fathers, because
this will resonate. So much of what he's saying will resonate,
big baseball star or not. As he put it, sin
(26:46):
it's fun, but there are consequences, and my goodness, the
consequences of having a bad father a really hideous one, unimaginable.
You know, those of us who have good fathers, Well,
we're just go home and hug your dad. All I
can tell you, go home and hold your dad when
we come back. More of this remarkable story, Darryl Strawberry
story here on our American Stories, and we continue with
(27:38):
our American Stories and with Darryl Strawberry story, let's pick
up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I agree with the fact that you know, there's so
much stuff that is set in front of us that
keeps us from reaching a purpose with God because there's
so many distractions. The enemy has placed so many distractions
in front of us from our standpoint where we can't
we can't really grasp for the goodness of God until
(28:07):
we actually have an encounter with him. And then when
we have an encounter with him, then we go, oh
my gosh. I mean, I'm like, oh my gosh, how
did I live so stupid for so long? How did
I live in this? You know, you know, filthiness for
so long? You know, after you know who Jesus is,
after you know the hanging on across the Calvary and
the shedding of his blood. And who would want to
live like that? You don't want to live like that.
(28:28):
I don't care how successful you are, you know you
don't want to live that way. I mean, I saw
Gary Carter and Mookie Wilson, who were at the height
of their careers, playing baseballs, but I saw him live
for God when I was playing, and I was wondering
why were they Why were these guys so happy? Well,
I know that today because they were free on the inside.
They wasn't in bondage. They wasn't in changed, you know,
(28:49):
they wasn't struggling. You know, they wasn't they wasn't straight
on the fence. They wasn't hypocrits. They wasn't saying Jesus,
but I'm going out going to strip clubs. You know,
they go out to dinner with us and they say, well,
I'll see you guys later after, you know, after dinner,
I'm going back to the hotel while the rest of
us going to strip clubs and going out to drink
and meet girls. These guys going back to go to
(29:10):
sleep and coming to the ballpark the next day and
never condemned us, but just we're our teammates. I thought
it was just just incredible that you can actually live
that way, because you know, you grow up and you
see so much dysfunction in your life and you see
your father, you know, be a womanizer and an alcoholic,
and and you see other guys are just most the same,
(29:32):
you know, the way they treat treat women. You know,
then you see the guys like this when you get
to the big leagues. Of course, Gary Carter and Mookie
lived different, you know, but I was around a lot
of other players who did the same thing. They you know, proclaiming,
you know, I have a great marriage when I'm at home,
but when I'm on the road, I'm a totally different person,
you know. And and these two guys, you know, didn't
(29:53):
do that, you know, And that's what that was, what
was so unique, and it was you're attracted to it,
you know, because it's it's something, it's something real about them,
something something far greater than them just putting on the
uniform and saying I playing the I play in the
big leagues, you know, because they didn't because you see,
(30:15):
because you see the back of the plane. When you're
on the back of the plane, you see the rest
of you guys, all of us that run run to
the back, or you know, a bunch of scumbacks, you know,
in the back. You know, that's what we just call ourselves.
And you don't want to come back there because we drink,
we smoke cigarettes, and we play loud music and we
talk about what we're gonna do when we get into
town and stuff like that. And then you see guys
sitting up and you know, according to the front, you know,
(30:36):
more according to the front, like Mooky and Gary. And
you see them and you know, you drink they drink milk,
and you know they drink water and you think, you know,
people think, well, they just too good, you know. It's
like and then you know the guys, you know, get
on the after the guys get on the bus. You know,
the guys are hammered all you know, the scum bunch
is hammered. And they yelled at them, Hey, hey, Gary,
you want some milk, you know, and you know it's
(30:58):
just like you want a smile. And you know, we
didn't realize that. We didn't realize the important of what
we were seeing. We didn't I know now that I
was seeing a man. You know, I wasn't seeing a
boy like the rest of us, because we considered ourselves
when we thought we yeah, we're Matria. Man. We drink
alcohol and we partying. And you see these guys and
(31:22):
they take care of their bodies. They don't. They don't,
you know, use their bodies as the slaves you know,
to go and be in seeing and stuff like that.
And I just, man, I just wish I wish I
would have known better, and wish somebody would have helped
me to understand, you know, why they were living like that,
and maybe my whole life could have turned out different,
(31:43):
But it turned out the way it did. But I
just think about it a lot of times in the
midst of my career. I wish I would have would
have known God in my career like I do today.
And people wonder how did I get to this place
where I'm at today with God? You know, Well, God
had to sit me for seven years because because I
was broken for so long, He had to sit me
for seven years till equip me so that I would
(32:04):
bring about discipline and have some change in my life.
So what I did learn not to live anymore for me.
I learned to live for God. I learned to live
a totally different way. And that's the challenge for anyone
who is trying to get on the other side of life.
You know, I'm married today, you know, fourteen years, and
we've been together for probably about twenty one years. And
(32:25):
when we started, when we started on the journey together
and when she came into my life, I was in
the midst of addiction and she was pulling me out
of dope houses. You know, I was shooting dope, smoking
crack and that was three million dollars in debt and
just wanted to be left out there and for dead
and die. And I said, well, why don't you? She says,
God has a plan for you. I says, why don't you?
(32:46):
And there, God just leave me here and let me die.
And she said, you're just not that lucky. And then
we finally come to a place and we get together
and get married and start doing it right. And then
she finally questioned me, when are you gonna ever take
that uniform? All? You know, it's like wow, that hit
me like a ton of bricks. You know, it's like
(33:06):
you see, like you when you go stop, you know,
identifying yourself as Daryl Strawberry to baseball player, and when
you're gonna be Dial Strawberry, the man that God has
called you to be. And that really stuck to me.
You know, that really hit me hard, because you know,
she was right. I was carrying this, you know, this
this uniform around and the trophies and the success that
I had instead of carrying the mantle and the peace
(33:29):
peace around me that you know, God gives to us.
And once I let go all that, she was right,
I went. I entered into this incredible place with God,
and it was it was such great joy and great
peace and a relief, you know for myself to eat
be this new person and see myself as new, not
see myself but as the old. You know, that's the
second corintheus by seventeen. Therefore, of anyone's in crist he's
(33:52):
the new creation. Old things have passed away, behold all
things that become new. So I can never get to
the new if I'm holding onto the old. So I
had to let go of the old to get to
the new. Because God has something new every day for you.
And when I started waking up, I started waking up
with new things every day and new things to do,
new things to worship God and thank God just for
the little things, uh, and which which is important and
(34:15):
not the success, but the little things I'm talking about.
It's just like life, you know, and freedom and not
addicted and not a slave to this and not a
slave to that. So uh, that was a real defining
moment in my life, you know, with my wife Tracy,
you know, taking off that uniform and I've had some
real revelations, you know, with two women in my life.
(34:38):
And I say, God has a great sense of humor
because I was a womanizer. I was all around women
all the time, and there he would He would use
my mother to pray for me when I was a heathen,
and we found a journal on her bed when she
was dying that she was praying for all of us.
God knock him off, his strong and saving and then
she then he brings Tracey in my life. She's pulling
(34:58):
me all the dough posits and asked me, telling me that, well,
you're just not that lucky. God's God hadn't let you
go yet, winning you go take the uniform off and
make the change. And those are those are things that
I really take the heart because the fact that my
mother would pray for all of us, and I ended
up getting saved. And not only did I get saved,
(35:19):
I ended up leading my entire family to the Lord.
And I ended up leading my father to the Lord
before he died. So I was changed, you know. And
God had saved me. And I was preaching and traveling
and I was in California and he was in the hospital,
and my brother told me in San Diego somewhere, and
I told him why. I got to a conference Saturday
morning and he was telling me that. Then God, Friday night,
(35:41):
God got just came all over me about my father.
Just he says, I want you to go down to
the hospital and see your father. And he goes, I
want you to repent to your father, and he says,
don't say anything about what he did to you. I
want you to repent for keeping him out of your
life and your career. And I was like, really, God,
he was all over me about this, and then I
know is God when his presence in his poor And
then my wife was like I said, I called my wife, said,
(36:04):
God's all over me. I can't sleep. And I got
to preach tomorrow morning and she said, well, I think
you need you need to do what God is telling
you to do. And she prayed over me. And then
I went to sleep and I did the mens breakfast
on Saturday morning, and then Sunday came. I went down
to San Diego to see him in the hospital and
I did exactly what he says. I said, I came
to see you and said, you know, the Lord changed
(36:24):
my life, And he says, yes, and I said, I'm
I'm here to just ask you to forgive me because
I've been I was wrong. Well, you forgive me, and
a tear came out of his eye and I just
lost it. I just laid in his laught and just
cried so hard. It was just, it was so powerful,
it was just I just laid there and cried and
cried and cried and told him I'm so sorry. And
(36:45):
the Lord said, raised up, and then I raised up.
The Lord said, and I lead him in the center prayer.
And I led him in the center preyer said, would
you like to accept the Lord his lord over your life?
And he accepted the Lord and center prayer. And he
died a couple of months after that. But God, in
that moment in time that I was, God had said,
spoke to me about the forgiveness wasn't for him. The
(37:08):
forgiveness was for me so I can get well and
get free. That's why I never got free. And I
remember him saying, don't ever make it about you, because
it's not about you. It's about what I want to
do through you. And he says, how dare you not
forgive him? And I forgive you? And there was the
incredible moment. And you know, here it is I go on.
I tell people that all the time, said, there it is.
(37:30):
God used me to go on and lead the man
that rejected me and beat me to him.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
And you've been listening to Darryl Strawberry and what a story.
And thanks as always to Greg Hangler for getting us
this great story. And by the way, to get much
more detail about Darryl Strawberry's life by his book Turn
Your Season Around How God Transforms Your Life at Amazon
dot com or heck, go to a bookstore and buy
(37:55):
the book. And by the way, by to because this
is a great book to give to a friend, this
kind of testimony. My goodness be still my heart. Daryl
Strawberry's life story, a life of redemption, a life of
real hope.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Here on our American stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
There are some of our favorites. After years of hard.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Living blowing through more than thirty million dollars, former slugger
Darryl Strawberry found his true calling and sat down with
Greg Hangler to share the story. Daryl didn't waste any
time getting to the heart of his dysfunction. Here's one
of Major League Baseball's greats, Daryl Strawberry.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Pretty much probably my parents, And you know that's really
where my story started from. You in my life. And
I think it was more of the dysfunction, you know,
in my life because of my father. You know, he
was more of a you know, abusive man, a very
you know, alcoholic and drank a lot and came home
a lot, you know, with just so much confusion. And
then there was for the last time he came home
(01:08):
with the confusion of being drunk again and then pulling
out a shotgun and said that he was going to
kill the whole family. And had it not been for
my mother, me and my brothers would have killed him
that night had it not been for her getting us
out of the house, because we were like really fed
up with it because we had seen this so many
times over and over again, and we just had reached
(01:30):
the point. You know, I was only about fourteen years old,
so me and Ronnie, my brother Ronnie, my brothers that's
a one year ahead of me. Me and him had
the real run ins with my father about every little thing,
every little infraction that came up. You know, it was
always a beating. You know. He had to take our
shirts off, make us take our shirt off, and there
across the bed and you know, like a vacuum vacuum
(01:52):
clean extension court. He used to use that to beat us.
And it was like there was no love there. You know,
there was no love and you know, there was no understanding,
and we just we just kind of grew up. We
grew up in a place of hating him and you know,
kind of wishing, you know the fact that we used
to sit in the rooms and saying wishing that he
was dead, you know, because I remember my brother Rannie
(02:13):
said one time, after he got a beating, he goes,
I'm going to kill him one day, you know, And
and and we came closer that night. You know, Ronnie
was the first one to grab the butcher knife, you know,
and I grabbed a frying pan, and we came really
close to killing him that night. And like I said,
had my mother not gotten us out the house. This
is the relationship that I had with my father. It
was a brutal relationship. And you know, I just I
(02:35):
just needed some guidance. I needed some some some men
in my life that you know, could really help me
understand what the importance it is to be a man. So,
you know, the beatings from my father and the rejection
from my father left me and my brothers like really
cripple inside. And my pain would eventually lead me to
my greatness, and my greatness would eventually lead me to
(02:58):
my destructive behavior. So always say one is not well
on the inside, eventually it will play out in their life.
I think a lot of people look at celebrities lives
and think that we should should have it all together
because they have everything, but they don't really know what
the childhood was like and where you actually come from
and what happens to a person. So my father background
(03:19):
was really hard. You know, he was the only child,
you know, finding out from you know, some of his
cousins and stuff. His father was very abusive, and his
father was alcoholic, and he saw his father actually beat
his mother over and over in front of him. So
he kind of repeated the same same habit that his
(03:40):
father had, and I would go on to repeat the
same habit my father had two So learning that it's
a generational thing and not until it's broken, it cannot
be fixed. And I realized that, you know, in my life.
But I realized that my father had a lot of issues,
and it was probably because of what he saw growing up,
you know, watching his father, you know, be the man
(04:02):
that he was, and you know, all the things he
probably experienced in his household he brought into his life
when he got married and had kids himself. I was
brought up in Watch, California, and it was it was
so weird and so different, you know, living in a
place like that, he was very challenging. It was a
lot of you know, a lot of crime, you know,
(04:24):
and you know, we were kids, but we were most
of the time we were in the house at night,
but you can hear the gunshots, and you can hear
all different type of things, you know that we grew
up around, and you see all type of things on
the streets, you know, during the course of a day
growing up as a kid. And you know, we really
never got into a lot of things because we liked sports,
Me and my brothers. We were always in activities, liking
(04:46):
the play sports. And then it was the coach that
was close close by us that that saw us, the
three Strawberry boys, and he wanted all three of us
on the same team. You know, we were all young,
you know, and he put us all on the same team,
and he just thought all of us and he just said,
I need to raise these boys right, because they don't
look like they have a father figure in their life.
And he raised us right, you know, been taking us
(05:08):
into places that we never thought we could ever imagine,
be going to play play ball at ballparks and stuff
like that. So I grew up in a very broken,
empty neighborhood. And I think that was because my mother
always wanted to get out, but my father just didn't
want to move forward. And then she finally moved us forward,
(05:29):
and he moved forward with us too. When I moved
over into the south central area of Crenshall High where
I went to school and everything, and from there, you know,
after experiencing that time that night, my mother put him
out and he was never there anymore. So it was
just us and her, raising five of us by herself.
(05:50):
So it was it was very challenging for my mom.
She was a wonderful woman and she worked very hard
to you know, make things work for us, and she
kept food on the table for five overs. There was
an incredible job that she was doing just to take
care of five kids by herself. She was the secretary
you know, at the Pacific Bell and she worked there
for a long time. She had a steady job. My
(06:10):
mom was a very bright woman. You know, she's well educated,
She spoke well, you know, and she had just such
a great piece about herself. And she raised us right.
That's the thing about it. She raised us right. She
raised us with principals, respect and everything else. And she
always made us understand that you're no better than anybody else.
And those are the most important things growing up in
(06:35):
our household, because we had to respect our household because
you know, I thought I was like a really big
shot baseball player, little league, baseball player, high school, whatever
it was. And I would come in the house with
that hat on, and she was like, you better take
that hat off your head before I knock it off,
you know. So there were some real things there, you know.
And my mother was little and I was big. I
(06:56):
was a big kid, and you know, and I would like,
say someone on the side, out of the side of
my mouth, and she would say, what did you say?
And I was like, oh, say no. She said, come here,
and she popped me right in the mouth. You know.
So that was the teaching of us how to have respect.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And you're listening to Darryl Strawberry and what a story.
And the pain, well, he said it led to his greatness,
but his eventual decline. More of this remarkable story Darryl
Strawberry's story here on our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
If you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
(07:54):
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more. And we're back with our American Stories
and the story of Major League baseball player Darryl Strawberry.
(08:15):
We last heard Darryl tell the story of how his
mom once punched him in the mouth after we talked
back to her as a big shot baseball player at
Crenshaw High in southern California. Let's return to Darryl and
his story.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
You know, you think about it, raising five kids, black kids,
all by yourself, and it's a struggle with no father.
But I think we were so broken and depleted from
the fact that my father was such a raising alcoholic
and the rejection that was so real it just left
it left me and my brother Ronnie real cripple inside.
And we did. We ended up going down some really
(08:48):
dark roads and you know, growing up, and I went
and when I say dark roads, I mean like junior
high school. I got kicked out of like four junior
high schools because I was troubled inside, and you know,
burning up bathrooms I was in marijuana every day, and
and then I finally went to high school. They finally
like pushed me on through high school and got me
out of the junior high because I was so so troubled.
(09:09):
And I remember my first year in high school, I
got kicked off the baseball team because I was so
troubled inside. And a lot of people don't even know that.
You know, I became a big star, but I was
troubled in the coach. Me and the coach butted heads,
you know, because I walked off the field one day
and he thumped me on the head. And this is
all black high school, and my baseball coach was white,
and he was incredible. His name was Brooks Hurst. He
(09:31):
coached all black black team, and you know, he was
he was right about it. I just thought I was
a young hot you know, pheenom out of you know,
out of Rancho Park, you know, leave ball and coming
into high school and being in on the varsity tenth grade,
and I kind of walked off the field like like
it was no big deal, and he just stumped me
in the head and I took the jersey off right
(09:52):
there on the field during the game, and I threw
it in his face and I quit, and he was
just trying to build character in us to you know,
to to be something different. You know, I think, you know,
he's coaching all black players, and so you can imagine,
you know, what he's got to go through. He's a
white coach, you know, in a black, all black high school,
and he's coaching all these great talented black players with
(10:15):
egos flying everywhere. You know, he's got to maintain whatever
he has to maintain to make us understand that we
need to hustle, we need to be players to play
the game the right way. And boy, that was that
was a lesson that I had to learn right there,
really hard not to ever quit again and learn to dig,
dig through and fight through situations. And you know, the
(10:37):
coach was the coach was remarkable. You know, after my
freshman year, I came back and played my junior year
and we sat down, had a talk and I told
him I was wrong, and you know, I just really
needed to learn grow up and learn about myself. And
he accepted that and allowed me to be back on
the team. And then we go on to be this
powerhouse baseball team in high school, you know, with myself,
(11:00):
Chris Brown, who was our third basement and he got
drafted by the Giants and he ended up playing the
big leagues with the Giants. And you know, I played
with Match and Eric Davis was my friend. He played
at Freemont, and you know, we just all just grew
up together, and you know, we played in high school.
But I just remember how good we were in high school.
We went to the city championship nineteen seventy nine, were
coach Hurts. He bought so much discipline to us, and
(11:21):
we ended up losing the city championship at Dodger Stadium
in nineteen seventy nine, Granada Hills, John Elway and them
beat us in the city championship. And the issues inside
of me were stuffed down so far because of being
multi talented. And I took my energy in high school
to use it for basketball and baseball and sports, you know,
(11:42):
because sports is a great outlet to not think, you know,
because you can't think when you play sports. You have
to either be there are you not there? Because I've
seen a lot of players that were probably better than me,
and a lot of great players in our high school,
but their thinking process was just too much and they
could never fulfill the promises over their life. And I
was just one of those guys that didn't think. I
(12:02):
just actually went in there and I performed, you know,
because I wanted to play. I mean I was driven
because of my father rejection. I think it drove me
into greatness because he said I wouldn't be anything, and
I was like, I'm going to show you that I'm
going to be something. I'm not going to be what
you are, and you know, I'm gonna have a family
one day. And I used to talk to myself in
(12:24):
the room and watch baseball and says, I'm going to
play in the big leagues one day. And you know
that was that was my driving for us, you know,
because of the rejection, and it drove me into my
It drove me into being who I was and loving
the game. But the issues were always there. You know.
We we need that affirmation, We need that approval from
(12:46):
a male figure that we it's okay. And a lot
of times, a lot of by the boys don't see
their dads around because they're so busy, uh in life
and because that's what life make it is. We live
in a society that makes you where you have to
be busy, you have to be working, and you don't
pay enough tens. And this is what I've seen happen
(13:07):
in our society because what happened to me, I've seen
happen to so many young young kids. I mean, I
used to run a treatment facility and and I've seen
so many young white suburban kids all addicted, you know,
to opiates and heroin and all kinds of stuff because
of rejection and no one's around. Your dad's wrong because
(13:27):
the first thing I asked him is where's your dad? Well,
he's too busy, wearying about business instead of worrying about family.
And and you leave, you leave people so broken from that,
and we don't understand that it's so real, especially in
the times that we're in now, and everything that's out here,
you know, it's it's out here at the fingertips of
them to be able to get and be exposed to.
(13:48):
And you don't realize that, you know, they get exposed
to all the wrong things because they search for so
hard for that fatherly figure because Mom's gonna always be there,
Mom's going to take care kids. Aware is that male figure,
you know, But at the same time, the girls look
for the same thing too, because I just didn't see
boys in there. I saw the girls in there, you know,
(14:11):
broken and been slaves to addiction because they didn't have
a male figure in their life. And you know, people,
we don't understand that as a society. We think, you know,
it's just about going and doing it. Yeah, we have
to do we have to provide, but also at the
same time, we have to make time. I was just
me and my wife, just spent the last week with
my girls here with their boyfriends and just being dad,
(14:32):
you know, and those things, all those things are important
to me. My kids have never been broken because the
curse was broken off of me, and they were young
when I was in the midst of using and playing baseball,
so they didn't get to see a lot, but they
heard a lot. And people said, well, your dad was
a great baseball player, but he had so many struggles.
And my daughter's be like, no, my dad, my dad's
a preacher. You know, what are you talking about? You know,
they was, so they see me as a different person,
(14:54):
but I had but I explained to them who I
was before I got to this place here, and I
explained to them, you never want, you know, be in
a place like this. I told them you could pick
your sins, but you can't pick your consequences, because they
are real great. Pushing things that pushing things down was
really hard, you know, because you really don't know who
(15:14):
you are. I mean, yeah, I mean I played baseball,
and I knew I was a baseball player, and I
knew I was achieving all these great things, no question
about it. But that really doesn't define who you are.
I think, I think that's what you do, and I
think I think so many people get that confused. And
that's why you see so many guys, whatever celebrities they are,
you know, that have problems, you know, have deep problems.
(15:35):
They're a lot deeper than just being successful. And most
people think, well, you have everything happen. Everything doesn't make
you well, you know, And that's what it was for me.
You know, things were stuffed down so far. And the
things that were stuffed down in me had to do
with my childhood. I had to do with growing up
and not having the father around and being rejected. I
think that left me more broken and empty more than anything,
(15:59):
because you know, when you think about it, my father
didn't see me playing a little league He didn't see
me playing legion ball. He only saw me when I
was in high school and saw me when he heard
about me in high school. So I was left in
a place where I was sold. I was so so shallow,
y'all know. I mean I knew I was I knew
what to do far as playing, but as a person,
(16:20):
you know, I didn't have, you know, great confidence in
myself and belief in myself because I was left with
all this pain inside and I just wanted to be
free of it. And a lot of that had to
do with, you know, my father, the rejection and being
broken for so long. And I did all these great things,
and you know, I won championships, I hit home runs,
I made All Star games, you know, all that. All
(16:42):
that was great, you know, from a standpoint of being
Darrel Stovey the baseball player. But who am I as
the man? You know? And I struggled with that for
a very very long time. My goal was to get
to the big leagues as soon as possible and be
able to take care of my mother. I think that's
because she had taken care of all of us, and
(17:03):
me being drafted was exciting. It was an exciting day.
When draft day was coming, you know, because I knew
I was going to be somewhere in the mix of
the draft because the year before that, four players got
drafted off our high school team, and all the scouts
were asked and coach, well, what about the left hand,
and he's and the coach said, well, he's a junior.
(17:23):
He has another year of playing. And they was like,
he's a junior. He's like, yeah, he's he's a junior.
He's got another year. There it goes wow. And I
was playing basketball too, and and coach her, she used
to say, well, a lot of scouts didn't want me
playing basketball. They said, well he's the next He's like
the next Willie mccubby and the next Ted Williams. And
(17:44):
I was like, well, who's Ted Williams?
Speaker 1 (17:47):
You know, when we come back more of Darryl Strawberry's
journey here on our American Stories, and we're back with
(18:09):
our American Stories and with Darryl Strawberry's story and my goodness,
so often on this show we talk about fatherlessness and
the effect on both males and females. And when you
heard Daryl say, we searched me and my brother so
hard for that father figure, where is that male figure?
And my goodness, we asked that question a lot and
(18:30):
hope to inspire folks by these stories to be better dads.
A lot of our problems will be solved in this
country if that happened. Let's return to Darryl Strawberry and
by the way, his dog, who will briefly be interjecting
some background barks.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
You know. And my coach would come to he would
come to my basketball games and he would see me
dunking on people. He would see me falling. He was
just like cringing and saying, I hope he doesn't break
his ankle. I heard himself out there on the basketball court.
But I was just a competitive part. And then I
go on to be drafted in my senior year by
number one draft pick in the country, and there I was.
(19:06):
I wanted to make a decision to play. I had
a scholarship to go to Oklahoma State to play basketball
and baseball. But I was the number one pick, and
I was sitting there and I said, I want to play.
I want to go through the professional ranks and see
what it's really like because I saw these other guys
go through it, and three of them screwed up their
first year, and Chris Brown continued to go on and
he ended up playing in the big leagues just like myself.
(19:28):
My brother Michael was also drafted. He was drafted by
the Dodgers. Later on in his college he went to
college and Southwest College and he ended up being drafted
by the Dodgers. I recredit my ability to play to
all the coaches that were in my life. Man named
by mister Mosley and a man named by Earl Brown.
(19:49):
They were my coaches in summer league ball, and they
taught me the fundamentals of how to play baseball. And
I think it's so critical for people to understand the
fundamentals of bay or what's gonna make you be able
to play at the highest level. I think sometimes people think, well,
if I could half do it, you know I can
make it. And a lot of guys never made it
because they half did it. It's those that you know,
(20:11):
really stay focused and work hard on them. And I
think that's what happened to me. I stayed hard on
working on everything that they were teaching me, and I
was a good listener. I had listened to what the
coaches had to say. I didn't think I knew it
all because I wanted to get better. They saw something
in me that I didn't see it myself. And a
lot of times that's really what happens to us as boys.
(20:33):
You know, we don't see it in ourselves. We know
it good, but we don't really know how good. And
the coaches, you know, one coach, mister Mosley, was my
baseball coach, and he used to tell me the importance
why he would come pick me up every day because
he was like, wanted to talk to me about, you know,
how great you could be and what it could be
like for you. But he also showed me most of
(20:54):
these guys don't make it because of the girls. You know,
they allow the girl to hook them in the nose
and take them by the nose and take him away
from going to practice and all that stuff. And he
didn't want me to ever get into that, and I
didn't when I was young like that. You know, I
was always on the ball fields and I was always practicing,
and he was you know, he taught me a lot
about that. You He told me that there are major
(21:14):
distractions out there for you, and that's what a boy
needs to hear and a lot of guys had talent,
but they got distracted because the girls, because of partying,
because of this and that, and I didn't get into
all that. I didn't get into all that until I
got in the big leagues. Yeah, I went to the minors.
I went to Kingsport, Tennessee. It was my first year
and it was like, oh my god, I've never been
(21:35):
out of southern California and I ended up in Kingsport, Tennessee,
the middle of nowhere. I was like, oh my god.
That was a shock culture shock to me. I was
I couldn't believe where I was at. And then the
next year I went to Lynchburg, Virginia, you know, and
it was Lynchburg, Virginia, and I was like, oh my god,
and I was down, deep down in the South, and
(21:57):
I didn't really want to play NOM. I almost quit
that year because I had to go through so many
racial issues and you know, of you know, the fans
yelling at me and saying things and calling me up
boys out of my name and calling me inWORD and
you're not that good. And it was really tough and
I came close to quitting and I told the match
I didn't really want to play no more baseball. I
want probably go back to college and probably try to
(22:18):
play some basketball. But they said, we'll give you one
more year, and then I gave it another year. I
went to Jackson, Mississippi. And then when I went to Jackson, Mississippi,
that's when everything just took place. I became this great
baseball player, and I just knew I was going to
be at another level of playing from that point in Jackson, Mississippi.
So I went on from there and I won the
(22:39):
Texas League MVP, and I went to Tiewater for one
one month and next year in nineteen eighty three, then
I was up in the big leagues right away. You know,
I got involved in the heavy drinking. Once I got
into professional sports and got to the major leagues, I
became an alcoholic at the age of twenty one. I
knew I was an alcoholic already, just like my father,
but then I got to introduced to you know, the cocaine,
the art drugs, you know, at the major league level,
(23:02):
and that was really that was really it. That was
the defining moment of what would change the course of
me inside, because now I had found some team that
would allow me to escape, you know, the reality of drugs.
People don't think, you know, nothing's wrong with you know,
you know marijuana. If you're a kid and you grew
(23:22):
up smoking marijuana, eventually, somewhere down the line, you're gonna
switch and you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna try something else,
and something else is going to change you. And that's
what it did for me. You know, I got I
guess they call you graduate from you know, the the
minor leagues to the big leagues. Welcome to the major leagues.
And you know, my first trip on the major league plane,
(23:42):
you know, a veteran player sent me to the back
of the plane said, welcome to the big leagues. Kid.
There was the introduced me to cocaine. And I went
back there and I hit it and I liked it.
I wanted to be a part. I wanted to be
a part of the guys, you know, because there was
a missing inside of you know, being being a part
of something, because you didn't have a file figure because
he never showed you that kind of you know, uh
(24:03):
there there there are consequences behind your action. I believe
that's what you didn't learn. And so I just picked
up all these things, you know, from age of twenty
one being a big league ball player, going on to
win Rookie of the Year, and you know, there was
already drinking party. And they took me to a club
one night, you know, the night on the first road trip,
(24:25):
and showed me the girls, and you know, I thought, wow,
you know, this is this is really cool, this is
what it's all about. And little did I know that
that would be a devastating part of my life, that
would bring about a great destruction in my life, because
you know what, it's all at your fingertips, and you know,
and and the thing about it is, you know, when
you're there and you become a star like I did,
(24:47):
nobody's gonna tell me no. They'd be like, yes, you
can do whatever you want to, you know, whatever kind
of party you want, whatever kind of girls you want.
I mean I had women everywhere I'm married, you know,
just living any old kind of way, and you know,
outside relationships girls here, girls there, you know, uh, and
everybody think that's you know, everybody thinks that's great. They
what they you know what they they This is what
(25:08):
they celebrities life it's all about. They love they love
that lifestyle. They love it that they can live any
kind of way, doesn't matter who you have at home
and who you hurt. You can do what you want
because you're touch and such and and this is what
this is what's been created for a long time. It's
still going on, you know, with Hollywood and athletes and everything.
(25:29):
It's created the craziness of the craziness of a chaotic
life style. And this is why nobody stays married, nobody
stays together, and everybody's broken up, and everybody's broken. We
leave this one because I meet the next one. And
it's just the most insane way to live. And I
think people think, you know, well, I wouldn't do that.
(25:49):
You don't know what you would do if you was
in that. It's a hard situation. It's a hard lifestyle
to be able to understand when nobody tells, you know,
when everybody says, yes, you can do whatever you want.
It's sin fun, yeah, but it's consequences behind it, you know,
and you you won't You'll never understand it if you
never come to understand God's grace always. That's why I
always preach about, you know, if you don't understand the
(26:11):
grace of God. Then you don't understand God is grace
is something you don't deserve, and He gives it to you.
And when you when you come to that place to
understand that, that's how you have a real transformation. Because
I don't deserve to be here, but He has given
me the grace to be here.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And my goodness, what a lot of unpack there. And
I'm sure you're going to want to hear this story again.
Go to alamericanstories dot com. Play it for your kids,
play it for family, Play it for boys who don't
have fathers, especially, and girls who don't have fathers, because
this will resonate. So much of what he's saying will resonate,
big baseball star or not. As he put it, sin
(26:46):
it's fun, but there are consequences, and my goodness, the
consequences of having a bad father a really hideous one, unimaginable.
You know, those of us who have good fathers, Well,
we're just go home and hug your dad. All I
can tell you, go home and hold your dad when
we come back. More of this remarkable story, Darryl Strawberry
story here on our American Stories, and we continue with
(27:38):
our American Stories and with Darryl Strawberry story, let's pick
up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I agree with the fact that you know, there's so
much stuff that is set in front of us that
keeps us from reaching a purpose with God because there's
so many distractions. The enemy has placed so many distractions
in front of us from our standpoint where we can't
we can't really grasp for the goodness of God until
(28:07):
we actually have an encounter with him. And then when
we have an encounter with him, then we go, oh
my gosh. I mean, I'm like, oh my gosh, how
did I live so stupid for so long? How did
I live in this? You know, you know, filthiness for
so long? You know, after you know who Jesus is,
after you know the hanging on across the Calvary and
the shedding of his blood. And who would want to
live like that? You don't want to live like that.
(28:28):
I don't care how successful you are, you know you
don't want to live that way. I mean, I saw
Gary Carter and Mookie Wilson, who were at the height
of their careers, playing baseballs, but I saw him live
for God when I was playing, and I was wondering
why were they Why were these guys so happy? Well,
I know that today because they were free on the inside.
They wasn't in bondage. They wasn't in changed, you know,
(28:49):
they wasn't struggling. You know, they wasn't they wasn't straight
on the fence. They wasn't hypocrits. They wasn't saying Jesus,
but I'm going out going to strip clubs. You know,
they go out to dinner with us and they say, well,
I'll see you guys later after, you know, after dinner,
I'm going back to the hotel while the rest of
us going to strip clubs and going out to drink
and meet girls. These guys going back to go to
(29:10):
sleep and coming to the ballpark the next day and
never condemned us, but just we're our teammates. I thought
it was just just incredible that you can actually live
that way, because you know, you grow up and you
see so much dysfunction in your life and you see
your father, you know, be a womanizer and an alcoholic,
and and you see other guys are just most the same,
(29:32):
you know, the way they treat treat women. You know,
then you see the guys like this when you get
to the big leagues. Of course, Gary Carter and Mookie
lived different, you know, but I was around a lot
of other players who did the same thing. They you know, proclaiming,
you know, I have a great marriage when I'm at home,
but when I'm on the road, I'm a totally different person,
you know. And and these two guys, you know, didn't
(29:53):
do that, you know, And that's what that was, what
was so unique, and it was you're attracted to it,
you know, because it's it's something, it's something real about them,
something something far greater than them just putting on the
uniform and saying I playing the I play in the
big leagues, you know, because they didn't because you see,
(30:15):
because you see the back of the plane. When you're
on the back of the plane, you see the rest
of you guys, all of us that run run to
the back, or you know, a bunch of scumbacks, you know,
in the back. You know, that's what we just call ourselves.
And you don't want to come back there because we drink,
we smoke cigarettes, and we play loud music and we
talk about what we're gonna do when we get into
town and stuff like that. And then you see guys
sitting up and you know, according to the front, you know,
(30:36):
more according to the front, like Mooky and Gary. And
you see them and you know, you drink they drink milk,
and you know they drink water and you think, you know,
people think, well, they just too good, you know. It's
like and then you know the guys, you know, get
on the after the guys get on the bus. You know,
the guys are hammered all you know, the scum bunch
is hammered. And they yelled at them, Hey, hey, Gary,
you want some milk, you know, and you know it's
(30:58):
just like you want a smile. And you know, we
didn't realize that. We didn't realize the important of what
we were seeing. We didn't I know now that I
was seeing a man. You know, I wasn't seeing a
boy like the rest of us, because we considered ourselves
when we thought we yeah, we're Matria. Man. We drink
alcohol and we partying. And you see these guys and
(31:22):
they take care of their bodies. They don't. They don't,
you know, use their bodies as the slaves you know,
to go and be in seeing and stuff like that.
And I just, man, I just wish I wish I
would have known better, and wish somebody would have helped
me to understand, you know, why they were living like that,
and maybe my whole life could have turned out different,
(31:43):
But it turned out the way it did. But I
just think about it a lot of times in the
midst of my career. I wish I would have would
have known God in my career like I do today.
And people wonder how did I get to this place
where I'm at today with God? You know, Well, God
had to sit me for seven years because because I
was broken for so long, He had to sit me
for seven years till equip me so that I would
(32:04):
bring about discipline and have some change in my life.
So what I did learn not to live anymore for me.
I learned to live for God. I learned to live
a totally different way. And that's the challenge for anyone
who is trying to get on the other side of life.
You know, I'm married today, you know, fourteen years, and
we've been together for probably about twenty one years. And
(32:25):
when we started, when we started on the journey together
and when she came into my life, I was in
the midst of addiction and she was pulling me out
of dope houses. You know, I was shooting dope, smoking
crack and that was three million dollars in debt and
just wanted to be left out there and for dead
and die. And I said, well, why don't you? She says,
God has a plan for you. I says, why don't you?
(32:46):
And there, God just leave me here and let me die.
And she said, you're just not that lucky. And then
we finally come to a place and we get together
and get married and start doing it right. And then
she finally questioned me, when are you gonna ever take
that uniform? All? You know, it's like wow, that hit
me like a ton of bricks. You know, it's like
(33:06):
you see, like you when you go stop, you know,
identifying yourself as Daryl Strawberry to baseball player, and when
you're gonna be Dial Strawberry, the man that God has
called you to be. And that really stuck to me.
You know, that really hit me hard, because you know,
she was right. I was carrying this, you know, this
this uniform around and the trophies and the success that
I had instead of carrying the mantle and the peace
(33:29):
peace around me that you know, God gives to us.
And once I let go all that, she was right,
I went. I entered into this incredible place with God,
and it was it was such great joy and great
peace and a relief, you know for myself to eat
be this new person and see myself as new, not
see myself but as the old. You know, that's the
second corintheus by seventeen. Therefore, of anyone's in crist he's
(33:52):
the new creation. Old things have passed away, behold all
things that become new. So I can never get to
the new if I'm holding onto the old. So I
had to let go of the old to get to
the new. Because God has something new every day for you.
And when I started waking up, I started waking up
with new things every day and new things to do,
new things to worship God and thank God just for
the little things, uh, and which which is important and
(34:15):
not the success, but the little things I'm talking about.
It's just like life, you know, and freedom and not
addicted and not a slave to this and not a
slave to that. So uh, that was a real defining
moment in my life, you know, with my wife Tracy,
you know, taking off that uniform and I've had some
real revelations, you know, with two women in my life.
(34:38):
And I say, God has a great sense of humor
because I was a womanizer. I was all around women
all the time, and there he would He would use
my mother to pray for me when I was a heathen,
and we found a journal on her bed when she
was dying that she was praying for all of us.
God knock him off, his strong and saving and then
she then he brings Tracey in my life. She's pulling
(34:58):
me all the dough posits and asked me, telling me that, well,
you're just not that lucky. God's God hadn't let you
go yet, winning you go take the uniform off and
make the change. And those are those are things that
I really take the heart because the fact that my
mother would pray for all of us, and I ended
up getting saved. And not only did I get saved,
(35:19):
I ended up leading my entire family to the Lord.
And I ended up leading my father to the Lord
before he died. So I was changed, you know. And
God had saved me. And I was preaching and traveling
and I was in California and he was in the hospital,
and my brother told me in San Diego somewhere, and
I told him why. I got to a conference Saturday
morning and he was telling me that. Then God, Friday night,
(35:41):
God got just came all over me about my father.
Just he says, I want you to go down to
the hospital and see your father. And he goes, I
want you to repent to your father, and he says,
don't say anything about what he did to you. I
want you to repent for keeping him out of your
life and your career. And I was like, really, God,
he was all over me about this, and then I
know is God when his presence in his poor And
then my wife was like I said, I called my wife, said,
(36:04):
God's all over me. I can't sleep. And I got
to preach tomorrow morning and she said, well, I think
you need you need to do what God is telling
you to do. And she prayed over me. And then
I went to sleep and I did the mens breakfast
on Saturday morning, and then Sunday came. I went down
to San Diego to see him in the hospital and
I did exactly what he says. I said, I came
to see you and said, you know, the Lord changed
(36:24):
my life, And he says, yes, and I said, I'm
I'm here to just ask you to forgive me because
I've been I was wrong. Well, you forgive me, and
a tear came out of his eye and I just
lost it. I just laid in his laught and just
cried so hard. It was just, it was so powerful,
it was just I just laid there and cried and
cried and cried and told him I'm so sorry. And
(36:45):
the Lord said, raised up, and then I raised up.
The Lord said, and I lead him in the center prayer.
And I led him in the center preyer said, would
you like to accept the Lord his lord over your life?
And he accepted the Lord and center prayer. And he
died a couple of months after that. But God, in
that moment in time that I was, God had said,
spoke to me about the forgiveness wasn't for him. The
(37:08):
forgiveness was for me so I can get well and
get free. That's why I never got free. And I
remember him saying, don't ever make it about you, because
it's not about you. It's about what I want to
do through you. And he says, how dare you not
forgive him? And I forgive you? And there was the
incredible moment. And you know, here it is I go on.
I tell people that all the time, said, there it is.
(37:30):
God used me to go on and lead the man
that rejected me and beat me to him.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
And you've been listening to Darryl Strawberry and what a story.
And thanks as always to Greg Hangler for getting us
this great story. And by the way, to get much
more detail about Darryl Strawberry's life by his book Turn
Your Season Around How God Transforms Your Life at Amazon
dot com or heck, go to a bookstore and buy
(37:55):
the book. And by the way, by to because this
is a great book to give to a friend, this
kind of testimony. My goodness be still my heart. Daryl
Strawberry's life story, a life of redemption, a life of
real hope.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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