Darryl Strawberry

1962-

American baseball player

When Darryl Strawberry was sentenced to an eighteen-month prison term in April 2002 for violating the terms of his court-ordered drug treatment, it marked the lowest point in a decline that had stared two decades earlier. Signed to the New York Mets in 1980 right after he had finished high school, Strawberry's career as a baseball player got off to a promising start. He was named the Rookie of the Year in 1983 and helped the Mets win a World Series championship in 1986. Yet

he had begun abusing amphetamines to enhance his performance in the majors and fell into the habit of easing his pressures through the consumption of alcohol.

The habits first derailed him in 1990 when he entered a treatment center for substance abuse. The next decade was marked by repeated brushes with the law for domestic violence, weapons charges, and drug abuse. Meanwhile, Strawberry moved to the Los Angeles Dodgers for three seasons, followed by a twenty-nine game stint with the San Francisco Giants that was curtailed when he tested positive for cocaine use. Going back to the minor leagues in 1995, Strawberry was signed by the New York Yankees and claimed to have turned his professional and personal lives around. A diagnosis of colon cancer in 1998 generated public sympathy for Strawberry's struggles, but he continued to abuse drugs during his recovery and ended up back in court on drug charges in 1999. After violating his parole in 2000, Strawberry was placed under house arrest to force him to complete another drug-treatment program. After violating his parole for a sixth time in April 2002, he was sentenced to an eighteen-month term in the Florida prison system.

Grew up in Compton

Darryl Strawberry was born on March 12, 1962, in Los Angeles, California to Ruby and Henry Strawberry. He had two older brothers, Michael and Ron, and two younger sisters, Regina and Michelle. The family resided in Compton, a neighborhood in south-central Los Angeles not far from Dodger Stadium. His father was an employee of the U.S. Postal Service and his mother worked for the phone company; the couple divorced in 1974, in part due to Henry Strawberry's heavy drinking, gambling, and sometimes explosive temper. Greatly affected by his father's departure, Darryl Strawberry looked up to his two older brothers as role models. He shared their love of basketball and baseball and immediately became a star player on the Crenshaw High School's baseball team.

Despite his obvious athletic talent, Strawberry ran into difficulties with authority figures from the start. Criticized by his coach for taking his time getting onto the baseball field one day in his sophomore year, Strawberry quit the team for the rest of the season. When he returned to the team as a six-foot, six-inch, 200 pound junior, Strawberry began attracting interest from baseball scouts from around the country. Despite his reputation as an undisciplined player who took his natural athletic abilities for granted, Strawberry ended up as the first pick in the first round of the Major League Baseball (MLB) draft in 1980. He was selected by the New York Mets, a team perennial dwarfed by their metropolitan rivals, the New York Yankees.

Drafted by New York Mets

Strawberry's first assignment was with the Kingsport, Pennsylvania Mets, where the right fielder had a .268 batting average in forty-four games. In 1981 he advanced to the Lynchburg, Virginia Hillcats, where his batting average remained a steady .255. Strawberry spent part of the 1982 season with the Jackson, Mississippi Generals—where he was the leading home run hitter and earned Most Valuable Player (MVP) status in the Texas League—before returning to Virginia to play for the Tidewater Hurricanes in the playoffs. Often homesick and uncomfortable with the racism that he sometimes encountered in the South, Strawberry was eager to join the roster of the Mets in New York. He spent just a few games with Tidewater in the 1983 season before being brought up to the major league in May of that year.

When Strawberry joined the Mets, he was hailed as the team's best hope in restoring its fortunes after years of lackluster performance. Although the "Marvelous Mets" had won a surprising World Series championship in 1969, they were often derided by New York fans in favor of the Yankees, who were perennial title contenders. When pitcher Dwight Gooden—who would face his own substance-abuse problems in later years—joined the Mets' lineup in 1984, the team completed its turnaround. With a .257 batting average the prior year, Strawberry had already won MLB Rookie of the Year honors. Along with first baseman Keith Hernandez, Strawberry and Gooden powered the Mets to a World Series victory in seven games over the Boston Red Sox in 1986. By that time, however, Strawberry already faced the first of his legal troubles.

Chronology

Awards and Accomplishments

Substance Abuse Problems

In January 1987, just a few months after Strawberry's World Series appearance with the Mets, his wife, Lisa Andrews Strawberry, filed for legal separation. The couple had been married in January 1985, but in an October 1986 incident, Lisa Strawberry claimed that her husband had broken her nose. The couple reconciled, but Lisa Strawberry filed for divorce in May 1989, a few weeks after her husband was named in a paternity suit filed by Lisa Clayton. Blood tests eventually verified Clayton's claim that Strawberry had fathered their child. Strawberry also had two children by his wife: Darryl, Jr. and Diamond Nicole. In January 1990 Strawberry was arrested again for hitting his wife and threatening her with a handgun. After Strawberry agreed to enter a rehabilitation center to deal with his substance-abuse problems, the charges were dropped. The Strawberrys eventually separated and were divorced in 1993.

Although Strawberry publicly blamed his erratic behavior on his alcohol consumption, he had also been abusing amphetamines and cocaine. His addictions began during his second season with the Mets and continued after he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1991. In 1992 a serious back injury that required surgery limited Strawberry to just forty-three games with the Dodgers. His recovery also sent him back into drug dependency. In 1993 he played thirty-two games and his batting average dropped to .140. In September 1993 he was back in court after he was arrested for domestic abuse against his girlfriend, Charisse Simons. Simons dropped the charges and married Strawberry on December 3. The couple subsequently had three children.

After failing to show up for a Dodgers game in April 1994, Strawberry entered the Betty Ford Center for a twenty-eight day drug dependency treatment. Released from his contract by the Dodgers, Strawberry signed with the San Francisco Giants. He played just twentynine games for the team before being released after testing positive for cocaine use in February 1995; he also received a sixty-day suspension from baseball. Strawberry also faced an indictment for tax evasion; according to the IRS, Strawberry had failed to declare over $300,000 in earnings from selling memorabilia with his autograph. Despite his plea of not guilty, Strawberry was ordered in April 1995 to pay $350,000 in back taxes.

Signed with New York Yankees

Although the New York Yankees picked up Strawberry's contract in 1995, the team decided to waive the option at the end of the year. Joining the minor-league St. Paul Saints for the 1996 season, Strawberry attempted to rebuild his career. In July 1996 the Yankees decided to sign Strawberry again and this time put him on the roster in August of that year. With the support of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner , Strawberry seemed to complete his career comeback with a .262 batting average in sixty-three games in 1996. Injuries curtailed his 1997 season, but Strawberry returned to play 101 games in 1998, attaining a .247 batting average.

In October 1998 Strawberry underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his colon. The surgery ended his season but generated enormous public sympathy for the embattled star, who seemed to have finally put his problems behind him. During his recovery, however, Strawberry was arrested in April 1999 for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer and was found to be in possession of cocaine. He later pleaded no contest to the charges and rejoined the Yankees in September 1999 after serving a four-month suspension from baseball. Strawberry ended up playing twenty-four games with the Yankees at the end of the 1999 season and compiled a .327 batting average.

Career Statistics

Continuing Legal Problems

Despite his ongoing legal and drug-abuse problems, the Yankees signed Strawberry for the 2000 season at $750,000. Testing positive for cocaine use in January 2000, however, Strawberry was suspended from baseball again, this time for a year. Entering a clinic for drug treatment in March 2000, Strawberry left the program before completing the program. When a medical checkup revealed the presence of more cancer in his lymph nodes, Strawberry had surgery to remove a stomach tumor in August 2000. The following month he was involved in a car accident and was later found to be driving under the influence of pain killers. Arrested in October 2000 for violating his parole requirements, another drug test showed that Strawberry was again using cocaine; in a subsequent trial he was ordered to a thirty-day jail term. Strawberry also was put under house arrest, which required him to live in a drug treatment center after his release from jail. In March 2001, after leaving the center without authorization, Strawberry was arrested again. Facing the possibility of another jail term, Strawberry was instead sentenced in May 2001 to a residential drug treatment center in Ocala, Florida.

Sent to Prison in 2002

In March 2001 Strawberry left his drug-treatment program for four days and tested positive for drug use upon his return. He was also found to have conducted a sexual relationship with another resident of the program, a violation of the center's rules. As both actions were in violation of his parole agreement, Strawberry returned to court in April 2002. Having racked up six parole violations, Strawberry received a prison sentence of eighteen months, which he began serving on April 29, 2002. Now forty years old, Strawberry's eighteen-month prison sentence indicated that any future in professional sports was over. Suffering from bipolar disorder, Strawberry's health had also suffered from cocaine use, which had possibly caused brain damage.

Sympathy for Strawberry's latest round of legal and personal problems in 2002 focused on the lost potential of a once-great athlete. Although Strawberry had achieved more in his seventeen years in the major leagues than most other players—and in fact still held the Mets' records for most hits and most runs batted in—he seemed to have wasted his natural abilities in favor of decades of alcohol and drug use. Once a Rookie of the Year and World Series champion, Strawberry's personal demons were so strong that they eventually ended his career and landed him in jail. Few could have imagined that the former first-round draft pick would have fallen so far. His

fate stood in particularly stark contrast with the hopeful tone that Strawberry presented in the conclusion of his 1992 memoir Darryl. "Now my days of hanging back are over," he wrote, "I've made too many mistakes that way and let too many people down. You want to see a leader? Just watch us play next year. There's a long winter ahead of us, a long time to think about what's going to happen next season. But as someone once wrote, When winter comes, can spring training be far behind?"

Where Is He Now?

On April 29, 2002, Judge Ralph Steinberg of the Hillsborough Circuit Court sentenced Darryl Strawberry to an eighteen-month prison term for violating his court-ordered parole. It was the second time that Strawberry had been sent to jail for parole violations. In announcing the sentence, the court specified that Strawberry's contact with the media would be limited to one interview per month by advance arrangement.

Although his parole violations included drug use and entering into a sexual relationship with another patient while undergoing substance-abuse treatment, Strawberry's wife of nine years, Charisse Strawberry, declared her support for her husband. She vowed to continue her work as the president of the Tampa, Florida chapter of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Charisse Strawberry also began appearing as a broadcast journalist on a Tampa Bay news station in March 2001. Charisse Strawberry and the couple's three children reside in Tampa.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY STRAWBERRY:

(With Art Rust, Jr.) Darryl, Bantam Books, 1992.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Klapisch, Bob. High and Tight: The Rise and Fall of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. New York: Villard, 1996.

Strawberry, Darryl, with Art Rust, Jr. Darryl. New York: Bantam Books, 1992.

Thorn, John, et al., eds. Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball. New York: Viking, 1995.

Periodicals

Burleigh, Nina. "For Better and Worse." Redbook (December 1999).

Kaplan, David A., and Karen Springen. "Are Two Chances Too Many?" Newsweek (August 21, 1995).

Kurkjian, Tim. "A New Straw Stirs" Sports Illustrated (July 29, 1996).

Lopresti, Mike. "Strawberry Reaches Critical Crossroads." USA Today (April 30, 2002).

O'Brien, Richard and Jack McCallum. "Strawberry's Jam." Sports Illustrated (June 6, 1994).

Tresiniowski, Alex et al. "Crunch Time." People (October 19, 1998).

Other

"Darryl Strawberry." Baseball Reference Web site. http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/strawda01.shtml (December 4, 2002).

"Darryl Strawberry." Darryl Strawberry Web site. http://www.darrylstrawberry.org/highlights.html (December 5, 2002).

"Darryl Strawberry." ESPN Web site. http://baseball.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?statsId=3216 (December 2, 2002).

"Darryl Strawberry Sentenced to 18 Months in State Prison." Florida Department of Corrections Web site. http://www.dc.state.fl.us/secretary/press/2002/Strawberry.html (April 29, 2002).

Puma, Mike. "Strawberry's Story One of Unfulfilled Potential." ESPN Web site. http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/strawberry_darryl.html (December 5, 2002).

Seybert, Adrien. "Strawberry Gets Treatment Instead of Prison for Drug Bings." Court TV Web site. http://www.courttv.com/people/2001/0517/straw_ap.html (May 17, 2001).

"Strawberry Gets Thirty Days in Jail." CBS News Web site. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/09/sports.main24864.shtml (November 9, 2001).

Wang, Karissa S. "Charisse Strawberry Joins Bay News 9." Darryl Strawberry Web site. http://www.darrylstrawberry.org/charisse_strawberry.html (March 21, 2001).

Sketch by Timothy Borden