Darryl Strawberry

Darryl Strawberry (born March 12, 1962, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) is a former Major League Baseball (MLB) player who burst onto the scene in the 1980s with seemingly limitless potential. Despite being Rookie of the Year and named to eight All-Star teams, his career was marred by drug addiction, legal problems, and injuries.

Early life

Strawberry was born in a poor neighborhood of Los Angeles, the son of Ruby and Henry Strawberry. His mother worked for the telephone company and his father for the postal service. The couple had five children, three sons and two daughters. But Henry Strawberry had problems with alcohol, gambling, and violence, which led the couple to divorce when Darryl was about 13; Ruby Strawberry raised her children as a single mother. In his 2009 autobiography, Straw: Finding My Way, Strawberry wrote of his father:

He never sat me down and talked to me kindly…never taught me to tie my shoe or hit a baseball. None of those things a father and son are supposed to do, he either ignored me or beat me, period.

From an early age, Strawberry was a baseball prodigy, starring on the city’s sandlot fields. But by the time he got to Crenshaw High School, he was a troubled kid still angry about his father leaving the family. He has admitted he had a bad attitude and didn’t feel that he had to listen to anyone. That led to a blowup with his baseball coach in his sophomore year, when Strawberry didn’t hustle, culminating in him leaving the team. He returned his junior year and was a star on both the baseball and basketball teams. The expectations were already off the charts. When his baseball coach told him, “You could be a Black Ted Williams,” Strawberry replied, “Who’s Ted Williams?”

Major League stardom

In 1980, the 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 meters) tall outfielder with an incandescent smile was selected by the New York Mets as the number one overall pick in the MLB draft. Strawberry’s first season was with the team’s Kingsport, Tennessee, minor league affiliate. It was a season that did not live up to the hype—hitting .268 with five homers in 44 games—and some wondered whether the Mets made a mistake. But Strawberry was just 18 and homesick, living in a small town thousands of miles from his family. In 1981, playing for the Mets’ Single-A affiliate in Lynchburg, Virginia, he again struggled and considered quitting baseball and returning home before showing some spark in the second half of the season. The next year, playing Double-A ball in Jackson, Mississippi, he seemed to hit his stride, hitting 34 homers and winning the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.

Strawberry made his MLB debut in 1983 and struggled at first, hitting just .161 over his first few weeks. He recalled being nervous playing in front of thousands of people in big ballparks. But he wound up winning the National League Rookie of the Year award by hitting 26 home runs and 74 runs batted in (RBI) in 122 games. The hype around him continued. His first manager, George Bamberger, also compared him to Ted Williams, but Strawberry bristled at what he called “all that crap,” telling Sports Illustrated, “I just want to be myself. I just want to be me. To have fun and play baseball.”

He continued to smash baseballs through his early 20s, hitting at least 26 home runs in each of his first four seasons. In 1986 Strawberry helped the Mets win their first World Series since 1969, hitting 27 homers, slugging .507 (a statistic that calculates hitting for power), and stealing 28 bases. He culminated the year with a home run in the Mets’ game seven victory over the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. The next season, in 1987, he took his game up a notch, hitting 39 homers and finishing sixth in MVP voting. In 1988 he again hit 39 homers—this time to lead the league—while finishing second in the MVP vote.

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But even when he was at the peak of his career, fans, coaches, and teammates questioned whether Strawberry was being the best player he could be or whether the high schooler who didn’t listen to anyone still loomed large. Mets manager Davey Johnson, for whom Strawberry played for seven seasons, summed it up: “He had the swing, the grace, the power. When he wanted to be, he was as good as it gets.”

After two more standout seasons with the Mets, Strawberry left in 1991, signing a five-year, $20.3 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. But he had just one good season in L.A., hitting 28 home runs. Strawberry was limited to 75 games over the next two seasons due to injuries. The Dodgers released him in 1994, and he signed with rival San Francisco Giants; before the 1995 season and after just 29 games, they, too, released him.

Addiction and legal problems

Even as he achieved baseball stardom, Strawberry was battling a host of problems off the field, including drug addiction and domestic violence. His first wife accused him of hitting her and threatening her with a handgun in two separate incidents. His release from the Dodgers came after he failed to show up for an exhibition game and admitted to having a substance addiction problem. He later went into rehab. MLB suspended Strawberry three times for cocaine use. After the 1994 season, he and his agent were indicted for federal tax evasion; Strawberry received a six-month sentence of home confinement and had to repay $350,000 in taxes. He would subsequently spend 11 months in prison for a parole violation that again involved drug use, before being released in April 2003.

A second chance in baseball and in life

After a brief stint with the New York Yankees in 1995, where he appeared in 32 games, Strawberry joined the St. Paul (Minnesota) Saints, then an independent minor league team, in 1996. The fans embraced him, and he hit .435 with 18 homers and 39 RBIs in just 29 games, reviving his career. “You never heard a fan boo in the ballpark,” Strawberry said later. “That’s a miracle in itself. I never got that playing baseball [in the major leagues].”

The impressive numbers convinced the Yankees to bring him back that season, and he played well, hitting 11 home runs in 63 games. But his big contribution came in the 1996 American League Championship Series against the Baltimore Orioles, when he hit .417 with three homers. The Yankees went on to win the World Series. Strawberry was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1998 but played with the Yankees for part of the 1999 season, helping them win another World Series, before retiring.

After two divorces, Strawberry married his third wife, Tracy Boulware, in 2006. The two met at a drug addiction convention. Boulware, like Strawberry, had faced addiction and had become an ordained minister. Since their marriage, Strawberry spends much of his time visiting schools, clinics, and prisons to share the story of his successes and failures with others who are struggling. Strawberry says he has been sober and in 2023, told The New York Times that he doesn’t mark the time in years but “ever since I found God.”

In 2023 the Mets retired Strawberry’s number 18 jersey. Upon hearing about the honor, Strawberry said, “I welled up with tears of joy. I started to reflect on my journey through the organization. I had some ups and downs, but in the end, I am proud of my time in New York.”