The Mac Daddy Show
The Mac Daddy Show is premium, talent-led sports talk hosted by Patrick McEnroe (President of the International Tennis Hall of Fame) and Rich "Big Daddy" Salgado. Three new episodes a week — insider access, marquee guests, and sharp conversation across sports, media, and culture.
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The Mac Daddy Show
Darryl Strawberry: Going the Full 9 Innings on the ’86 Mets & Beyond | Mac Daddy
4-time World Series CHAMPION and BASEBALL ICON Darryl Strawberry has seen the extreme highs and lows of superstardom.
He joins Mac Daddy to detail his incredible (but turbulent) baseball career, his lowest points, and his rebirth as a man of God.
The man who hit for the CYCLE many times, is trying to break the CYCLE in our nation’s penal system.
Darryl explains how he relates to prisoners to hosts Patrick McEnroe and Rich “Big Daddy” Salgado in this wide-ranging interview.
Darryl (Darryl…. Darryl…) also gets into his success, Barry Bonds, and much MUCH more!
What would YOU ask Straw?
Subscribe & share your thoughts!
Presented by Volition America Sponsored by Dos Hombres & Fire Department Coffee
They hated us and we hated them. It's so funny you say that because most scouts uh predicted I wouldn't be able to hit like that. So I know I think I was born at the wrong time. I got 200,000 at the number one draft pick. They're getting 12 million now.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, yeah, yeah. Different ballgames.
SPEAKER_05I was born at the right time. You think of Barry Bounce? First of all, Barry Bounce was the greatest player I ever seen play.
SPEAKER_03Really?
SPEAKER_05And he takes his eye off the ball. Just for a second. And just for a hot second, that's all it takes. The Yankees didn't own the time. We owned the time. If somebody tells you they they won't go through that process, run. The other way. Hey, what's up, everybody? Daryl Strawberry here. You tuned in to MacDaddy.
SPEAKER_02All right, welcome everyone. Another version of the Mac Daddy Show. Patrick McEnroe here, Rich Big Daddy Salgado, and look who's here. Mr. Darrell Strawberry, the legend himself, presented by Volition, by the way. We gotta plug our sponsors here. Of course you do. You know about that. The book is out. Is this your first book?
SPEAKER_05No, it's probably my fifth book. It's my last book, though.
SPEAKER_02Don't say that. Another life. That's it. Tell us, tell us first about the book.
SPEAKER_05Well, Another Life is just being uh you re-reenc reinvent yourself, uh become a different person and and do different things. And and really truly, it's not really about me. My life has been good for a very long time now. I've been in ministry for a long time, but it's really about how you go back and help other people. And how you go back and encourage people, um, that they're not a mistake. They're not just because they might have some you know anxiety, depression, loneliness, get up. You know, want people to get up. Um we're living in a time in a culture where people are just stopping. And they need to know that their life can uh be something special. Um but most of our, I mean, I go into maximum security prisons, which is one of my favorite places. Okay, now I don't go in there to change the circumstances. Right. I tell people all the time. Uh-huh. I go in there to love on inmates. Um they have made some heinous crimes. And that is the place they're supposed to be. You know, we're talking about lifers. Um and I just go in there and try to give them something probably they didn't have any childhood because something was broken, disconnected, to make people um just do the crimes that they um do in life. Um you just don't wake up and say, I'm gonna be a criminal when you're a baby. Right, yeah. So I think the dysfunction and the brokenness in the house brings a lot of confusion to young people. And a lot of them getting caught up and get into things at an early age. I was no different than them, you know, broken house and the dysfunction. Um it's gonna play out in your life somewhere. Um it played out in my life publicly too. And I think a lot of times celebrities have a tendency of sweeping things under the rug like, oh, I never had that problem. He's got that problem. And and I just didn't want to be that type of person because my mother raised me right. So I uh and I know it's important to be able to you know truly give back to other people and help other people.
SPEAKER_02Now, as we, the two of us have been doing this show, you know, we've been working on it for a while. It seems that everywhere we go, this guy knows everyone. So I'm assuming you guys go, but you probably got some history, right?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, we've uh been around the block. Yeah, been around the block a few times, and uh, you know, I actually got to play in his golf outing uh I don't know, about many years ago, yeah. And uh, you know, it's funny because we all know the same people, you know. The world is a small place, especially here in New York. We're all yeah, and and when you're in that circle, it it it just it never ends. It just it's like a wheel that just spins, spins, spins, but it keeps attracting more and more and more. And you know, the ones that know how to deal with it, they stay in that circle. Then the ones that don't, they get they get they exit it, you know.
SPEAKER_02You know, you mentioned just in your first comments, Daryl, about um growing up and your mom being a rock for you, but also the difficulties you had. But you also mentioned to me before we started all the other great players around the Crenshaw area where you were when you were playing ball as a kid. What was that whole experience like? How did you know when did you know how good you were at baseball?
SPEAKER_05Well, I think I did I I got started late, about the age of 14, um, because of the dysfunction in my home and my dad being a raging alcoholic. So he there was no connection there to get me into baseball. So really all these coaches started to come around after he was no longer in the house and start picking me up and saying you you could be a good, pretty good baseball player. Um I said, well, why? And they said, well, so many guys here in LA play baseball. You know, so it was me and Eric Davis, Chris Brown, all of us was on the same Connie Mac team. And they they played on the Little Ligue team together. I played against them. But you had all these guys come before us, that the same coach. He had coached all of them before, Eddie Murray, Ozzy Smith, uh, Chili Davis, Huey Brooks, you can go on, Lonnie Smith. You can go on the yeah. You can go down the list. We all ended up playing out in Compton at the same stadium, and a lot of guys came out of there, uh, went to the league. So um we were just the next generation, and that that was coming behind them, and it just started to create a buzz of playing baseball. Baseball in inner cities were so much greater back in the 80s uh than they are across the country now. And it was more of a basketball that took over, crossed over because of the tennis shoes, you know, the Irisons, um, Kobe Bryant's, you know, all those guys, the Jordans, you know, so um kids started getting away from baseball. But but in our generation, it was baseball. We love playing baseball, and we love playing it like Rancho Park and other different parks in the league, um, in our neighborhoods and stuff like that. And it just created an atmosphere of competition against each other. And and then when we started playing in Compton, Coach Surrell Brown used to tell us, oh, well, you guys not gonna be like um Eddie and Ozzy, and you know, okay. It was a challenge. Right, right. It was a challenge to to me and Eric and Chris Brown. And we said, okay, we're gonna be better. We want we're going to the big leagues too. So that that was really uh great motivation for us to be able to accept the fact that we can uh come out of the hood and make it to the big leagues.
SPEAKER_10You know, it's impressive. Your swing is like pure. It it should be like in every training video. I mean, it's like you watch it, I can see it in my head now. And you were, it was just like so smooth, and then it's gone. Yep. You know, and uh I that's how I envision you a lot of because uh I uh you know it's like Jerry West being on the basketball. Your swing should be like on the Major League Baseball.
SPEAKER_05Major League Baseball, yeah, yeah. It's so funny you say that because most scouts uh predicted I wouldn't be able to hit like that. Really? Really? They say, well, yeah, he won't be able to hit like that in the big leagues with the leg, high leg kick and and a swing. See, you should never allow anybody to dictate, you know, what you should be. Because a lot of times people want to make an opinion about you and they want to make you into something else. And it's just a natural way of of me learning how to swing. Me standing in the mirror doing that, practicing that, and looking at that, that's what I came up with. Same with Eric Davis. His hands was down here this low, they said he would never get around the fastball. And you were completely wrong.
SPEAKER_02I love it. I want to go, I want to go, I want to go back to, I mean, we know about the four World Series, one with the Mets, three with the Yankees, still have the most home runs of any Met in history. But I want to At the time. At the time, yeah. But I want to go back to when you were 21, when you were drafted number one. You're and before, before all the stuff everyone sort of knows about.
SPEAKER_05What was that like for you? Well, when I was drafted um out of high school, it was it was different. It was the fact that I wanted to play baseball, and I wanted to sign. I was gonna go to like Oklahoma State to play basketball and baseball. And there I was, I ended up signing. I think I was born at the wrong time. I got 200,000 at the number one draft pick. They're getting 12 million now.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, yeah, yeah. Different ball games.
SPEAKER_05I was born at the right time. Yeah. Uh but um my first stop was Kingsport, Tennessee. Okay, so you leave a South Central to go to Kingsport, Tennessee. So that's a really culture shock, right?
SPEAKER_10Awakening.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's like, where am I? I was calling mom, mom, I think, you know, I think I want to come home. Right. You know, uh, she says, no, that's what you pick, that's what you're gonna do. You're gonna stick it out, you're not gonna quit.
SPEAKER_09Wow.
SPEAKER_05Um, so I got through that, and then I went to uh Lynchburg, Virginia, uh, in the middle of nowhere. And and and they were brutal there. You know, some fans up there that, you know, it was deep, I guess, racism. Racism and stuff, yeah, and calling you, boy, you're not as good as you think you are. And I was 19 years old. I was like, but my manager was Gene Dusan, and I always say this, you know, all the managers I had were great, you know, Chuck Hiller, my rookie, you know, Gene Dussain, and you know, all my managers are white. And Gene Dussain used to say to me, don't look up there. You're like they're crazy when they were saying things. Because I guess he figured, you know, I had that Louisville slugger in my hand. Right. And I might have ran up there and started eliminating people. 19 years old. You know, your career's over there. Right. Um, so he really helped me through that process. Um and then I went to double A the next year and he was my manager, and I go on in Jackson, Mississippi, and and then I just tear it up, right? Become like co-MVP of the league. Was that triple A or double A? Double A. Double A, yeah. The 34 home runs stole 45 bags. Wow. So I think from there the Mets realized that, you know, we we might be on to something.
SPEAKER_02I'm able to bring this guy up.
SPEAKER_05We didn't make the mistake because it was between me and Billy Bean and John Gibbons that they were thinking about as the number one pick because they had three picks in the first round. And they figured if they could get all three of us, it would be good. And they ended up getting all three of us, which was great. And um Billy went on to be a good GM. Gibbons played a little bit, and I was the one that really came to the level, went to AAA that next year. And triple A was so funny because David Johnson was my manager in Triple A. Oh, wow. Yeah, so it was really cool to already be underneath him and know that he can manage and he can handle players.
SPEAKER_02Um players.
SPEAKER_05Well.
SPEAKER_02Well, we'll talk about that later. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I um I came to the park one day. I was there a month, I was hitting 333 and I'm playing every day. I'm tearing it up in Tripway. I came to the park and I wasn't in the lineup. I go, I go in his office, I said, David, what's up? Why I'm not playing today? I'm playing every day. He goes, look, just come in here and sit down. I said, okay. And I said, what's going on? He's like, you go into the big leagues. And I goes, Wow. He goes, don't do that. He goes, you're ready. You know, and he said, go up there and do what you do and what you know how to do. And hopefully one day I'll see you. And guess what? The next year, he became manager.
SPEAKER_10He became manager. Wow, that's cool. Yeah. That's amazing. That's such that's really cool.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Stories that people don't really even know about and stuff. And realize that I already played for him, so I knew what it was going to be like. I knew it was going to really be easy to play for him. And I think it was important for all of us that played for him.
SPEAKER_02Um it's pretty cool that you got to share that moment, though, because I know baseball ball players talk about that moment when you say you're going to the big leagues. Like that's some, that's a moment you never forget. And it was Davey who ended up being your manager at the Mets, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and you know, I just like I said, I was thinking, oh my, you know, am I ready? Yeah. And he was like, don't do that, you ready?
SPEAKER_09You're ready, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So that was the that was the confidence that Davy had in uh me and so many young players. He he believed in young players more than anything. And I think the reason why is because he played in the big leagues himself. And he can evaluate talent better than analytics. He was analytics before analytics was created. Yeah, so and I think that was real special because he could see a young player and realize this guy can play and all he needs to do is go up and play. He did the same thing with Doc, took him at 19, told the GM uh General Manager Frank that I'm taking him. You know, he's ready, you know, and they battled over it. And but Davy, you know, got his got his wishes, and he he started bringing young players to the big leagues with with the Mets, and that's why we became from the mess to the Mets.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. Well, that was uh those are good moves. I mean, uh Davy Johnson definitely uh knew what he was talking about and doing it. So let's play a game, ready? We were talking about your swing and how it's uh such a visionary teaching tool, in a way. Who do you think uh out of these certain players best swings? And they're all lefties. So let's say Ted Williams, Pabe Ruth, Ken Griffey Jr. Barry Bonds.
SPEAKER_05Wow, it's a pretty good low stack, you know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you think of Barry Bonds first of all, Barry Bonds was the greatest player I ever seen play. Really? Yeah. People can talk about other players, but nobody was as great as Barry Bonds. I mean, you're talking about a guy who had five twos that could do everything great. Okay, and and he's got seven MVPs. So let's just put that in the books, too.
SPEAKER_06Right, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_05So um uh Ted Williams, I I never got a chance to see him play. I've seen highlights of him, yeah. The slender Ted Williams, but hey, you know, it speaks for itself, you know, how great of a hitter he was. Um definitely um King Griffey Jr. Um, one of the smoothest swings that you've probably ever seen. Um and Will Clark had one too, I thought from a left left-hand side, and when you watch left-hand hitters, um, guys that I got a chance to see and play with uh were just really outstanding, nice and easy, and the ball just jumped off the bat. Um especially Junior. Junior just had that, Junior had that gift. Um out of all of us, like I said before, Barry Bonus is the most complete player. And a lot of times people just look at one thing, swing, and say, and they say, well, this guy was better, this guy. No, nobody was better than Barry. And that's not me sit here and kit myself or anybody else. And anybody, people want to debate about it. I don't want to debate about it. I saw him play. I saw I saw the ability. He was just like his father. Um his father didn't get the credit for what he did and what he accomplished. Because I think what a lot of times people don't understand is it's hard to do, it's hard to uh hit home runs and steal bases, you know. Because you you you it's a lot of wear and tear on your body physically, and mentally and emotionally, you gotta be into that. And when you're into that every year and doing that, and like Barry Bonds was, you know, uh it puts wear and tear on you, and then all of a sudden you can just be drained. But you as a as a player, when you're not drained and your ability is able to go to another higher level and a different level, that's really good in baseball. You know, baseball is the most the difficult game to play because first of all, you can't be afraid of failure. Because you're gonna have to happen a lot. And it's just how you handle it, and and I just saw him, I saw him handle it uh so well. And I saw him play and continue to play at the elite status until it was done. So that that that impressed me more than anything. Uh, because you hardly ever seen him on the sideline with injuries or anything like that. Like I said, I I know Ted Williams is is a Hall of Fame, Griffey's a Hall of Fame. Barry Bond should be a Hall of Fame too. Um But we know how that story goes. We do.
SPEAKER_02What's the what's the the key for to being that great power hitter, great hitter, and also a great runner? Because I mean it to as a as a tennis player that I was, you know, you train in a certain way depending on kind of what the the game you have. So I'd imagine to tr train for that, to be ready to be able to do both is what makes it so complicated, right?
SPEAKER_05I I think you train more on on stilling basis, working on that than hitting, because you already know how to hit.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05You already know that once you develop into that type of hitter you are, you know that's there. Okay. Okay, so you don't really have to work on that.
SPEAKER_02You work on hitting because um You go to the you go to the cage before the game, you just take some reps, but you're not really thinking about yourself.
SPEAKER_05Well, kid hitting is more like an like an art. You know, you work on, I see I learned by Hernandez, he taught me how to I watched him take BP. He wasn't a home run hitter, but Keith. Yeah, Keith. Keith, yeah. So I watched him, and he go from line to line. He starts from left field, then he goes over the shortstop head, then he goes to center, then he goes to right, over the second, second basement head, then he then he then he'll pull a few. So that's that's hitting right there. That's how you work. A lot of guys go into the batting cage and it's five o'clock and they want to see how far they can hit the ball. It does not count at five o'clock. You know, right. So real hitters understand that working in is is the most important thing. But base tillers, you have to be able to work and read. You know, you have to be able to work and read. You gotta read the pitcher, and you gotta look at the catcher, and you gotta see how he's moving.
SPEAKER_02Um so in addition to the speed you need, it's a timing thing. It's a timing and awareness.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you gotta be aware of of the situation that you're you're in.
SPEAKER_10Like technique too. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it's you and you gotta get a good lead and you gotta get a good jump. You know, um, nobody was better than Ricky Henderson, Boo Brock. You know, those guys were like they were like bats up there.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_05They like thieves, you know, they're gonna steal second and third. Um, so and and you watch other guys uh do that when you're playing, and that's how you develop that. I don't think a lot of players pay attention to players that are playing. They look at him and say, oh man, he's great. But look, look at what he what he's working on. Look at what he's doing. You know, that's how you start to develop yourself into that when you start having those good work habits. And I think that's what made me successful as a base stealer and home run hitter, because I knew I could hit on runs, but I started working on stealing bases, and and my God, that that's that's a big part of baseball when you when you have speed and and and power at the same time.
SPEAKER_02So let's dig in a little bit to the Mets run. I mean, I know you say those are your greatest eight years of your career, and then it ended up with the Yankees too, but and and with the manager Davey there, Keith, you mentioned him already. You got Doc. What was how did that, how did 86 come together, like before 86 happened, like what was sort of the run in those couple years leading up to that?
SPEAKER_05Well, it was 84 when we was in the run, um, after Davy came over, and we had a young team and he was starting to develop the younger players, and then he started blending in with some a couple veteran players. Keith was the first one. Then we got Carter, uh, which we really needed. We needed a right-hand bat, power bat in the lineup, and and we needed a catcher that could handle the pitching style. Um, and and then we had that run there in '85 where we lost to the Cardinals. We won 98 games and we were like, we were really crushed, you know, that that season, I think, more than anything, um, because we fought so hard to um try to beat the Cardinals, and and they hated us and we hated them. It was just, we already do it. Right. Everyone knew that. There was no love there. Right. So, and but it was a great competition rivalry. And and the fact that they beat us that year, our last game, I think, of the season was in St. Louis when the season was over for us. And I just remember our locker room, but it was it was really quiet.
SPEAKER_02It hurt, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it hurt. I mean, if it doesn't hurt you when the season's over, that means you're not ready.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You know, so that really like hurt us. And we came back to spring training in '86, and you usually have a few people say things at the beginning. We only had Davy speak in that meeting of the opening of spring training. And he said only a couple things. He said, Boys, we're gonna win it all and we're gonna dominate. And we just kind of like thought to ourselves, okay, this is it. And then we got one into spring training and we went out and we started. Working and and in drills. We remember we had drills and Mookie got hit in the eye. And you know, we all just embraced him. And you could just tell as a team, we were all there.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You know, we were all in because this is one of our guys, you know, and he just got hurt in spring training and drills, and we all rallying around him and hoping he's okay. And, you know, we went through this process. It was kind of just a sad moment day, you know, when they rolled him off and had to go and see what, see what he'd make it through that process. Eventually he would, but uh, we didn't want to miss any of the pieces that we had because the year before we was at we were knocking at the door. Yeah. And so we started off and I think we were two and three, and the media was like, yeah, they're gonna, right, they're gonna run away from it. They're gonna dominate. That was the first thing they said. And we was at our welcome home dinner, and Keith got up and spoke to the and to the crowd, you know, the big crowd there. Keith goes, relax. We're two and three. Right. He says, we are going to be good. And from that point on, we just took off. And we went in and swept the Cardinals early in the year. And Whitey Herzhark said, nobody's gonna beat them. You know, he just saw what kind of team we had, he saw the way we played. Chemistry too. He saw the chemistry of us, he saw that we were together, and he just knew from there it was gonna be impossible to catch them during the course of the season.
SPEAKER_10Well, that's uh the amazing mets, yeah. Exactly right. We're definitely amazing. So presented by Volition America, which gives 13% of its profits to Fold Zabon. Sponsored by Fire Department Coffee, veteran-owned and run by firefighters. So now, what do you have going on now? You know, let's let's get into that a little. What don't you have going on? Let's just say that. Let's take a step back. You know, you you leave the world of sports, now you're in ministry, you're guiding a lot of people, trying to help save lives. You got books out, and uh, you know, it is important to give back, and I th I think we were talking about this earlier that uh we're all fortunate, the three of us, that we're in this circle, and it does allow you to help people and give back.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_10And sometimes people become selfish because they feel that they're in this circle and they don't want to be, I don't know, let out or disappointed or bring the wrong element in. And I think as you get older you learn what the right element is.
SPEAKER_05Right. Well, I think the most important thing for like all of us, we've learned that lesson. And I think what we've learned is it's not important to be important.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You know, because it's not about us. We've already achieved had status and this and that, and a lot of other people have too. But if it you always keep the focus on you and you make it about you, you you you can't see others.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You can't see others for real. You might look at them, oh yeah, they don't mean anything. You know, they're not in my circle, they're not around this group. I don't want to be around that kind of group of people anymore. So I went in my own different direction, and I went into ministry. And I remember going into that, and and how many people that you think are gonna be your friends when you say you're deciding to do something different? I only had very few. I was sitting in his backyard, one of them, Nelson, Aton, Steve Lieberman, guys like that. Yeah. Guys that have always been my friends.
SPEAKER_10That's how we actually met Aton.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's right. Guys that have always been in my circle and always never criticized me for anything that I've ever been through. They just were like family to me. And that's what's really important in this life more than anything. And I learned so many lessons, you know, from that, what kind of people I wanted to be around. And I learned what I want to cut out. And I learned so many lessons from like the boss George, a man that extended grace to so many people. Guy like Joe Torrey, never, never judged the person in the middle of whatever he was going through. Um, just looked at you from the person in the human being you, or everybody else is telling you, well, he's this, he's that. And I talked to Joe not too long ago, and Joe said, I'd never listened to anybody, what anybody had to say. It was my opinion to view you for myself. So when you hear that from people, and Davy Johnson was the same way, uh, Bill Robinson, you know, guys I was with, um, Jim Fry taught me how to play. Um, people like that are important in my life. Buddy Harrelson, you know, those people that gave me the gift to be successful, but also your friends give you the gift of being just a friend. And that's what life really all boils down to. It's not the who's who's out there that everybody thinks got it going on. And because I already know all about all that because they all turn their back when you know something happens. And it's the people that don't turn their back on you that makes you understand about life and go out there and achieve what you really want to achieve for yourself. You know, my family, my kids, you know, the the life of living a simple life. That's why I live in St. Louis. Simple. I'm not fast anymore, I'm not looking for anything. I've had everything that you go with.
SPEAKER_02Pretty much done it all. Yeah, done it all. Seen it all, done it all. The good, the bad, the ugly. And what do you find when you go you preach or you go to the prison to talk to people, the the difficult things that you went through, whether it was the drug use, whether it was getting in trouble, whether I know you overcame cancer as well. What's the thing that the the message that you think that most of those people want to hear from you about what you went through?
SPEAKER_05I think the message I I really try to convey to people is that everyone has something. Everybody falls short. You know, just don't stay there. And so many people stay there and don't try to get up because they think, well, this is what life has handed to me. Oh, just because you've had some trials and tribulations doesn't mean it's over. You know who I love so much that everybody came against was Reggie White. And I remember him as, you know, the minister he was and the way he loved people, the way he went after people, the way he pursued people. And he led so many of those guys to the Lord, like Randall Cunningham is one of his seeds, you know, that's that's that's doing ministry. And I just remember when I got involved and and found the Lord down, and I had kind of fell back off, and I was in Philly. Somebody baming on my door, and my cousin opened the door. He said, I said, Who is it? He said, Man, it's Reggie White. And Reggie came in there and he said, Joe, I just want to come in here, I just want to encourage you.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05I want to encourage you that the Lord loves you. You know, he didn't try to beat me over the head.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_05That is the kind of message that you go back and you remember.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, gotcha.
SPEAKER_05And you hold on to, and you go back and you give to other people. You know, you you never look at nobody as a problem. Um there gonna be problems? Yeah. Are there are are things gonna happen? Yes. Uh but we can't, we, we, we can't define a person because of their struggles. You know, we have to be able to, like as a minister, you have to be able to uh see past that and see the human side of somebody, of what we are, or what we all are, and and you try to just love on them in that process. Um most of the time I go in there behind the gates is because it's mostly African Americans in there. And and and and young ones. And they don't have no guidance, no directions. They're just walking around the yard and wilding out and you know, thinking it's the streets. But it's not. You're in you you're incarcerated. You might have you have a life sentence, you've been here 30 years, you uh you you have to learn something. And I go in there and try to tell them, this is not the end yet, you're still alive. You get up every day, you gotta you gotta change the course of who you are. Not what you look like on the outside, right? But what the inside, you have to have that transformation on the inside of yourself. And if they can get that transformation on the inside of themselves, you find great great peace in it, no matter where you're at. And at the end of the day, as I try to remind them all, we're all dying. We gotta get out of here. We're all going to the same place. Yeah, you gotta get out of here. You go into their grave. You better believe that. So don't think, well, they're, you know, the people out there are having so much more of a better time. Yeah, they're living life out here, but it's a lot of them that's out here that's doing the wrong thing, and they're gonna end up dead, you know, too eventually one day. And then those are the kind of messages I I try to carry in there to them. Just bring love, man. Bring compassion. You know, have sympathy for people. Because like I said, we we don't know what happened to them in their childhood. We don't know who who rejected them.
SPEAKER_10You know, it definitely, there's a path that's just taking the right path. You know, that's what I always tell people all the time. It's I've fallen, I've gotten up. And if you can do that, you will succeed. Everyone falls, like you said. At one point, someone falls, they gotta get up. You know, so I think everything that you just said is it's a lesson that if people are watching and listening should keep in the back of their head.
SPEAKER_05You know, it's because every last one of them is gonna go through that process. Yeah at some point in time. If somebody tells you they they won't go through that process, run.
SPEAKER_02The other way. Yeah. Oh, so you finally win at 86. What was that moment like?
SPEAKER_05I think it was the greatest moment of my baseball career because I had always watched baseball on television and saw it so many times. And seeing teams get into the winning circle, um, seeing the fans rush the field. They only got to do it that once in the 86. Right, once you're gonna take the water. We won the Eastern Championship that that night. And it was it was like a dream come true. I couldn't go in, I couldn't even run in for right field, I had to go right through the ballpen because with so many people on the field. And you can get hurt as a player, but they're they're celebrating uh the true victory of what you have accomplished. They have waited a long time over there in Queens. And what most people don't realize in the 80s, uh the Yankees didn't own the town. We we owned the town. It was it was our town, and and I think George wasn't really happy about that. I know. Why is it back to the city? Probably why they brought you over to the 80s. Why are they getting back paid so much? Yeah, why did everybody left it? Because it was year after year, and we had some pretty good runs there. In 88 we lost to the Dodgers um in the National League Championship Series, and there's not there's not always a guarantee that you're gonna win, no matter even if you have a better team. 88 was better team talents, talent-wise, but didn't have the guts like the 86 Mets, because we would put these knuckles on you in '86. You didn't, yeah, you didn't want to, you just didn't really want to mess with that. We weren't just a baseball team. We was more than just characters. Yeah, we got dirty and nasty.
SPEAKER_101986. Game seven. Talk about that.
SPEAKER_05Well, game seven or game six?
SPEAKER_08We could start with six. Yeah, we could start with six, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, six was the six was the comeback, and people always say, well, you know, we got lucky. No, you go back and look at that 86 team, we came back 40, 40 different times after the seventh inning or something like that. So we knew how to come back. We were never out of the game. Okay, and that's what those guys that came up to the plate knew inside of the mindset, yeah. Personal heart. Carter, Mitchell, Ray Knight all got hits in that situation.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then you get a wild pitch, Mitchell scores, and now you got Ray on second, and Mookie hits the ball, ground ball to Buckner, which Buckner was a great player. People talk about, you know, and they crushed him in Boston for that for his life and almost hurt him so bad. But Billy Buckner was a really great player, almost 3,000 hits. So he goes out to make the play, and I'm and when you look at the play over and over, you look at him looking up to see if the pitcher is covering. Because he knows Mookie's fast. Yeah. And it's going to be a foot race for him to try to beat Mookie to the face because he didn't see he didn't see Stanley all the way there. Right. And he takes his eye off the ball. Just for a second. Just for a hot second, that's all it takes. And he misses the ball, and we go on to win that game. And then we come into game seven, and there we were, we were behind in that game, and we came back and won that game. That was just a team of a comeback. We knew how to come back. We had some clutch players. Uh, we always believed in each other. Um, and that's why when I always looked back on that team, how that's how special that team was. It was like a never give up, you know, never die. We we we didn't care. We we lost in 85, but this was our year. You know, at the time we thought, man, we blew it. It was over, you know, when it was two hours. But these guys just didn't stop.
SPEAKER_02Were you still in touch with those guys from that team?
SPEAKER_05We just had the 40th year reunion. So that was pretty cool to see a lot of the guys. Yeah. Um getting older, rolling right out in the wheelchair. It's like you know, guys are limping. Yeah, guys got bad knees, bad shoulders, bad backs, and everything. Um it catches up to you, but it's always special. And the memories when you walk on that field of what we accomplished together, a brotherhood. Nobody can ever take that away from you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, we so appreciate you doing this, and our host Nelson here, who has the hunt and fish club in New York, where we've done a few of our shows from there too. Yeah, yeah. So he's gonna open that up for us again. We appreciate the love here. Nelson, who's off here in the we're in his backyard in Jersey, we appreciate you doing this, big guy. Thank you, brother. Making this happen. Yeah, I'm glad. Pleasure to talk to you. Good to see you too, Big Daddy. Absolutely. Book Again is another life. Uh, Daryl Strawberry's fifth book, correct? One of them. One of them, right? One of them, yeah. So check out the last one. The last one. I don't believe I'm not sure I believe that. I'm done. It's Daryl Strawberry, everyone, here on MacDaddy.
SPEAKER_07You know what else I've always wanted to know about was the the myth the mythical home run that you hit in high school out of Dodger Stadium. Oh yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Was that really because that was my last that bad high school?
SPEAKER_07In last bad in high school, you got drafted first after that. And I remember as a kid, again, I told you I grew up a Mets fan, even though I'm up from the West Coast. And the the lore, because that again, there's no internet, there's no video that first.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no video. No video.
SPEAKER_07This high school kid hit the ball out of Chavez Ravine, and they made it sound like it was like a 600-foot home roll.
SPEAKER_05No, it wasn't. It's over to 371.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's unreal. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04Reminds me of a certain kind of person. Confident without trying too hard. Interesting the second they walk into a room. Maybe a little smoky, maybe a little dangerous. You know, effortlessly charismatic. Not everyone has that. Some people build it over time, others just born with it. I wouldn't know anything about that, of course. Those ombre. Strip away the noise.
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