Darryl Strawberry rights past wrongs with Mets as No. 18 comes home to Queens
Darryl Strawberry gives his speech during his jersey retirement ceremony prior to a game between the Mets and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Citi Field on Saturday, June 1, 2024. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Second chances are a treasured commodity in life. Not everyone gets the opportunity for a do-over. Darryl Strawberry, who watched Saturday as his No. 18 was unveiled in the Citi Field rafters, knows that as much as anybody alive, and he’s incredibly grateful to get this extra swing.
Strawberry’s ascension to the Flushing heavens, in part, is a comeback story. He had to prevail over an abusive father, beat colon cancer, stare down drug addiction and, more recently, survive a heart attack (with a huge assist from his wife, Tracy). But the team retiring his No. 18 doesn’t happen without the grace of others, and the welcoming back of the formerly embittered, headstrong Mets icon who bolted the Big Apple for Hollywood all those years ago.
“I wish I would never have left this organization,” Strawberry said before Saturday’s on-field ceremony. “That is the biggest regret I will have for the rest of my life.”
There’s a lesson to be learned from those words. And for Strawberry, now a traveling preacher who helps people deal with their own mistakes, it took him decades to come to that realization.
He belted a franchise-record 252 home runs during his eight years in Flushing and was a superhero on the ’86 World Series rock-star roster, still the most idolized team in New York sports history.
But Strawberry turned his back on the Mets because of his “broken relationship” with general manager Frank Cashen — ironically, the man who drafted him and the architect of the ’86 champs — and it took all this time to finally right that situation. Strawberry found the riches he was seeking with the Dodgers, and had a career renaissance in the Bronx during the Yankees’ dynasty. Only one stadium can be home, however.
And sometimes, getting back through the front door requires an apology. For Strawberry to come full circle, to be granted forgiveness for that traitorous stint across town, he felt a mea culpa was necessary on this perfect, sun-splashed afternoon in Flushing.
The Shea home plate sits across a parking lot now, but Strawberry’s heart was in the right place Saturday, and his love for the Mets’ faithful poured out.
“There’s nothing like playing in Queens, nothing like playing in Shea Stadium,” Strawberry said to roars from the crowd. “I’m so sorry for ever leaving you guys.”
Six weeks earlier, Dwight Gooden stood at that same podium, and his No. 16 got a familiar neighbor Saturday. It’s only fitting that Doc and Darryl spend eternity next to each other on the Citi roof — Shea’s no longer available — and their tangled paths getting up to that rarefied air were both glorious and gruesome.
Just as Strawberry shook off emergency heart surgery to attend Gooden's mid-April festivities, Gooden was there for him Saturday, the two inseparable in Mets lore. The odds were against both of them ever witnessing these moments, and for that reason, no one could appreciate the honors more.
“It’s very important,” Gooden said. “You start off as two young guys coming in, a lot of pressure — I think there was more pressure on him, being a No. 1 pick, coming in as a savior. I was able to learn from him, what he went through, talking with [the media], with the expectations, stuff like that, so it was easier for me.
“Then we had our off-the-field struggles, and you never know if this day is going to come. Now to have it come full circle, with both of our numbers going up there side by side, you couldn’t ask for anything better. I mean, I’m very happy for him — probably just as much as I am for myself.”
When Gooden was asked if he ever tried to persuade Strawberry to stay, he joked that Strawberry tried to get him to leave Flushing, too. But those hard feelings were washed away in the sea of memories that flooded back Saturday, and Strawberry reliving what it was like to be a megawatt slugger on the sport’s brightest stage. He credited the Mets for enhancing those superpowers.
“I think because I love the atmosphere, I love the pressure of playing here,” Strawberry said. “I think the fans push you to prove yourself. I know failures are going to be part of it, but you have to fail to be successful. And if I was somewhere else, I don’t think I would have turned out to be the player that I was.
“They’re going to boo you. That’s part of it. And that’s a good thing. They’re booing you because they’re saying you suck right now and you can be better, you can do better. That gave me the push, the drive, to be better.”
Strawberry smiled reflecting on those occasions when he’d ignore the curtain calls out of spite, in payback for the boos, ducking down inside the clubhouse runway to smoke a cigarette (not uncommon among players then). “You had to have a little toughness and a little craziness in you to play at a time like that, in those days, in the ’80s,” he said.
There were no boos Saturday. When Strawberry stepped to the podium, he was serenaded by the nostalgic chants of “Dar-ryl . . . Dar-ryl.” It had been way too long.
“Nothing like being home,” he said.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.