STORY: Strawberry discusses faith, new life

By Justin Hayes
Published in Sports on April 11, 2017 10:16 AM

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jhayes@newsargus.com

The Bible, brown and weathered and locked in the fold of his arm like a secret, is a tell of salvation. Its pages are curled and wispy, on loan from grace, he explains, and marked by his search for the roots of its word.

Its spine, woven from top to bottom like the rungs of a live oak, fits his clutch like the aggregate of something flawed and something perfect.

His new playbook, if you will.

And Darryl Strawberry, recovering addict and four-time World Series champion, wants you to know exactly how -- and why -- he came to carry it everywhere.

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His story, delivered Monday with a cannon's boom to the Greater Neuse Fellowship of Christian Athletes, chronicled much of what is widely known about the man -- and more, what couldn't possibly be known.

Specifically, the many ways he ran -- kicking and screaming all the while -- in the opposite direction of faith's call.

"I was a heathen," he said frankly. "I was a liar. I was a cheater. I was a womanizer, an alcoholic... I was a drug addict. I was a sinner -- and there is nothing else that can save a man's life (from that) but God's grace."

The first selection in Major League Baseball's amateur draft in 1980, Strawberry swept through a two-year stint in the minor leagues before arriving in New York in 1983 -- where his brilliant play earned him National League Rookie-of-the-Year honors.

And further, an invitation to excess.

What followed from there -- a dime tour of vices in the audobon-inspired world of professional athletics -- nearly cost him everything.

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Roughly 20 minutes into his dialogue, Strawberry pauses. He holds the Bible aloft, a window to his message.

"There is a time in your life when its got to be you and God," he said, "so you can find out your purpose."

His own journey to faith, a fitful drama of starts and stops and past lives colliding with each other, finally turned its last corner in 2009 -- when, of all things, he made the decision to let go.

Through God's will, he parted ways with things and places and haunts familiar. Gone in short order were associates in New York, and a restaurant he'd worked tirelessly to develop. The lifestyle he'd fought for years, which included stays in treatment centers and the brief assignation of a state-sponsored I.D. number, was no more.

It was time, at last, to come home.

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With the help of his wife, Tracy, Strawberry fought the good fight and emerged clean on the other side. A traveling evangelist these days, he spends the majority of his time communicating his savior's word at faith-based outlets across the country.

The truth, he says, rings clearest in plain language.

It was an element missing from his own childhood, one that saw him enter major league baseball a broken young man grasping for acceptance in the darkest of places. It was also an element missing during what many consider to be a Hall of Fame playing career -- one he wouldn't change at all, he insists, because of the opportunity he is afforded now.

"I hope the (Wayne County) community rallies together and knows the importance of young people," Strawberry said. "FCA saves them -- it gives kids a chance to find out who they are inside, through the love of God... and when you get to know Him, it's pretty cool."

With that, he leaves your company -- Bible in tow, message delivered.