ST. PETERS, Mo. — The four-bedroom, two-story modest house sits on a corner in this planned bedroom community, and when this 6-6 muscular-toned man welcomes you inside his home, there is no evidence Darryl Strawberry the player ever existed.
There are no pictures of Strawberry in a baseball uniform. No trophies. No plaques. None of his four World Series rings. Nothing from his eight All-Star Games. None of his 335 home run balls.
“I got rid of it all. I was never attached to none of that stuff,” says Strawberry, 51, wearing a North Carolina jersey with Michael Jordan’s No. 23. “I don’t want it. It’s not part of my life anymore.” Darryl Strawberry, the former outfield great, is no longer. Darryl Strawberry, the ordained minister in this town 30 miles west of St. Louis, is very much alive.
“I’m over ‘Strawberry,’ ” he tells USA TODAY Sports. “I’m over Mets. I’m over Yankees. I don’t want to exist as Darryl Strawberry, the baseball player. “People don’t understand that’s no longer you. I’m not a baseball player, anymore. That person is dead.”
December 22, 2024