Today, 43 years later, Darryl Strawberry is still named for his 1981 season with the Class-A Lynchburg Mets.
“I call it,” Strawberry said by phone last week, “a bad season.”
At the time, “bad season” was the most challenging season in Strawberry’s life. It was his first losing season on the baseball diamond. That was the first season he heard racist slurs coming from the stands. This season he came close to quitting baseball and hanging up his jersey for good.
So when the Strawberries’ No. 18 jersey is retired on June 1 at Citi Field, it’s fitting that among his distinguished guests will be those who helped him get through a bad season: head coach Gene Toussaint and teammates Lloyd McClendon.
“Everyone is focused on success, but I focus on the people who have had a huge impact on me,” Strawberry said. “Without people like them who helped me through the most challenging and difficult times when I was young, I wouldn’t be able to stand on the field and have my jersey retired.”
The first month of Strawberry’s first full pro ball season didn’t go well. Losing on the field for the first time is difficult enough for any player. Strawberry has a few extra spotlights on him.
Last summer, he was the No. 1 overall pick out of Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, and his coach dubbed him “the Black Ted Williams” in Sports Illustrated. His signing bonus, while not a record, was more than double that of the previous No. 1 pick.
He was a black man playing ball in a southern Virginia city. So when he struggled on the field, that’s what he heard from Carolina League fans. Home game, away game, any game – Strawberry hears the worst.
“They called me all kinds of insults and negative things,” Strawberry said. “You’re talking about the Deep South. I was like, ‘This is crazy. I grew up in Southern California and we never had anything like this growing up.
“Listen, this was 1981. Society was not fully embracing us, black people,” McClendon said. “They used to give a hat to anyone who hit a home run. We hit a home run and got nothing.
By early May, Strawberry wants to take his bat into the stands, he said. Instead, he took the bat home.
“I just checked out,” he said. “I did go AWOL.”
“He was gone for a few days,” Toussaint said. “His departure was worrying. I felt like he was coming back. I knew he was coming back.
Dusan did not chase Strawberry, but gave him space. He didn’t even tell the brass in the Mets front office.
“If I did that today, they would fire me,” he said with a laugh. “Things were different in the early eighties.”
Two days later, Strawberry returned to the park, thanks in large part to his relationship with Toussaint and McClendon. Strawberry and McClendon had met the previous year at a rookie ball game in Kingsport, Tenn., where they were living together and supporting each other during their first summer in the South.
“I think we have to protect each other,” McClendon said.
In 2019, Lloyd McClendon was photographed coaching the Tigers and was an important figure in the early days of Darryl Strawberry’s career. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire photo via AP)
McClendon did not appear in Lynchburg at the start of the ’81 season because he injured his hand in spring training. But once Strawberry left the team, McClendon’s recovery period became much shorter.
“When I saw him in the park, I was happy,” Strawberry said, “to see a face like mine and a person of color.”
Although McClendon was married, Toussaint made sure the two lived together again.
“You have to take care of him,” McClenzin recalled Toussaint saying, “because if you don’t take care of him, he’s not going to survive.”
“I don’t know if I was old enough to be a mentor at the time,” said McClendon, who was 22 that season, “but I was definitely his friend and his voice to talk to. Whatever little wisdom I had, I We will do our best to pass it on.
And Dusan’s tough attitude as a manager was exactly what Strawberry needed at the time. Dusan was not happy the day Strawberry returned to the club.
“I’m glad you’re back. I’m glad you’re healthy,” he told the players. “We have to go to work.”
Toussaint remembers that from that day on, Strawberry became the best player he ever coached.
“He’s out there every day making extra hits,” Toussaint said. “Once he puts his heart and soul into it, he’s that guy.”
There’s a reason strawberries are always there to provide that extra hit.
“Let me put it this way: In a sense, Gene was a problem for Daryl and me,” McClendon said. “When we were on the road, he would wake us up at 8 o’clock every morning and we would go to the ballpark. I guess he saw something special in both of us. He definitely saw that in Daryl.
“Jean Toussaint was like a father figure to me, but I didn’t have that. He embraced me early on and allowed me to overcome some adversity. “I became part of his family. It was very special to me. personalize.
How many parts of the family are there? Strawberry helps take care of Dusan’s children.
“Jeno kept me going and kept me focused on not looking up there and interacting with the people there (in the stands),” Strawberry said. “It really helped me because I didn’t really want to play anymore, even for a minute.”
“He taught us a lot not only about baseball, but about life and how to run your own business,” said McClendon, who went on to manage more than 1,100 major league games. “You stand up, do what you say, and learn to be a man of honor. It’s so cool.
For Strawberry, bad seasons remain a big part of his story. That first experience of adversity helped him get through many of the challenging times he would later go through, periods that may or may not have been of his own making. It’s a learning moment, he said, that comes whenever his children feel like giving up something during a difficult time.
In ’82, Strawberry played for Toussaint in Double-A Jackson, Mississippi, hitting 34 home runs, 45 stolen bases and an OPS of over 1,000. Two years after a terrible season, Strawberry was the National League Rookie of the Year.
“I made good decisions, overcame adversity and started to believe,” Strawberry said. “I’m forever grateful for that and the real people. These are real people. These people don’t sugarcoat everything about you. But those people showed me how to overcome things.
“It’s hard to believe,” Toussaint said of the retirement of the teenager’s number he managed. “I appreciate how he feels about me. I’m proud of him.
(Photo by Darryl Strawberry Batting
