Darryl Strawberry: Voice of Reason

It’s too bad I wasn’t unleashed on this Earth until Straw’s rookie season because from what I’ve been told, he was a pretty darn good ballplayer. By the time I began to understand anything about anything, Strawberry was just a coked-out flame-out the Dodgers were trying to resurrect (ditto the Yankees later on). Anyway, Darryl Strawberry’s moved on to do what every forgotten star does when they’re hard up on cash (and I don’t mean sell a spare kidney) — he’s written a tell-all book soon to drop. Straw was also a guest instructor at Yankees spring training and offered these words of wisdom about steroids:

“Hell yeah I would have used them,” Strawberry said. “Are you kidding me? I mean, c’mon. Some things are part of what athletes go through and they happen …We’re competitive creatures, and we have tremendous drive, a high tolerance, all these things. I’m not saying that it was the right thing to do. But if that was going on in the 80s, that probably would have been in my system too.”

Glad to know that Straw’s still a heavy proponent of drug use. Actually, it’s even better to know that he’s out there at Yankee spring training and still alive. Between the colon cancer, the kidney surgery, the lymph node cancer, and god knows what else he’s put in his body, it’s a miracle he’s still well. Those Steinbrenners sure are a loyal bunch. Let’s just hope he’s not advising the Yankees to do what he said in that quote.