Darryl Strawberry Explains Barry Bonds’ Greatness, Mets vs. Yankees, & Choosing Baseball Over Hoops

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Speaker 1: Arizona.

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Speaker 2: We got something special for y'all. October third, Ela River Casino in Phoenix. Straight Game Times All the Smoke Live Show. Doors open at six thirty, show start to seven thirty. Tickets on sale through Ticketmaster. Just google Straight Game All the Smoke Live Show or check the link in my bio. Catch me, Stack Bib and my dog, eat house and special guests. Make sure you guys pick up a ticket and meet us there. Welcome back to All the Smoke Day two at the pump Galla. Day one was the success, Sir. We stepped to the cocktail event last night and saw a lot of Man legends and old friends. We had a good time. Shout out Dana and David. Today we got a good one man, a Cringehaw High School legend, Matt's Hall of Famer, eight time All Star Teeth, three time World Series Champions Man, one of my favorite players growing up. Huh four time? Oh shit four two? Will excuse us. We'd love to be corrected. Four time champ I U.

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Speaker 1: R Yeah, man Man, Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Daryl Strawberry's Yeah, Hey, we've been Hey.

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Speaker 1: I've been working on this for long day.

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Speaker 2: I've been working on this for like three years, right, I.

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Speaker 1: Know you have man assistant. I appreciate you. Yeah, I'll check on you too.

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Speaker 2: Every time I wouldn't ask you to come on show, I was checking on you and checking on the family. We would talk a little bit. But I'm I'm glad we finally got to make it work.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate you your real brother man, yeah, and everything. So I appreciate that. Man.

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Speaker 2: The past year has been a little hectic for you. You suffered a heart attack in the past, You've been diagnosed with cancer.

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Speaker 1: You look good right now.

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Speaker 2: How is life? How is your your health? How is your mental and how's Daryl today?

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Speaker 1: Well? Thanks for asking, man, I'm I mean it's life. You know, life gonna show up, but are you going to show up? Right? That's the whole key in this game of life. You know, no one ever said it was gonna be easy. You know, if it was an easy road, we'll all be on the winning side of it all the time. So, you know, growing up in South central l A. The struggle from there made me understand life as I got older in life and became an adult and had to deal with things. Because when you grow up in the hood, uh, you got to you gotta push through. You know, if you don't push through, somebody, somebody gonna check you. And that's what I learned so much, you know, as a kid growing up. Is you know, when you get into your life situation, when you get older and you start being successful and achieving things, and then you go through things, you go through health problems like later on, like all gonna go through that. You know, it's just a part of it. You're just a part of uh staying strong through it and walking through it and and and basically doing what the doctors tell you to do. Listen, you got to take your.

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Speaker 2: Mad I don't like to listen to the doctors neither.

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Speaker 1: I know. You don't know, brother, like listen list.

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Speaker 2: Trying to box and lift weights. He just had backing spine surgery.

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Speaker 1: Like, oh no, I've been there too, back surgery. I get it. But he's an athlete. So that's what we get up.

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Speaker 2: What did you have to kind of change in your I mean working out, eating health? Like what's your day to day now?

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Speaker 1: Nothing? Okay, you know, just you just you, you know what I mean. Look, I worked out for twenty five years. I feel that, so I don't really have to work out anymore. It's not like I got to run to the gym, say I gotta stay fit, you know, it's it's life genetics. Yeah, and you grow up like this and you know, my body's in great condition. That's the thing about it. When I went in for the heart attack, the doctor says, man, you're in great shape. They said, most people walk in here when their hearts at forty percent like that, they die. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So do they say, what had your heart at capacity?

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Speaker 1: No, I just had a blockage, you know, I had the blockage. I was running around the country, traveling and doing what I do, ministry and stuff like that. And he said, I was in heart attack mode for about five days, you know. So you know, you're just knock on wood. The fact that you you could be an athlete in your keep yourself in shape, you know, like you guys are. Most athletes don't keep themselves in shape, you know, they just let everything go. I never got to that point of letting everything go. You know. I stayed fit. You know, I eat well, you know, and of course you know our rest now, you know, because I'm not out doing the electric slide anymore. That's what you know.

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Speaker 3: I mean actually doing when you buy you out doing your ministry, you're seeing a lot of people taking on a lot of different people's like ups and downs, stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: That can be a lot to put on yourself as well. Oh yeah, it is a lot, you know, But we've been gifted to be able to encourage others because of what we've been through, because we had to face the adversity of folks always yelling at us, So we had to learn how to deal with that. You know, can I control myself? Can I deal with it? So it's kind of the same thing in what I do today. It's very easy for me because I'm used to being around people and used to knowing how to handle because we had to learn how to handle people because of being athlet because everybody always has something to say about me because I was you know this, you know, black gifted baseball player, and we were like kind of the first young black baseball players really coming on the scene. The time I was coming into baseball, me and Eric Davis and we just knew that we was going to play at the highest level and we believed in that and getting it done and then getting to the major league, you know, So everybody has opinions, right, you know they're gonna always have those opinions about it. So I mean it helped me be who I am today when I'm in front of people. But I think what most people fail to realize. As great athletes, we have great compassion for people, right, you know, because we know how hard it is to get to where we got and work and become successful at doing it. Everybody always want to snatch it from us, but we worked hard to get there. So when I deal with people, I just have a lot of compassion for them because I know how difficult it can be. Are you and Eric Davis the same age, around the same age? Yeah? We we old old men together.

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Speaker 2: So did you guys play against each other high school?

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Speaker 1: He went to Fremont, I went to Crenshaw. So you play basketball? Okay, what was that he hooped too? Yeah? He was.

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Speaker 2: He told me about the last night. Yeah, I seen last night. Tell me tell me about he was smooth? He was he had game, He had a game point guard.

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Speaker 1: Can you can you compare him to anybody's game plaster present? As far as the point guard, I would probably say like an Irison type, Yeah, because he could he could, he could dribble, he could shoot, and he jump jump, he could score. Let me find out. You have to look back on it. He was over trust Man told me last night, what was your game? Like? My game was more of like a forward, you know, playing power forward, you know, uh, great defense and always going to the hoop, you know, and and really had this X factor on me, you know, because you know, like you know, you're in high school. A lot of a lot of guys in high school like to talk trash, you know, we like Crenshaw and they like freemond Lock, you know, and all those and the coming to the Cougar Den. We just had to put it on him.

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Speaker 2: Man, Happy, Happy fortieth birthday, the Nipsey Man today he would have been forty.

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Speaker 1: Man Live.

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Speaker 2: Your jersey number eighteen was retired by the Mets last summer. What did that mean to you?

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Speaker 1: It meant that I really accomplished them, you know when you think about putting on a jersey and performing all those years and what does it really mean to the franchise, What does it mean to the people of the city of New York And for me to be able to get to that point where the new ownership comes in and say this guy here was a big part of this franchise turning around because it was the start of me and Doc Gooden as the two young black athletes that came there with the hype. I see, most people didn't come in with hype. I came in with all the hype, as Ted Williams Sports illustrated out of high school. Can I perform? Can I stand? Play on the stage here? And I did? You know? I went there and I got busy with it. And Doc did too. He came after me. He was nineteen and he came and played on that stage like that and got busy because it's the expectations that comes from the media more than anything else. But as a player, when you go out there, and when I ran on the field, I realized, you know, I'm the best player on the field. Yeah, I mean me personally. I was always like that because I had an attitude, you know, because I, like I said, I come from South Central and the ghetto. When you grow up in that, nobody gives you nothing right. You know. You work for that, you know, and when you have worked hard for that and you finally get there, you know who you are. And that's what it was for me. When I finally got there, I started to know who I was, and I started to craft my game. I started to be a master at what I was doing. You know. I started to learn how to, you know, sit on the deck and I don't. We didn't have computers like they have today, and they go all looking in the computer. I used to look at the picture. I used to look at the catcher and get the idea how they operate and how they move. And I said, this is the part of game I want to learn, because if I learned this part, I'm going to kill it. And that's what I did. I learned that part of the game.

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Speaker 2: Peterso recently broke your Mets record. Obviously, records are meant to be broken, but he drew some criticism when he says down goes Straws. A lot of Mets fans felt like he disrespected you when he did that. How did you personally find.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad they felt like that. I didn't feel like that. My career is over. My number is sitting on top of the stadium, man. You know, so I don't have anything to prove to anybody. I don't have to voice my opinion to the players today. I think so many people get wrapped up into that of these guys today. And we had our chance, and we did what we had to do, and he's doing it. He broke my record. Of course, the records are meant to be broken. He think about it. I played eight seasons that I hit two hundred and fifty two home run. You had a stuck another eight season I would hit another two hundred and three hundred home runs. You know, probably there, but it didn't work out that way. Oh well, So what is important is not the criticize or critique these younger guys because I think a lot of times their feelings get hurt. My feelings don't get hurt, but their feelings will get hurt. If I responded back, And I know a lot of Met fans wasn't really thrilled about, you know, him coming out and saying that, because they considered me as a true legend for that organization and winning the championship and they hadn't won one since eighty six, since we were the last last team to do it. They've had moments, but you got to still win. New York is all about winning, and if you don't win, there then people are are really not gonna talk much about your your status after your career is over. Give me the difference between Met fans and Yankee fans. Yankee fans are always happy, always winning, They're always winning. So MET fans are very disturbed and lonely inside. Yeah, they they've just been they've been torn apart from me, and I love them because they're my fans and that's my fan base. It's because they want to win, you know, they want they really want the team have some type of success and then behind you like crazy and they'll show up, they'll come to the ball park. But if you don't win, like now they haven't been winning, you probably go on to chattel line of social media and everybody talking about how they suck, keep rid, everybody, every fire, everybody going to change everything. And that's what happens when when they get.

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Speaker 3: Mad Quenshaw High School super start raised in LA in the sixties and seventies. What was it like growing up with you in the sixties and seventies in LA.

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Speaker 1: That's a good question, bro, That's a real good question and strong crush. And I was wondering if you guys were gonna ask questions like that, Yeah, think about it, because most people don't know what it's like growing up in South Central, you know, like sixtieth and seventh Avenue. And when I was growing up, it was either you're gonna you're gonna be in the gangs, or you're gonna play sports, you know, and you know, my one of my brothers chose to be in the gangs. I went the other way sports, you know, because I remember how it was in the hood when we were all like down in the hood gambling, shooting dice and everything, and then somebody come run and with a shotgun and shoot the shoot the gang up to rob the you know, everybody get hit a buck shot, everybody get hit a bucks shot. But he didn't have buckshots in it, but he shot with fire came out, and that was the last time I ever went around there, because I realized, right there, you go get killed around here, you know, over us sitting on the street light shooting craps and trying to win. And it's from the own neighborhood that people that do that stuff. So I realized I didn't want to be a part of that anymore. So I shifted and went the other way. And started playing sports. And then I remember what it was really like going to Crenshaw when we had a homecoming day one day and I had a guy that I knew from my neighborhood from the sixties named Greg. He started fighting with the trays there and we're standing there in home coming. He's about to jump off and boom, he gets hit with a hammer in his heart and he's you know, it's a hole in his heart. Now he dies right there, you know, on the high school ground. And that's when there was trouble, you know, that's when in the sixties the trades started clashing and started shooting. And I used to have to come home from basketball practice. When I hit Slauson Avenue, it came up across Slawson. I had to start jogging home, you know, after practice because everybody was shooting in every neighborhood, so it wasn't safe. So that's what it was really like. It was some real challenges in those neighborhoods growing up, and you had to figure out and you had to navigate yourself through those waves around there during that time because they didn't really care who you were, even if you were someone that was probably playing sports at Crenshaw. You lived in that neighborhood, and it was like they could take your life just like that. And a lot of people didn't even know I grew up under all that. But I'm glad I grew up under all that because it made me. It made me tough, it made me appreciate life. What neighborhood you grew up in on sixty seventh Avenue right Slausson and Crenshaw Prenshall Boulevard, Yeah six. So I was like deep right in the neighborhood where all the young guys started to have this this tuggle war against you know, the bloods, cribs, you know, make a decision. I mean I made a decision. You know, I'm gonna stick with sports, and which was cool because you know, all the you know, all the guys that was in a gang, they used to be like, you cannot mess with Struwberry.

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Speaker 2: I was about to say, he screnched out high.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's he's balling, he's playing basketball baseball. That area you cannot touch. You cannot touch that guy. You can touch other people, but you can't touch them. That's the way they were. They were very very protectively. I like that. No more, it's not like that, no more. I know, I know it's not like that. Well, because most people are not not from those neighborhoods. They don't grow up in those neighborhoods. They might come from a different place, but they never grew up in that atmosphere. And that's what the neighborhoods used to be. Like. Everybody had everybody backing, everybody knew everybody, everybody knew everybody, and everybody was down with everybody, cool with everybody. No matter what those guys were doing, they were still my family, right because I knew all of them, and they realized that, you know, I wasn't going in that direction that he wanted to place sports. So they would always come to the games and say he's our hero, He's our neighborhood hero, and which was really cool because when you get that support from your neighborhood, it means a lot, I mean the most. Yeah, more than anything. Start forward and crunch out high basketball team.

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Speaker 3: Not if you said a lot of people don't know about your hoop skills and go don't give it to us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they really don't know about it. They don't really don't know about it. You know how it was. You know, I was one of those guys that had that focused determination, you know, because I didn't grow up like, you know, playing you know, league basketball or anything like that, because you grew up in this dysfunction at home. And so my dad was crazy. So I really got into sports late. You know. I kicked off from playing baseball when I was fourteen, and then I got into basketball playing, I said, elementary school, that's where I learned how to play, like that little pick up basketball, That's where I learned how to play. And you know, I used to be down there talking trash all the guys, older guys in the neighborhood, lefty lefty balling, dunking on them. Remember how Grims wasn't that high, so you dunk on them. Into elementary school and you know, and I was talking trashhold maybe like Royniet, you better tell you a little punk, Rother than shut up. But it was really cool and I learned. I learned how to play there, man. And then I went to Crenshaw and then I played football my first year in high school, and I was quarterback and they wanted me to like prepare me for quarterback. And because I thought I was. I really thought I was Kenny Stable. You know. It was because it snake, because I was left handed. A lot of people they were like, why don't you come to the basketball. Of course, I got hit well and black got football got hit. I got blindsided one time playing quarterback, and I said, okay, told the coach. I took the uniform off it and I went to kriss Shot. I went on my way to start playing basketball for coach West and Joe weekly Man. And it was really cool because what happened there was they they really bought discipline to me. Basketball coaches, you know, because when you play, you got to do right. In school, you can't be tripping, you know. And I got tripping off, you know. A teacher one time kicked me out of class. And the coach tapped me on the bench, you know, and benched me and said you can't act like that. And and he sent me on the bench. And I didn't play till the third quarter. When third quarter, after the third quarter came to the fourth quarter, I walked up into the locker room and got dressed to forget it, and he said, that's all right, let him go. I came to practice next day. He was like, he's like, you ain't picking them the ball or nothing. Me and another guy, he said, you're gonna be on this line running suicides all day long. We was on that running suicides all day and my buddy was talking about quitting. I was like, no, man, you can't quit, man, you can't give up. That's the easy way out. So I just kind of pushed through all that and learned through that and got that discipline and went on to learn how to play. And man, it was really cool. It was really good because Elie's city has always been about competition between everybody, all the different schools. You know, Dorsey High, Lock, you know, Freemont, Crenshaw, UNI, and Hamilton wasn't no competition. Westchester was neither, so they wasn't in the race back then. Must be your school.

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Speaker 3: Sports Illustrated College of the Black, Ted Williams early on, and you said you played basketball. Were you just that much of a stud in baseball that you just had to throw a basketball all the way?

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Speaker 1: I did? I mean, I realized that from my coach, my high school baseball coach, because in my junior year in baseball, we played at Dodger Stadium. The City Championship against Grenada Hills against John Lway. Now we lost to them to the championship at Dodger Stadium nineteen seventy nine. So I come back in eighty and I'm playing basketball and my coach is always baseball coach. I'm wonder why is he at all my basketball games? Because he said he was always cringing, you know, the fact that I might go up and dunk on somebody and get hurt. And I didn't know. He said all these scouts had been calling him, and all these programs in school have been calling him, and they were talking about, you know, he's like the next Willie McCovey. And I was like, man, I'm only eighteen. What are you talking?

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Speaker 2: But you didn't start You said you didn't start playing baseball. Team were fourteen fourteen damn so you got like so you started pretty much your freshman year and by the time you were in your senior year.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, by the time I got to my senior year, I walked out. After the basketball we won the city champ championship, we went to state. We lost the state in Oakland, and in the tournament up there, came back one day of practice. First day was baseball season, and my first day out there there was it was packed with like fifty scouts. I was like, man, who they here to see it? Of course are they are here to see you? I was like, oh wow. I punched out three times, so I was like, oh, man, you come to see me. I'm I wasn't even ready for baseball, so and I had to cross, you know, I had to get back into baseball shape after being in basketball that whole year, and I got it going. And by the time the season was over, there were like, You're probably gonna be in the first two three picks of the draft.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So that was really cool.

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Speaker 3: What's what's it like being the number one pick at eighteen? I probably it was just the wrong time. I only got two hundred thousand then, but now they get ten million.

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Speaker 1: Difference A big difference. No, but it was it was It was really for my mother, you know, she was a single parent, and she dropped me off at school that morning and she was nervous and I was like, mom, I don't be nervous. I said. They said, I'll get drafted. I don't know where I'm going to go. And it was a big deal to her, and it wasn't like a big deal to me. But I wasn't really concerned about it because I knew that I had put myself in a position to be drafted from that year, my senior year, and when I went to class, you know, they pulled me out of class and said, well, okay, pulled me over and said you've been drafted. You're the number one picking the jaff. I says, okay, And they said the New York mess draft for you. I said, okay, where the heck is New York at I had never been out of LA you know, we all played here. You know, we played out in Compton, you know. So you know, baseball was always the thing for all of us growing up because you know, all the great players that came out of California, like myself, Eric Davis, Chris Brown, Chilie Davis, Olie Smith, you know, Eddie Murray. You can go on and on how many great players that come out of here to play baseball. And we were just a part of that package. And we were just really happy to be a part of that package. Me and Eric, you know, because me and Eric played together in the Little league and summer team. He was the leadoff bat and played shortstop. I hit third, played right field out in Compton, and he said that team like, God damn well, they used to call us like we were the moose. Our team was called the moose, and then we come to the park, they say the moose is on the loose. You know. They got E d and Straw and got Chris Brown hit at playing third base. It was just the monster team. Man. We were just We were coached by Earl Brown and we were just man. We were good man at a young age, and we just knew it. Me and me and E knew it that we wanted to play in the big leagues. And he got drafted later in that draft that year and he went on and signed before I did, was Cincinnati. He was like, dog, I'm out of here. You know. He said, I'm just gonna go do it. You know. I said, yeah, man, no, I'll catch up with you. Man, We're gonna do it. And we did. You know, we didn't just get drafted. You We had a program for us in the off season where we were at Harvard Park. We went back to Harvard Park and we put our trash cans up and we had ourselves throwing VP, and people just say, man, you guys millionaires, Why you guys not up at UCLA. I was like, man, we didn't play in no Ucla. You know, we want we played in the ghetto. We want to teach young kids to know that you could come out here. You know, you can come out of here. You don't have to be fancy or anything else. You know, Me and Ed would always buy the Major League baseballs for the group, but we put the trash cans up and they had to pitch to us and Duck and say thank you can because we said bullets back up the middle and to hit the can. But it made you hungry, It made you not get complacent, and it made you not sit there and think, wow, I'm great because I'm already in the league. And that's what was our driving for us, for us to keep going.

00:22:53
Speaker 2: Tell me what the jump was like from high school to the minor leagues to the big leagues.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: We glad you asked. That's a really good question because three different levels. Yeah, there's three different levels. And when you jump from high school you used to be in the star and when you jump into the minor leagues, now this is really tricky. This is different because the minor leagues are more like where am I going? You know, I'm eighteen year olds years old and coming out of Crenshall High all Black High school, and I'm drafting and sign Now I'm going to Lynchburg, Virginia. No, well, I'm going to Kingsport, Tennessee. First I got to Kingport, Tennessee. I was like, oh my god, I still don't know where that is. Middle of nowhere. Culture shock, you know, is at eighteen years old and you're the number one pick and everybody's talking about you. And had it not been for my coach, Chuck Hiller making it comfortable for me, I wanted to come home. You know. I kept calling my maman, come to the house. You know, She's like, you know you, this is what you wanted to do. So then I go to the next year, I go to Lynchburg, Virginia nineteen eighty one. Now we're Lynchburg, Virginia is in the middle of with Liberty University all that kind of middle of nowhere. So I get there and I'm playing there and now I got to go through these racial things with people in the crowd of the home ballpark that I'm playing in calling me boy, called me nigga in word and say, well, you're not that good, you know. And my coach was like, don't look up there. They ignorant, you know, because I knew he knew. He was thinking, Man, this kid gonna go up there with his Louisville slugger. He's gonna eliminate some folks up there, eliminate some because because they didn't call you all that when you were in high school. And and so I experienced that, and I almost quit, you know, I came close to quitting, you know. I was when a wall didn't show up to the ballpark and the team wondered, what, you know, what's happening with him? I was at home smoking weed every day. I was like, I'm not dealing with this, you know, I was. I was. I was like, I'm not dealing with this. I just like checked out, you know. And then I finally came back and and then I finished up that year, and they said I was going to quit baseball, and they were like, give it another year. And I gave it another year, and I came back in the next year, in nineteen eighty two, and I went to Jackson, Mississippi, and I ended up like hitting thirty four home runs still in forty five bases. You know, that's when I really became a ballplayer. I really knew that I was on my way after that, you know, And I always think about it. It's just like for all of us, if you quit, you never know a lot of what ifs. Yeah, it would have been on a lot of what ifs if you quit, because there's a lot of things happen after that. For me not quitting to be able to get to that next level and the big leagues. You know, when I got to the big leagues, that was a whole level of adjustments. I had to really do some things different. I had a coach, hitting coach, aint Jim Pry. I was nineteen eighty three when I was in the Big Leads. I got to the Big Leads at twenty one, and I was supposed to be at the ballpark like at one, and I didn't show up to three o'clock, and he got in my face, is I'm never going to wait for you again. If you want to be great at what you're doing here, you'll be at this ballpark early every day. I was learning how to be a profession exactly That's what he taught me. Right. There wasn't about the talent. He goes, you got the talent already, Yeah, you got you got the talent. He was like, but you have to learn what this is all about, you know. And that's what I had to do because I was going to the ballpark and it wasn't just about working out all the time where you'd like to sit in the dugout and you look at the stadium, he says, look at the stadium. He's like, now you can own this. If you do this, this this this can be this can be yours. And he walked me into that. And I went on to win Rookie of the Year that year because he walked me into that. Because I got off to a rough start, but he walked me into being Rookie of the Year and showed me how to master this, make this, make this your paradise. You say, it's important.

00:26:52
Speaker 3: Guys like that important to when young guys coming in and they don't have it in the NBA no more.

00:26:55
Speaker 1: They don't know they used to have that right everywhere he had. Yeah, I know you guys had it. I know they don't have it now. I mean these guys have it. Everybody's young. Yeah, yeah, what were you? What were your numbers? Your workie year, my hit but twenty six home runs that year. I think I seventy four ribies. I think I got I got there a month after the season, so I missed the first month and I didn't come up till May because I went I went to Triple A and then I stayed a month down there, and then I came up and I got to a rough start, and like I said, I started to work. It started to focus, started to learn, and the learning lessons are the key, you know, for any athlete. If you learn them, you can elevate yourself to the next level of playing. Set the stage for MLB in the EIGHTIESLB in the eighties it started to rock there. That's when black players started to come along. That's when it truly started to take a shift, and not just black players, but young black players. Yeah, you know, that's when a big difference of what baseball was all about. I know it's a different game today, you know, with more Latin players, But when we came up, it was all black players. You know. I came up, Eric came up, A lot of others came up, from different teams, you know, that were young and that were exciting, and they made a push. You know, I think this was the first time but baseball started to shift to make a push for young black players, you know, and they were really going after them, they were really drafting them, and just so unfortunately dropped off because major Major League Baseball used to be about the young African American players, you know, and they changed it so much, and it's heartbreaking to see that because you know, they took they took away what was important for the kids in the hood, you know, because of those those ballparks, you know, those dirt fields. We grew up on planning on them. That's how you learn how to play. They had rocks, whatever bricks. We had to learn how to make a play on them, those fields. And they removed those fields, and then they started building academies and Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and all these other places. So the black kids in their cities suffered because they didn't have the academies in the place like you like, most of these other players had. And these other players had a better chance to get to the major leagues. And our avenue to the major leagues was like, you better be tough. Yeah, you're gonna have to fight through it to get there to stay, and you're gonna have to be good, really good. You stand out. You're gonna have to be a standout to be able to play and stay in a major. You couldn't hit two thirty and being the majors when we were coming up, they was like, no, you ain't ready for this. In two thirty. You know, you're going back down to the minor leagues. So you you really had to turn your game up and you had to really know how to play. And and the thing I say about playing is like me and Eric Davis, you know when we came through, we wasn't like a one to two player. We were a five to two player. You know, we did it all first. We wanted to. We wanted to make sure our game stood up at a whole whole different level where people would look at us and say wow. You know, And that's what I always think about athletes, Black athletes you know that play BA you know, don't don't just do one thing. Learn to do do everything you know and work at it. If you work at it, you can get good at it and excuse man places.

00:30:09
Speaker 3: Like dr as you was talking about. Just now, they take baseball way more serious. You know, they do have the academies, like you say, like as kids like like you say, that's really the only way out. They know that's the way approaching it. They know that's the way off the island. Yeah, that's all they got. So that's and that's why so many, so many them were good these days.

00:30:30
Speaker 1: That's why they're so successful because they do take it way more serious. Yeah, we do over here, and we have more opportunity. We have we have more stuff, but we don't have the opportunity like they do. So they build, they build academies over there. So you know what, they join the academies like when they twelve thirteen years old because they don't have anything else to do. So they train them up, you know, to be be ball players and everything like that. They tell them, if you want to get off to this island, baseball is off ya. And they're doing it. They killing it. They making the most money. Now you're looking major League Baseball as the Latinos, who are are the top players? Yeah, in the game of baseball.

00:31:09
Speaker 2: I saw some on Instagram not too long ago where there was an old man flicking bottle caps to a little Latin boy and he was smacking that ship, but flicking bottle caps, bro not whiffle balls and bottle caps and show.

00:31:22
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that's the old school way, that's that's the way you train them up.

00:31:28
Speaker 2: And I coordination one of the most beautiful swings the game has ever seen.

00:31:32
Speaker 1: Where'd that swing come from? Smooth? I don't know, just just working at it, you know, looking in the mirror everything left handed lick swing though. Yeah, most of the time, when you look at all all left hand hitters, most of them have just still like a swing that just goes. It's kind of all it goes the same way. It's just a different size of a player, but it's kind of the same swing, you know for a left hand hit her. And I think working on it and you when I say working on this, because a lot of times they say you won't be able to hit like that in the big leagues. That's what they said about me. That's what they said about Ed you know, because he had held his hands here. He never hit yep, And they said my leg kick was too high. Never you're wrong, That's that's what scouts say. You know, you know, the scouts say, you know, you can't he can't dribble, he can't pass, you can't do this, you know what I mean, you can't do that, right, I can do it. We're just yeah, exactly. You know that's what they failed to realize about us. You know, you point out us and say we can't do that. No, you mean you can't do that.

00:32:34
Speaker 2: Facts the steroid era, when did you feel like you saw that creep into baseball?

00:32:38
Speaker 1: Was that while you was in there, before you got there, you started, you saw the change, you saw the shift, You saw the shift the guys that wasn't home run hitters, and all of a sudden they hitting.

00:32:49
Speaker 2: Fifty around What year did you feel like you saw that?

00:32:51
Speaker 1: I was in the nineties, Yeah, I was. You saw guys hidden, You saw guys hitting balls in the upper tank, upper upper tank, which is not normal exactly, which is not normal, you know, and and right there you knew something was different. You knew that they were they were on a totally different level of whatever they were doing. And the talk was around but it's okay, you know, it's it's part of it, part of sports. You know, Drugs has always been around, part of sports, but players taking I mean I was on the fetam's my whole career, so I was wired playing you know, every night. So it's not like it was surprised to me that this new time has come in and something has changed and these guys found something at work. You have to find something that works. Unfortunate, but it's real. Everybody got the thing. Everybody's got their things, you know, and you you can't sit you cannot sit around and criticize, you know, a different generation of players. You know, I didn't, you know, from when I saw that, I was like, well, these guys are having fun. You know. It's and they realized that, you know, getting to that place. I'm gonna make more money fast, you know, because now all of a sudden, my numbers are gonna jump up and I'm gonna become a second basement. I've hit forty home runs. You know, it's only one one one second basement that was hitting forty home runs. That was right Sandberg? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was the only one. And now all of a sudden, you got you got mediocre hitters, they dropping forty five.

00:34:26
Speaker 2: And so being on drugs during your career, like what did it because I know I smoked weed before I played, and it allowed me to first of all, take a good nap, wake up, study, film, focus, and then lock in on. I was guarding the best players in the world every single night. Like what it playing on on whatever you were playing on to do for you.

00:34:45
Speaker 1: It was in fetamies. You know. I didn't play on the hard drugs. You know, hard drugs was on off the off the phil you know, the nightlife and party and you get into that, you know, and you know the girls drugs. You know, that was after the games. Oh yeah, that was after gaining hard or you know, you know, it was just a lifestyle. You know, it was the eighties. There was it was there. Nobody was complaining about it, you know, and you know, you just have to be young and you get caught up into that whole visious cycle. But when I when I was playing, you know, I was on the anfetamies, and it just kept me wired, you know, to focus, you know, in the game, stay in the game. It kept my attention on what I was doing, especially the picture, because when I wanted to see that ball, that baseball was coming out of his hand, that ball looked as big, really you know, and when it looked that big, I was like, oh, it's it's it's feeding time. You got to feed yourself. Yeah, you gotta definitely need It's got to be a part of it. But you know, the whole life of drug addiction, what I got into was just really fast off the field, you know, I fell into it. You know when I got out here in California mostly and and and I was born and raised here, and I knew better and I still because I knew every back backstreet. You know, I used to take it back run, Yeah, to take the back treet. So I knew. I knew I was running in the wrong direction, doing the wrong things. At was this I was in early thirties, you know, when I started diabbing and playing around when and drinking and and and getting out there and and just doing whatever I wanted to do. Because you live, man, you live this life for yourself. You get one shot at it. We do it. Ain't no blue friend, there's no blue friend. There's no book there to say you can't do it right. Yeah, that's not a.

00:36:30
Speaker 3: Book, especially for a young black man where we come from. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff we got to learn now.

00:36:35
Speaker 1: Because we ain't had no male figure teachers, nothing, So I had to learn all these things by myself to get out there. And they were they were some learning, hard learning lessons, you know, and I'm grateful for it today, but you know, it was part of it was part of my journey. And people said, well, he could have been this, he could have been there. Well, maybe my journey wasn't meant to be. You know, everybody's journey is not meant to be in the Hall of Fame, you know, just because you have talent, most folks don't know where you come from. They don't know what you been through. Absolutely, they just assumed that you should be well because you're getting a paycheck, especially in your era too.

00:37:07
Speaker 2: Now athletes, I mean, we caught the beginning of social media at the end of our career. But what they saw, what they read in the paper or anything like that was the gospel. So there was never really time to really show what you just said where you come from. And then the struggles and all, it was just, hey, you get a ton of money, you're a superstar.

00:37:24
Speaker 1: You gotta perform, right, and that's that's all it was, you know, And today, you know, today is different. You know, the guys get to be more careful about it because of social media. You'd be a fool if you was out there like I was in the eighties. When we were out there, we didn't have no social media. I had no cameras. I had nobody video on me and following me, which was a good thing. Absolutely.

00:37:49
Speaker 3: That's such goodness, Doc goodness, greatness his first three years and leagues. This is stats fifty nineteen two tween are thirty five complete games, thirteen complete game shoutouts, seven and forty four strikeouts and good second year he had one of the best season seasons ever twenty four. That's like my game status on two K no MLB. Okay, I'm like twenty four to one in my season twenty four and four one point five to three. E.

00:38:19
Speaker 1: R A and the Cy Young talk about how great DoD Goodon was. It was the greatest I've ever seen, the greatest pictures I've ever seen at such a young age. And the why I say that because when he was nineteen years old, when he came up, he had command. He came from Florida, came from Tampa, Florida. Jack Yeah, Gary Sheffield's his nephew. They come from that baseball of playing. But Doc was amazing. I used to play behind him. I was like, Doc, you're a trip. You don't let nobody get no action off Gabe. The sitting everybody down, sitting everybody down, nobody getting you know, they getting hits, but they're like bloopers this and that, and you know, nobody really crushing the ball off. So, I mean, he was ninety when he came up, and you know, he had so much poise for being nineteen years old at the major league level, and great command of getting his breaking ball and throwing it where he needed to throw it and getting his file. He could spot his fastball anyway. And when you when I saw him blowing people away like Mike Smith Andred Dollars heat Rose, I was like, wow, you know. And I mean, and I just remember that eighty five year you talk about that was his cy young year. Now, this was the greatest year I ever seen any picture. And I don't think any picture has been as great as he was in that year at twenty years. So twenty four and twenty four and four with one point five, twenty three or two years ri I mean, man, night after night he just when he went out there, we packed the stadium. Okay, he packed the stadium, but he was the pack of the night he was pitching. Yeah, the parking lot is full before you better get to the ball bar three o'clock because four o'clock that pregame parking lot was full. They gonna pack the stadium. I got a guy up in leftfield corner with a K corner and docs pitcher. Docs, Doc's gonna get twelve thirteen, fourteen ks, you know, on a on a major league level at twenty years old, eating hitters up. I mean, I mean guys used to I remember how guys used to be. When you see the opposing team, they take their vps and some guys in the lineup and then afterwards they scratched they're out of the lineup. Well, something happened to my next Yeah, doctor, I'm not gonna take these three punch outs because he's gonna embarrass you. And I tell you, man, that was the greatest season man to watch watch a picture pitch like that. Incredible, that's dope.

00:40:44
Speaker 3: How was it to have a lot of success and start them with them on a couple of magazines together?

00:40:49
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I mean It was really cool because we were young, we're.

00:40:52
Speaker 2: Black, missus New York too. It was New York's biggest media market in the world.

00:40:56
Speaker 1: But the fans loved us because we brought great joy to a team that was never nothing. Yeah.

00:41:02
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, what seven straight losing seasons before you got there.

00:41:05
Speaker 1: When I got here in eighty three, yeah, and they were always the last place team, and we turned that around. From eighty four we finished second, eighty five we finished we finished second, eighty six, we finished first. You know, within when I was twenty four years old, we were playing in the World Series. You know, at twenty four, you think it's gonna happen. It just happened overy night every time, but it's not, you know, and a lot of times guy thinks they're just gonna get there all the time and in every sport. But it's not that easy. Granted, yeah, it's it's hard to do. And we got there, and we should have had a couple more times of being there, but we were living in New York and we were just having fun and it was a wild, crazy team, you know, just had fun. We I mean, you didn't want to mess with the match. Back in those days when we were straight on and off the field, on and off the field. But New York was crazy. You had Mike Tyson, Lawrence Taylor. You know, oh, y'all was in the streets. I got a Tom Machine has spent a day with him in New York. You know what I'm saying. I was, I want a knight, I need a knife, man. It was you know, you think about it, it was it was lt. Tyson, The Mets, the Yankees wasn't even talked about in eighties. We controlled the city in the eighties, those years from my eight years there after after my rookie year, we controlled the city and we took over the city. And it was about the Mets and about the Mets winning. It was about the giants, like you said, Elk, and it was about Mike Tyson came along. Mike Tyson showed up to say, say, Stadium eighty six. He goes, I want to meet Doc Gooden and Darryl Struberry. So he came and it was we met him. He wasn't even the heavyweight champion the time. He was still young and he was talking about him. But being a heavyweight champion. That's that. When you see that picture of him getting ready to punch Doc. That was that was eighty six that he came to see us, and he.

00:42:54
Speaker 2: Right here, Yeah that picture right there, young young Mike about nineteen.

00:42:59
Speaker 1: I was. I was like, Doc, go ahead. I was like, go ahead through your punch. Now. You said you're gonna knock him out, Doc. I was telling Doctor to his punch day it was greasy. He said his ship was greasy. He saw what he was pitching and how he was sweating, and the curls and the grease just come off with me. Man. He probably was Mike's idols like during this time, Like like you said, two black baseball players at the time was the North young and that's what Mike came to see. He was like, man, I gotta go see these guys.

00:43:29
Speaker 2: You got the off the field stories you could tell with Michael LT.

00:43:32
Speaker 1: Not really, I mean LT was. I mean I didn't see Mike a lot in the city, but we saw l T every party. Yeah, yeah, that's LT said. He had no other way say, he didn't want to know other way. He was with everybody, you know, but you know he was he was l T was the man of New York City and everywhere he went it was just like L T l T because he had a big l T lightning rod in the area. Yeah, and you know when you saw l T, everybody just there, there's Lawrence Taylor. One of a kind and he was you know, he was one of a kind. He was very special. But at the same time, he wasn't he wasn't over the top. He was really cool. You know what I'm saying down to earth. You know, like we all played together in the same city, and you know, it's like we won big family because we all here in New York City. When I say his name Keith Andandez, what comes to mind. I love Keith. Yeah. I have my battles with him, of course, because he had said something to the press about my contract negotiation and spring training and I just kind of went after. You know, I'm just like a hood right, It's like, why are you talking about somebody else? Yeah? So, but I loved it because he taught me so he taught me so much how to play the game. He taught me how to hit left hand pitching and showed me what to do. And I went on and I like hit twenty home runs off of left hand pitching. Was he a leader. He was a great leader. Yeah, he was very tense. His leadership skills were phenomenal because we were all young and he had already been in the Big League. She played in Saint Louis. You'd already want a championship, want an MVP. And so with him coming over to the match, he really helped us because we were like young players and he helped the young pitching style. He helped us elevate our game to the next level. I know he helped me elevate my game to the next level because when he taught me how to hit left hand pitching. It's like if the guys, if the guy is not throwing hard enough, get up in the box so you can catch it before it breaks. For guy throwing hard, get deep in the box so you can let the ball get deeper and then you can hit the ball the other way. And man, man, that man so much to me, that's the game right there. Heard never heard nothing like that. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He wasn't show that on the game. So now you could take that advice though, Yeah, yeah, it was great advice man. And and if you listen to some guys like that, then then you become productive, more productive at doing what you're doing. You already have the skills to do what you do, but you listen to a guy like that knows how to do it. He's been there and done it. Man. Man, I was like, man, wow.

00:46:12
Speaker 2: All sports missed that. I'm trying to stress that to our fans. This eighty six World Series team was loaded. Harry Carter, Keith Hernandez both top five and NBV voting you, Lenny Dyke, Strech, Anny, Mookie Wilson, Kevin Mitchell.

00:46:25
Speaker 1: Pitching staff was tough. Doc Ron Darling, Ron Darling, Bob.

00:46:29
Speaker 2: Ojea, Ojeida Said Fernandez all top ten, and Cy Young voting loaded teams.

00:46:36
Speaker 1: I just like saying his name, Ron Darling. He was the darling because he went to Yale University. But he was like all he was like always smarter than everybody else, you know, because Yelle grads.

00:46:48
Speaker 2: And so he's like, talk to me about that team.

00:46:50
Speaker 1: That was an incredible team, incredible group of guys who loved and cared for each other one that's why we want That's what was so special about it. Because we had lost the year before against the Cardinals and eighty five and we had won ninety eight games that year and our last game in Saint Louis. I remember eighty five. Our locker room was quiet after the season was over, and we just felt like we're coming back with the same group of guys. But we felt like nobody's gonna ever put their foot on our neck. Again. You know, We're never gonna let that happen again. And we came into eighty six that year and our first day and spring training, David Johnson goes, we're gonna win it all, and we just kind of looked around and thought to ourselves, Yeah, we're gonna win it all. And we got off to a slow start, and then the media was like, yeah, right, they're gonna win it all, and we just took off. And when we took off, we didn't look back. And the thing about us is you didn't want to mess with us because we're gonna put these on year. It was real. It was real, this team here, the eighty six men, not all the other teams, you know, because we had guys like Kevin Mitchell.

00:48:00
Speaker 2: Then Mitchell like he used to have a go too when he played for the.

00:48:06
Speaker 1: Hand. Yeah, but mich but Mitch was something man because every time we got in the fight, we always had to look for Mitch because he he would always have somebody in the choke hold and he's straight trying to kill him because he had one guy in Pittsburgh, Sammy Khalif he's like miss let him go, Miss like kill us. He hadn't locked up, and it's like you gotta let him go, Mitch, you know. But but he was a part of it. You know, he was a part of everything that we did. You know, as far as the team and the players, we all had each other back because, you know, if if we went out, we went out in the group because we knew that people were gonna like be trying to, you know, pick at us. So you know, players went out in the group. And then when they got into trouble, you know, they got in the group fight like it's in Houston. They got in the group fight in the bar and they got arrested. And the secret chary he called me and he goes, Straw, he goes, good thing you in bed and he was like what happened? He was like, your boys got arrested. I was like, damn, I missed it. I was saying to myself like that, I'll say what happened? He said, they got into a fight in the bar, and I was like, wow, man, I hope they didn't get hurt, because those are your boys, you know. You know they're gonna be there for you, you know, through through it all, because you know, when I used to charge your mount and I couldn't get to him, they got to him, you know, by the way.

00:49:30
Speaker 2: You know, did they get to play the next day?

00:49:33
Speaker 1: The guys, Yeah, we got to play the next day.

00:49:34
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the guys they got arrested, got out and still played the next day.

00:49:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, we still played, and they still played the next day. And we were in Houston and the fans were like, you know, they had like signs up with the match being arrested behind bars and stuff like that, and yeah, the same thing what they had, Like the fight. They hadd me in the cardboard cut out with my face.

00:49:56
Speaker 3: But it wasn't just it was the life the light of the jail uniform from life and had my face.

00:50:01
Speaker 1: Oh that she was a classic.

00:50:03
Speaker 2: Talk to us about one of the most unfortunate but memorable plays in the history of the game, that Bill Buckner.

00:50:10
Speaker 1: Well everybody wants to blame Bill Buckner for that play. Yeah, of course he missed the barker. He was trying to beat Mookie to the base. But you think about Stanley and Sharoti, they couldn't get nobody out. That was two hours. That's where it started. That's where it started right there. You know, they just go to the Bill Buckner player, right and Sharati couldn't get nobody else. Stanley comes in, he throws a wild pitch and he's bitch a scores. Mookie comes up, he battle, he hits the ground ball to Buckner. Buckler knows that his knees are bad, and he tries to beat Muoki to the bag and he misses the ball and Ray and that comes in the score. Buckner was a great player, you know, people he almost had three thousand hits. You know, people don't recognize how good of a player he was. But he was late in his career and he had some injuries, and he just made a play where he didn't make the play, and that's all it was, you know, And and they crucified him and Boston. He couldn't even go back there. He couldn't even stay there and live there. I wouldn't want to live there anywhere in Boston. You know, those people there, man was something else, you know, for the way they treated him and his family and everything, and it was really sad. And then they finally after they won, they were like, okay, we forgive you. Well so so he said, his knees is bad from all the years of playing. His knees is already bad, already bad bad hip bad knees bad.

00:51:34
Speaker 2: And you got Moviie Wilson flying down the base.

00:51:37
Speaker 1: Movie coming down that back fast too, and it would have been a close play. But you know, I think he went to get the ball and he looked up and saw Mookie and the ball rope right under this.

00:51:48
Speaker 3: Stuff left the midst of nineteen ninety the John the Dodgers said, that was the biggest regret of your career.

00:51:53
Speaker 1: Why, well, because that wasn't nothing against you know, my hometown and the Dodgers. It was against the fact that I was used to playing in New York Major bed with the Mits. You know. I was eight years there, you know, and and didn't realize that I would miss the animals. You know, of what I call fans. They act like animals when you don't play well. And I love that. I got off on that, you know, because they come to the ballpark early and they never leave and they sit over the dug out and they yell at you and tell you suck when you're sucking. And I thrived off of that. That was big for me. I wasn't. I wasn't one of those players that felt like that that was a problem. I was like, I suck. I was like, man, I'm finna hit two off the schoolboard. I remember, I remember Deebo Dr Boston, he was like, came over and was playing with us. I remember he said, what're you gonna do tonight, strong man? I said, Man, I'm gonna hit two off the schoolboard. They're gonna call me out for curtain calls. I ain't coming out from the curtain calls. I'm going down in the tunnel, smoke me a heater, smoked me a heater. And then yes, yes he's a new one. But it also happened. He did. I used to do it all the time, go down there first bam off the school but they called. They stand on their feet. I'm down there puffing new porch, gonna smoke me, and they say he said, they say, what you go do that? I said, I'm gonna hit another one. Bam, I hit another one. He said, you're going out curtain cars like, man, I'm going down there and puff me. They tripping. They were born just a minute ago. And that's that was That was part of what I miss. You know, sometimes players have to play in places where it drives them, you know, and that was just one of those particular type of players. New York fans really drive me, you know, they make me go. Can you talk about your deferred money contract? Was one of the first ones to do it actually still getting paid me from the nets. Now you got teams like the Dodgers abusing it. He abusing this. Yeah, deferd was a big thing back then. You know when I signed the contract, when I signed a contractor was nineteen eighty four, after my rookie year, it signed eight year in deferred money and and put it away, which is which is a which is a great idea. Yeah, which is a great idea because if you don't you he me, you're young. Come on, man, you're gonna be running through them dollars now you're gonna be buying everything cars and another car just to have another car, you know, yeah, exactly. And I did all that and and I realized that, you know, if if I did hadn't done that, you know, would have never had that there, you know, for it for myself. And it was it was a big part of you know, my agent doing that for me, because when you're young, you don't know about you don't know about you know, finance, and you're not thinking twenty years from now. You're not thinking. You're not thinking afterwards once you're done. Uh, where am I? What's gonna happen? What's next? And and and I think I was sitting in that place just like mostly everybody. But now the way they deferred money, they're gonna be paying players forever, yeah, for a long time. And you started it, and they can they are franchise you know, franchise franchises can do that because of uh, they're never going out of business, right, so they're gonna alway being able to have you know, money in, money coming in, money going out, money coming in. So you got a chance to play when you were Barry, Yes, how was that? Barry is the greatest player I ever ever seen. I saw Barry when he first came up with the Pirates. Never seen nobody like that. I was like, Wow, who's this guy, A little skinny kid they got Pittsburgh. He turns a ninety five mile Parol fastball, Doc Gooding around, hitted out the ballpark. I said, man, he's special. Then I saw him play. I was like, there's nobody, nobody like that. And I mean nobody. I don't care how many players have played this game. There's never been a player like Barry Bond. Never. Boy could do everything good and he'll let you know it, which was which was great because I know and understand why he was like that, and you know, the media didn't know and understand why he was like that. But it was like that because they treated his father bad and his father was a great player, and he never got the credit for, you know, the kind of player he was. See what a lot of times what people don't understand this. Black players never get the credit for how good they really are and what they do because you know, the media always want to make it out of well, well, well you should. You make it look so easy. This is not easy what you're doing. I mean, this is hard what we're doing, you know, out there on the ball field and trying to be a complete player. And that's what Bobby Bonds was, and that's what Barry Bonds was. Barry took right after his father being a complete player playing the game of baseball. I have never seen nobody ever that good.

00:56:42
Speaker 2: From the second youst step in the batter's box, timing, what's going through your mind?

00:56:45
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna get two good pictures, so showing them I got to hit may follow one off. You know, picture may think he's got me, but I'm gonna get another good one.

00:56:55
Speaker 3: You gotta wait on they meet ball. Huh, I'm gonna get it, yeah, because pictures are dumb. Ship, They're gonna throw a ball.

00:57:02
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you what I what I know about him, you know, because I bade him in like you know, you're thinking, oh, he got me all. He got that fastball by me. No, you got to him all my hands. But next time I'm to extend these hands and I'm gonna get him out because he's coming back in here. Many of them used to do that. I got straw on the inside because he filed it off. He came right back in, got the hands out quicker see you you know, And that's just part of the game. You learn how to play with them if you if you don't, if you don't know who you are, you could never elevate your game if you don't know who you are when you're facing somebody that think they got you, because if you don't, he's gonna get you, because it's already hard enough to do. But I had that. You got to have that mindset of you can't beat me, you know. And that's what I did. I had that before I even stepped in about his box. I'd be on their own deck circle. And this out, well, a lot of people don't know how the game. I learned how the game was good. I'm on their own deck circle. I'm watching the catcher move in and out because see when he moves in, its fastball in, when he moves away, his fastball away, when he sits in the middle of the plates, breaking ball. So when I get up to the plate, I don't have to look back. I can feel him moving and I know I know he's coming in. I can feel him when I can feel him when he moves in, because you know how to catch you you know, it's how to catch it. He's always looking up at the hitter. But I never had the peak, you know, because I knew why you feeling the field that I got from you, You're gonna move. And when you move, if it's away, oh I got you. That's a fastball way. You can't throw a breaking ball away. He's the only time he sets up in the middle of the play is when it's off speed. So that was always fun. So I want to one more question a BYuT that.

00:58:51
Speaker 3: So he's saying, when they throw an inside, you want to get your beat out early.

00:58:54
Speaker 1: Get that. Yeah, get my hands through. Okay, I just got to get my hands through to the zone. The basket gonna come. It's all about It's all about your It's all about your hands when you there. And if you don't get your hands through and they dragging like jam, you're gonna follow it or you're gonna jam it. But if I get those hands through, the batch coming, and it's gonna take care of that point first.

00:59:16
Speaker 2: The first thing to come to minds about about these players and situations. You win the World Series with Jeter in ninety six, his rookie year, thoughts on that team and in him his first year.

00:59:27
Speaker 1: Jeter was incredible, incredible teammate. Was he getting donuts and ship as a rookie? Uti? No, I mean he didn't. I mean, he didn't have to do rook Yeah, he did, not mean because he rolled in there and he was. He rolled in there and he was he was so cool and so good man, I mean, and he just he was just one of those players that had it okay because everybody didn't like him, and everybody wanted to criticize. But he wasn't that good man. You played for the New York Yankees, the short stop of the best team in baseball. Who cares if they don't like And people used to say things. I used to think to myself, Man, dere God, I don't know how you don't come back and say something about it. I was like, man, food's talk about say something to me? Like man, I was all up in their face. And I don't care teammates or not, you know. But he wouldn't be that guy. He wasn't that guy. He just let it go and he just went out there and played every day man, and he became like just a solid player, uh and became the captain of the Yankees. What I love about him is he kept his life private. Man, that boy had some women. Boy, I ain't mad at him. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. But he kept his business out of the paper, you know, and he didn't let he didn't let nobody know anything about him. And that was a good thing about him. And he was smart. He waited till his career at the end decided well, now, you know, let me settle down and let me get married, let me have a family. So, I mean he did it the right way.

01:01:04
Speaker 2: George Steinbrenner, how instrumental for you?

01:01:06
Speaker 1: Oh, the boss was incredible. I mean, he loved his players. The media was always negative saying things about people, Oh, he shouldn't get this guy, shouldn't get the guy George. It's like I think he was like, more like, who are you to tell me who I should get? You know, George was all about people. He was all about helping people. You know. I think he probably knew a lot about people that struggle with different things and he just had great compassion for that, you know. And and the media never wanted to give him credit for that because you know, he was helping this guy, helping that guy. This guy had a problem, This guy had a didrug problem. Helping him. Why is he helping these guys and most of the most of the people and ownership and stuff like that, and people in front office would turn it back and looked the other way, and a lot of people complained about him. You know, when I was going to the Yankees, and he was like, man, screw you, guys. This guy is a New York guy here. You know, he's coming in here and he's gonna play for the Yankees. He gonna play for me. So I was always great, you know, grateful for him and his family and what they did for me and my family. Mariano rivera moe. Couldn't hit him, couldn't figure him out, nobody, and he only had one pitch, a cutter. They threw it like ninety five and when it came across that plate, it may look like it's straight on television, but when that hitter is up there, that ball is not straight. That ball's cutting like that cutting is cutting on your hand. And that's hard. That's a hard pitch to hit when it's coming that fast and it's got great movement like that. Because guys didn't the guys couldn't get the head out. You know, he sawing off bats another bats all though, so he was lights out.

01:02:48
Speaker 2: Legendary brawl versus the Orioles came off the top steps of the dugout with the flying punch.

01:02:54
Speaker 1: You remember that situation, A mindo beneath their do I remember it? Yeah, we're pretty crazy. Yeah, you know it's it's like we're the Yankees. Man, when you play in New York, you better either stand up or people are gonna and try to push you over. And Benita's hit Martinez Uh in the back after Bernie just run and then we got into the bra and we was all in there. Man. I was in the dugout fighting minute. It was like crazy, Man, I got hit, somebody busting me in my face. You gotta but you know you will get hit in these bras. You know why you gotta keep it for. You got to keep moving, you know. But I hit and I fell in the dugout. Now I get hitting the dugout. Now we're going bra and yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, he called me off guard. But you know what, great hit. Yeah, but I didn't fall out. Now you got you got a good one there. Why I came but I I was right there and standing up and he hit me and we went at it and was on was that the dude? That was someone else hit you? Right? Yeah? Because I was like felling the dug out. I was coming back up like you landed on your feet. Though He's like bam. I was like, okay, yeah, that's that's good right there. It's part of it when you were.

01:04:15
Speaker 2: Team team, Team, Team, Girk make the dream or real quick before we get to quick hitters. Obviously, steps and abuse was an issue throughout your career or excuse me, at some part of your career. How did you manage that and was still out there every day as a pro?

01:04:32
Speaker 1: I guess because of a life like I said, before growing up and when you grow up like where I come from, you you know that you have a window of chance and opportunity and you make the best out of it. You don't let anything destroy that for you. Even though it was destroying me, I still didn't let it destroy the fact that I can go out there and perform. And that was a uh, that was a great thing. Like I said, from where I come from, and when you when you come from those areas, man, you got to be tough. I mean people, I think a lot of people talk about it Stephen though, I mean he he comes from that. You come from those areas. Man, you you cannot be in between. You got to know that, you know, regardless of what that, I could still get up and do what I need to do. Uh as hard as it is, uh, but we do it. And I think that that all comes around from, you know, the area I come from and school and all the things that I had been through.

01:05:36
Speaker 2: When was enough for enough for you? When did you did you seek help? Was one day? Just stop it?

01:05:41
Speaker 1: It was a long journey, you know, I mean it was. Man. I ended up in the Florida State Prison with a T one sixty nine because of addiction down there in Florida, messing around in Florida in the South, and they were talking about I was a mester society. The judge was like, no, not, he has the drug pubm. He ain't killed nobody. You know, what are you talking about? People have drug problems or are illed. You know, it doesn't mean that they're bad. People have. The people in their courtroom got then thing they do everybody, Yeah, exactly, that's it. That's all it is. They just hide it better because you you do know that when you've been around it and you learn and you see they have the same everybody. Everybody they got they got some of them got the same problems. People in high places got the same problem. You know, they could be see you all over company. He's got the same kind of problem. And just like you said, they hid it better. And you know, when you on the spotlight and you're a professional sports, they're gonna they're gonna hammer you. They're gonna put you on the spotlight and they will keep that beam on you until they destroy you. Use that's their whole purpose is to destroy you.

01:06:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is quick hitters. First thing to come to mind. Let us know, smartest picture you ever faced.

01:06:45
Speaker 1: The best people you ever faced with. Nolan Ryan. Okay, Nolan was old school. He had a different demeanor, a big old country boy. He was standing on their mound, his legs just big, his shoulders just big, and he'd be like looking at you, like you better get in the box. You know I ain't playing. And if you didn't get in the box and you dig in, he'd be like you better not dig in either. He had just looked like, don't dig in, get in the box, because if you dig in, he's coming right up under your chair. You don't care who you are. School. He was the old school baseball. He's like Bob Gibson, Tom sever those guys like pitch up and in on you and get you off that plate. Yeah, Robert learned the hard way. Are you sure who's the goat? Who's the gold in baseball? Barry Bonds? No doubt. One album you can listen to on repeat? Oh? One album George Clinton Uncadelics, Buncadelics. Yeah, I can't go wrong with that. We grew up with that. I mean I grew up with that in high school.

01:07:46
Speaker 3: Rank them, Jordan Kobe Brown, rank him, Jordan Kobe.

01:07:54
Speaker 1: Labron. Yeah, yeah, childhood crush. No, you have one, especially New York at eighteen with that bag. I don't know. I mean I had to be what's your name? Jane Kennedy.

01:08:13
Speaker 2: I don't want said that before us the first time hearing the funniest teammates you ever had?

01:08:17
Speaker 1: In what team? Was it? Funniest teammate had to be Lenny Doctor there with the match and you know he's just dude, dude, you have a slur, he said like he used to. Yeah, do you think the girls wanting? You think the girls I was like, yeah, dude, they love you.

01:08:44
Speaker 3: If you can see one guest on our show, who would it be? But you have to help us get your answer on the show. One guest on your show? Oh Man, who would that be? No, I don't know.

01:08:55
Speaker 1: I'd like to see I would like to see Derek Geter come on you guys show. Yes, yes, I would got to be so definitely welcome Derek, Jesus well Dale. Man.

01:09:03
Speaker 2: We appreciate you, cringe yall, legend, baseball legend. Thank you for sitting down and spend some time with us.

01:09:09
Speaker 1: Man, thanks for having me bro appreciate you, guys. Manager, you sir, you sir, you sir.

01:09:14
Speaker 2: That's a rap, Daryl Strawberry. You can catch us on All the Smoke YouTube and the DraftKings Network.

01:09:18
Speaker 1: We'll see y'all next week. M hm mm hmmm, h m hmm.