New York Mets: Darryl Strawberry declares end to relationship with team
By Tim Haberin
Darryl Strawberry went through plenty of ups and downs with the New York Mets, but the former slugger feels his relationship with the club is beyond repair.
Darryl Strawberry played the best seasons of his 17-year career with the New York Mets, earning the Rookie of the Year Award, seven consecutive All-Star Game appearances and the 1986 World Series championship with the team. However, the former outfielder has made it abundantly clear he wants nothing more to do with the organization.
According to CBS New York, Strawberry was on Mike Francesa’s WFAN radio show on Thursday to declare that his relationship with the Mets was effectively dead. He remained relatively vague and cryptic throughout the interview, which can be listened to in its entirety on CBS New York’s site, except to say that his dispute was with the club’s ownership.
"“It’s pretty clear with the organization of the Mets, it’s not the players, it’s not the fans, it’s not (general manager) Sandy (Alderson) and the new regime. It’s the ownership. It’s the ownership,” Strawberry said. “My relationship is done with them. I’m never going to be a part of that again. I’ll never return to a reunion or anything ever again.”"
Per NJ.com, Strawberry proceeded to claim that he didn’t have a problem with Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon. Instead, he implied that Wilpon’s son Jeff was the target of his ire within the team’s hierarchy. He added that he had no major issues with any former teammates; rather, he cited a perceived lack of respect from the organization toward players like himself, Gary Carter and Wally Backman.
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Strawberry famously struggled with drug addiction during his career, which made his time with the Mets in the 1980s often tumultuous. Given the immense talent he showcased in his early years, Strawberry’s potential career trajectory if he hadn’t been derailed by substance abuse is among baseball’s major “what if” stories.
Strawberry publicly clashed with former teammate Dwight Gooden in 2016 after claiming that the Cy Young winner had fallen back into his own drug-using ways. Gooden fiercely denied the accusations, but the two seemed to have rectified their relationship after attending this year’s Mets opener together at Citi Field.
As a thoroughly disappointing season winds down, Strawberry likely didn’t make Mets fans feel any better by propping up their cross-town rivals the Yankees as an example of organizational class. He commended the Yanks, with whom he won three additional World Series rings, for treating former players like “family.”
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Strawberry made the comments while promoting his new book Don’t Give Up on Me: Shedding Light on Addiction, which releases next month. While his words sounded definitive, teams and disgruntled former stars have mended badly-damaged fences before. It remains to be seen whether Strawberry and the Mets re-embrace one another in the future, or if this really is an unsalvageable situation.