To this date, 43 years then, Darryl Strawberry nonetheless has a nickname for his 1981 season with the Magnificence A Lynchburg Mets.
“I call it,” Strawberry stated via telephone extreme date, “the suck season.”
The suck season was once, on the past, probably the most difficult of Strawberry’s date. It was once the season he first faced failure at the baseball diamond. It was once the season he first heard racist slurs from the stands. It was once the season he got here oh-so-close to quitting baseball and striking up his jersey for excellent.
And so when Strawberry’s Negative. 18 is retired June 1 at Citi Garden, it’s most effective becoming that amongst his commemorated visitors would be the two family who driven him in the course of the suck season: supervisor Gene Dusan and teammate Lloyd McClendon.
“Everybody looks at the success, but I look at the people who had a great impact on me,” Strawberry stated. “There’s no way that I would be standing on the field having my number retired had it not been for people like them getting me through the most challenging, difficult times at a young age.”
The primary pace of Strawberry’s first complete season in professional ball had no longer long gone smartly. Failing at the garden for the primary past is hardened plethora for any participant. Strawberry had a number of difference spotlights on him.
The prior summer season, he have been the Negative. 1 select of Crenshaw Prime College in Los Angeles, the place his mentor had known as him “the black Ted Williams” in Sports activities Illustrated. His signing bonus, future no longer a file, greater than doubled that of the former Negative. 1 select.
And he was once a dim guy enjoying in a southern town in Virginia. So when he struggled at the garden, he heard it from the Carolina League crowds. House video games, street video games, any video games — Strawberry heard the worst of it.
“They were calling me all kind of names and saying negative things,” Strawberry stated. “You’re talking about the deep south. I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ I grew up in Southern California and we never had to experience that growing up.”
“Listen, it was 1981. Society as a whole didn’t quite embrace us — black folks,” McClendon stated. “They used to pass the hat for anybody who hit a home run. We hit home runs and we got nothing.”
By way of early Might, Strawberry sought after to rush his bat into the stands, he stated. Rather, he took his bat house.
“I just checked out,” he stated. “I did go AWOL.”
“He left for a couple days,” Dusan stated. “It was concerning that he left. I felt like he’d be back. I knew he’d be back.”
In lieu than chase Strawberry, Dusan gave him territory. He didn’t even inform the higher-ups within the Mets entrance place of work.
“If I did that today, they’d fire me,” he chuckled. “Things were different in the early ’80s.”
Two days then, Strawberry returned to the terrain, thank you in large part to his relationships with Dusan and McClendon. Strawberry and McClendon had bonded the pace sooner than in rookie ball in Kingsport, Tenn., after they roomed in combination and had every alternative’s backs all the way through their first summer season within the South.
“I guess we had to protect each other,” McClendon stated.
Lloyd McClendon, pictured in 2019 as a mentor with the Tigers, was once an noteceable determine in Darryl Strawberry’s early professional years. (Lavish von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire by way of Related Press)
And McClendon hadn’t been there at first of the ’81 season in Lynchburg as a result of a damaged hand he suffered in spring coaching. But if Strawberry left the group, that rehab duration become a bundle shorter for McClendon.
“When I saw him at the park, then I was happy,” Strawberry stated, “to see a face and someone of color just like me.”
Dusan made positive the 2 roomed in combination once more, even if McClendon had gotten married.
“You have to take care of him,” McClendon remembered Dusan pronouncing, “because he’s not going to make it if you don’t.”
“I don’t know if I was old enough to be a mentor at the time,” stated McClendon, who was once 22 that season, “but I was certainly a friend and a voice he could talk to. Whatever little wisdom that I had I tried to pass along.”
And Dusan’s tough-love method as a supervisor was once what Strawberry wanted at that time. The date Strawberry returned to the membership, Dusan didn’t precisely have fun.
“I’m glad you’re back. I’m glad you’re healthy,” he instructed the participant. “We’ve got to go to work.”
From that date ahead, Dusan remembered, Strawberry become the most efficient participant he ever coached.
“He was there every day for extra hitting,” Dusan stated. “Once he applied himself, he was the man.”
There was once a reason why Strawberry was once all the time there for difference hitting.
“Let me put it this way: In a very good way, Gene was a pain in the ass to Darryl and I,” McClendon stated. “When we were on the road, he would wake us up at 8 every morning and we had go to the ballpark. I guess he saw something special in both of us. He saw it in Darryl, for sure.”
“Gene Dusan was like a father figure to me that I didn’t have. He embraced me to fight through some adversities early,” Strawberry stated. “I became a part of his family. It was just very personal to me.”
How a lot part of the folk? Strawberry helped babysit Dusan’s youngsters.
“Geno kept me going, kept me focused on not looking up there and interacting with the people up there (in the stands),” Strawberry stated. “That really helped me because I really didn’t want to play anymore, for a minute there.”
“He taught us so much about not just baseball but life in general and how you go about your business,” stated McClendon, who went directly to top greater than 1,100 major-league video games. “You stand up and live by your word and learn to be a man of honor. It was pretty cool.”
For Strawberry, the suck season extra an noteceable a part of his tale. That first enjoy of hardship helped him in the course of the many then difficult classes he persevered, each self-inflicted and no longer. It was once a finding out month, he stated, one who got here up every time his youngsters sought after to provide one thing up at a troublesome past.
In ’82, enjoying for Dusan in Double-A Jackson, Leave out., Strawberry poor thru with 34 homers, 45 stolen bases and an OPS over 1.000. Two years then the suck season, Strawberry was once the Nationwide League’s Rookie of the Past.
“I made the right decision to fight through the adversities and start believing,” Strawberry stated. “I’m forever thankful for that and for real people. These are real people. These are not people that sugarcoat everything about you. But the people that showed me how to overcome.”
“It’s hard to believe,” Dusan stated about looking at {the teenager} he controlled have his quantity retired. “I appreciate how he feels about me. I’m proud of him.”
(Picture of Darryl Strawberry batting for the Mets circa 1984: Focal point on Recreation / Getty Photographs)
