To this present day, 43 years later, Darryl Strawberry nonetheless has a nickname for his 1981 season with the Class A Lynchburg Mets.
“I name it,” Strawberry mentioned by telephone final week, “the suck season.”
The suck season was, on the time, probably the most difficult of Strawberry’s life. It was the season he first confronted failure on the baseball diamond. It was the season he first heard racist slurs from the stands. It was the season he got here oh-so-close to quitting baseball and hanging up his jersey for good.
And so when Strawberry’s No. 18 is retired June 1 at Citi Discipline, it’s solely becoming that amongst his honored visitors would be the two individuals who pushed him by the suck season: supervisor Gene Dusan and teammate Lloyd McClendon.
“All people seems on the success, however I take a look at the individuals who had a fantastic impression on me,” Strawberry mentioned. “There’s no approach that I’d be standing on the sector having my quantity retired had it not been for folks like them getting me by probably the most difficult, troublesome instances at a younger age.”
The primary month of Strawberry’s first full season in professional ball had not gone nicely. Failing on the sector for the primary time is tough sufficient for any participant. Strawberry had a number of additional spotlights on him.
The prior summer season, he had been the No. 1 select of Crenshaw Excessive Faculty in Los Angeles, the place his coach had referred to as him “the black Ted Williams” in Sports activities Illustrated. His signing bonus, whereas not a file, greater than doubled that of the earlier No. 1 choose.
And he was a black man taking part in in a southern metropolis in Virginia. So when he struggled on the sector, he heard it from the Carolina League crowds. House video games, highway video games, any video games — Strawberry heard the worst of it.
“They have been calling me all sort of names and saying detrimental issues,” Strawberry mentioned. “You’re speaking in regards to the deep south. I used to be like, ‘That is loopy.’ I grew up in Southern California and we by no means needed to expertise that rising up.”
“Pay attention, it was 1981. Society as an entire didn’t fairly embrace us — black people,” McClendon mentioned. “They used to go the hat for anyone who hit a house run. We hit house runs and we acquired nothing.”
By early Might, Strawberry needed to take his bat into the stands, he mentioned. As an alternative, he took his bat house.
“I simply checked out,” he mentioned. “I did go AWOL.”
“He left for a pair days,” Dusan mentioned. “It was regarding that he left. I felt like he’d be again. I knew he’d be again.”
Somewhat than chase Strawberry, Dusan gave him area. He didn’t even inform the higher-ups within the Mets entrance workplace.
“If I did that at present, they’d hearth me,” he chuckled. “Issues have been totally different within the early ’80s.”
Two days later, Strawberry returned to the park, thanks largely to his relationships with Dusan and McClendon. Strawberry and McClendon had bonded the yr earlier than in rookie ball in Kingsport, Tenn., after they roomed collectively and had one another’s backs throughout their first summer season within the South.
“I assume we needed to shield one another,” McClendon mentioned.
Lloyd McClendon, pictured in 2019 as a coach with the Tigers, was an necessary determine in Darryl Strawberry’s early professional years. (Wealthy von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire through Related Press)
And McClendon hadn’t been there at first of the ’81 season in Lynchburg due to a damaged hand he suffered in spring coaching. However when Strawberry left the workforce, that rehab interval turned quite a bit shorter for McClendon.
“Once I noticed him on the park, then I used to be completely happy,” Strawberry mentioned, “to see a face and somebody of colour identical to me.”
Dusan made positive the 2 roomed collectively once more, despite the fact that McClendon had gotten married.
“You must handle him,” McClendon remembered Dusan saying, “as a result of he’s not going to make it if you happen to don’t.”
“I don’t know if I used to be sufficiently old to be a mentor on the time,” mentioned McClendon, who was 22 that season, “however I used to be actually a pal and a voice he might speak to. No matter little knowledge that I had I attempted to go alongside.”
And Dusan’s tough-love method as a supervisor was what Strawberry wanted at that time. The day Strawberry returned to the membership, Dusan didn’t precisely rejoice.
“I’m glad you’re again. I’m glad you’re wholesome,” he informed the participant. “We’ve acquired to go to work.”
From that day ahead, Dusan remembered, Strawberry turned the very best participant he ever coached.
“He was there day by day for additional hitting,” Dusan mentioned. “As soon as he utilized himself, he was the person.”
There was a purpose Strawberry was all the time there for additional hitting.
“Let me put it this manner: In an excellent approach, Gene was a ache within the ass to Darryl and I,” McClendon mentioned. “After we have been on the highway, he would wake us up at 8 each morning and we had go to the ballpark. I assume he noticed one thing particular in each of us. He noticed it in Darryl, for positive.”
“Gene Dusan was like a father determine to me that I didn’t have. He embraced me to combat by some adversities early,” Strawberry mentioned. “I turned part of his household. It was simply very private to me.”
How a lot part of the household? Strawberry helped babysit Dusan’s kids.
“Geno stored me going, stored me centered on not trying up there and interacting with the folks up there (within the stands),” Strawberry mentioned. “That basically helped me as a result of I actually didn’t wish to play anymore, for a minute there.”
“He taught us a lot about not simply baseball however life typically and the way you go about what you are promoting,” mentioned McClendon, who went on to handle greater than 1,100 major-league video games. “You arise and reside by your phrase and be taught to be a person of honor. It was fairly cool.”
For Strawberry, the suck season stays an necessary a part of his story. That first expertise of adversity helped him by the various later difficult intervals he endured, each self-inflicted and never. It was a studying second, he mentioned, one which got here up at any time when his kids needed to provide one thing up at a troublesome time.
In ’82, taking part in for Dusan in Double-A Jackson, Miss., Strawberry broke by with 34 homers, 45 stolen bases and an OPS over 1.000. Two years after the suck season, Strawberry was the Nationwide League’s Rookie of the 12 months.
“I made the proper determination to combat by the adversities and begin believing,” Strawberry mentioned. “I’m without end grateful for that and for actual folks. These are actual folks. These usually are not those who sugarcoat every thing about you. However the those who confirmed me overcome.”
“It’s laborious to imagine,” Dusan mentioned about watching {the teenager} he managed have his quantity retired. “I respect how he feels about me. I’m pleased with him.”
(Picture of Darryl Strawberry batting for the