I had a revelation the other day and it wasn’t at 3 AM. This one occurred when I was watching the Yankee game on Fox and it was Old Timer’s Day at the Stadium. They showed a clip of Daryl Strawberry sliding into 3rd base. This caused me great pain. Seeing him living his retirement as a Yankee was almost a traumatic experience. Daryl was the first athlete I ever idolized. So much that I wanted my mom to name my youngest brother Daryl when I was 5 years old. In my mind, its still 1988 and he’s doing his big leg kick in a lighter shade of blue pinstripes and him being the guy who made the Big Apple pop up in centerfield (the coolest thing ever for a 5 year old). I even own and wear a Strawberry # 18 Mets t-shirt now. And I don’t really wear it for its comedic effects (though it does bring down the house. I think that was the highlight of my last New Year’s Eve, having people say, “Only you would wear a Daryl Strawberry jersey to a New Year’s Party.”) Unfortunately, 5 year old Barney didn’t understand what Mr. Strawberry was doing off the field. I saw his rap sheet the other day on wikipedia, and I was floored. There was a lot more that I didn’t know about.
The Mets of the late ‘80s were the first team I ever fell in love with. I cried when they lost to the Dodgers in the 1988 playoffs. I must have watched the video of the 1986 championship team at least 20 times (I still give Jay’s “You belong to the city” song off Volume 1 a lot more credit than it deserves. You know why? The sample he uses was in that 1986 video. I still remember that). I can name probably 10 players on that team to this day. I don’t think I could name 10 players on any other team in MLB right now outside the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets.
So my revelation is that this team contributed a lot to what you read about in this blog. My idol was a cokehead, and the rest of my favorite team wasn’t much better. Let’s go through some of the rest of the members of those teams in the late ‘80s:
Doc Gooden: It’s never good the closest analogy to Lindsay Lohan’s career is yours.
Kevin McReynolds: Was allegedly doing coke in the bathroom of a airplane when the door swung open. The entire team saw him. The entire team did nothing.
Mookie Wilson: Never did anything bad to my knowledge, but I liked him just for the fact that his name was Mookie. Ever 5 year old Barney knew the value of a kooky name.
Wally Backman: Was fired from managing the Diamonbacks before spring training because he lied on his resume and didn’t tell them he had a DUI. Since then he’s been arrested for spousal abuse and a bunch of other things and I think he just got fired from some minor league team.
Kevin Mitchell: He hit forty something home runs in San Francisco after he left NY out of nowhere. He was Brady Anderson before Brady Anderson, people forget this. He made that bare handed catch of a pop up which I still can picture even though I haven’t seen it in like 10 years (and have had multiple head injuries). Oh, and he once punch his dad for not paying rent at one of the houses he owned.
Howard Johnson and Davey Johnson: The 3rd baseman and manager provided tons of comedy because their last names was the term used to describe my genitalia at age 5, because my parents didn’t want me saying things like “penis”. My mom probably cursed herself every day during baseball season that she chose that word.
I think I’m leaving some others out, but that was the team I followed growing up. No wonder I’m not normal. And for the record, I’m not mad at Daryl for that Yankees thing. Steinbrenner did a lot more than he should have in taking care of Daryl (this will probably be the only time I applaud the Boss in this blog). After all he’s gone through I’m just glad he’s sober and basically that he’s alive. I rooted for his son at Maryland just because I want Daryl to be somewhat happy. He might not have turned out to be the 500 home run member I thought he would be, but that’s ok, he’s taught me enough.
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