To today, 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 cellphone final week, “the suck season.”
The suck season was, on the time, essentially 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 Area, it’s solely becoming that amongst his honored visitors would be the two individuals who pushed him by way of the suck season: supervisor Gene Dusan and teammate Lloyd McClendon.
“Everyone appears on the success, however I take a look at the individuals who had an ideal influence on me,” Strawberry mentioned. “There’s no approach that I’d be standing on the sphere having my quantity retired had it not been for individuals like them getting me by way of essentially the most difficult, troublesome instances at a younger age.”
The primary month of Strawberry’s first full season in professional ball had not gone effectively. Failing on the sphere for the primary time is difficult sufficient for any participant. Strawberry had a number of additional spotlights on him.
The prior summer season, he had been the No. 1 pick of Crenshaw Excessive Faculty in Los Angeles, the place his coach had known as him “the black Ted Williams” in Sports activities Illustrated. His signing bonus, whereas not a report, greater than doubled that of the earlier No. 1 decide.
And he was a black man enjoying in a southern metropolis in Virginia. So when he struggled on the sphere, he heard it from the Carolina League crowds. Dwelling video games, street video games, any video games — Strawberry heard the worst of it.
“They have been calling me all sort of names and saying damaging issues,” Strawberry mentioned. “You’re speaking concerning 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 move the hat for anyone who hit a house run. We hit house runs and we bought nothing.”
By early Could, Strawberry wished to take his bat into the stands, he mentioned. As a substitute, 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.”
Moderately than chase Strawberry, Dusan gave him house. He didn’t even inform the higher-ups within the Mets entrance workplace.
“If I did that at the moment, they’d fireplace me,” he chuckled. “Issues have been completely 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 12 months 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 suppose we needed to shield one another,” McClendon mentioned.
Lloyd McClendon, pictured in 2019 as a coach with the Tigers, was an vital determine in Darryl Strawberry’s early professional years. (Wealthy von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire through Related Press)
And McClendon hadn’t been there in the beginning of the ’81 season in Lynchburg due to a damaged hand he suffered in spring coaching. However when Strawberry left the group, that rehab interval grew to become rather a lot shorter for McClendon.
“After I noticed him on the park, then I used to be glad,” Strawberry mentioned, “to see a face and somebody of colour identical to me.”
Dusan made positive the 2 roomed collectively once more, although McClendon had gotten married.
“It’s important to handle him,” McClendon remembered Dusan saying, “as a result of he’s not going to make it when you 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 definitely a pal and a voice he might discuss to. No matter little knowledge that I had I attempted to move 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 instructed the participant. “We’ve bought to go to work.”
From that day ahead, Dusan remembered, Strawberry grew to become the perfect participant he ever coached.
“He was there each 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 street, he would wake us up at 8 each morning and we had go to the ballpark. I suppose 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 way of some adversities early,” Strawberry mentioned. “I grew to become 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 saved me going, saved me targeted on not trying up there and interacting with the individuals up there (within the stands),” Strawberry mentioned. “That actually helped me as a result of I actually didn’t need 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 your small business,” mentioned McClendon, who went on to handle greater than 1,100 major-league video games. “You get up and stay by your phrase and study to be a person of honor. It was fairly cool.”
For Strawberry, the suck season stays an vital a part of his story. That first expertise of adversity helped him by way of the numerous 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 wished to offer one thing up at a troublesome time.
In ’82, enjoying for Dusan in Double-A Jackson, Miss., Strawberry broke by way of 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 Yr.
“I made the fitting resolution to combat by way of the adversities and begin believing,” Strawberry mentioned. “I’m eternally grateful for that and for actual individuals. These are actual individuals. These usually are not people who sugarcoat all the pieces about you. However the people who confirmed me methods to overcome.”
“It’s exhausting to imagine,” Dusan mentioned about watching {the teenager} he managed have his quantity retired. “I admire how he feels about me. I’m pleased with him.”
(Picture of Darryl Strawberry batting for the
