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• "Darryl Strawberry on his Dodgers days: Playing in Los Angeles was boring"
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• About Straw: Finding My Way
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Former Yankee says he advised Derek Jeter to not make the same mistakes that he made. (1:57)
 

Full interview. (23:49)
 

Tavis: Darryl Strawberry's an eight-time baseball all-star who was part of four World Series championships during his stand-out career in the major leagues, but despite all his exploits on the field he is perhaps equally well-known for his troubles off the field. Details of his often painful struggle on and off the field are the subject of a terrific new book that everybody's talking about. It's called "Straw: Finding my Way." Straw, nice to have you know, here.

Darryl Strawberry: All right. Nice to be here, man.

Tavis: You doing all right, man?

Strawberry: I'm doing great, I'm doing great.

Tavis: Good to see you.

Strawberry: Good to see you too.

Tavis: Let me start with the obvious, at least for me. I teased the book at the top of the show. You talk about drugs, you talk about cancer twice, your mother's cancer, you talk about domestic violence, you talk about drugs - everything is in this book. And when I first got it and started looking through it, the first question I asked myself was, which I will now ask you, is why? Why did Darryl choose to tell all of that?

Strawberry: (Laughs) Well, that's a good question. I had been approached many times about it, and I just thought it was a good time in my life to go ahead and reveal who I am, not the perception of what's been written about me throughout the medias in my heydays of playing baseball, and the things I accomplished and also the things they talk about I didn't accomplish.

When you look at a person's life, there are some core issues that you really have to dig deep in and find out about that particular person, but nobody ever does that. All they ever do is look at you're making millions of dollars so you should be okay. So writing the book was a really healing part for myself, but I also had to make amends to people that I hurt.

I'm talking about two wives, kids, through all my escapades of what I was doing out there in the world. I was committed to self-destruction within myself. And I just wanted to tell the true story and plus I wanted this book to be about helping someone else more than anything, because we have a tendency of giving up on life, and I didn't quit. I went through more than you can imagine, and I didn't quit.

So hopefully somebody that picks this book up will really be able to understand if this guy went through all this and he didn't quit, there's got to be something for me to continue to go on in life and keep moving forward.

Tavis: I was thinking while you were just talking now about the word I wanted to use, and the only word I can find right now is "courageous." That's probably the best word. I think it's courageous of you to tell the story that you've told in great detail. Courageous is one part. I guess the other side of it is whether or not it is at all embarrassing for you to have to admit all this stuff now.

Strawberry: No.

Tavis: Okay.

Strawberry: I probably thought about that before.

Tavis: Yeah, my question's a little late, ain't it?

Strawberry: (Laughs) Yeah.

Tavis: I should have asked you that before you wrote the book.

Strawberry: I probably thought about that before I started sitting down and thinking about writing the book. And embarrassing? No. Grateful? Yes. Thankful? Yes, because of who I am and what has transpired in my life, the gift, the true gift. I think a lot of times most people think an athlete's gift is what he does on the field. You've been gifted to play and perform, but that was just putting on the uniform and performing.

But there's always a real defined moment in a person life where there's a real purpose for your life, and most of the time I think a lot of athletes and entertainers really understand it's not about us. It's about what we do and who we go back and help, and gives that inspiration to after you've been through something.

You can't sit and tell somebody something that you haven't experienced. The best teacher is somebody that's experienced it. So I've been able to come out with a true purpose and a true gift and understand that my life has been meant for young people - young people that have found their way in trouble, that's lost. Because here it is - I believe God has truly used me because I was successful. He gave me a position of being a successful baseball player and accomplished all these things, but then again having trouble - a troubled life at the same time.

And I realize that young people need someone that's experienced trouble and has found a way out of trouble to help them understand those decisions and the choices you make are real, and there's major consequences behind them because look at me - I was a superstar and I fell to the pit of it.

Tavis: I want to jump right into the story here in just a second. Before I do that, let me ask this - and I ask this because you open up the book basically by saying this, so it's darn near a quote. This is, to your own words, the story of your having gone to hell and back - what you were just saying now, a moment ago. These are your words - it's a story of really going to hell and back.

How do you know you ain't going back again? Where does the confidence come from that you have now experienced enough where we're not going to look up in a couple years and see Darryl Strawberry back in hell again?

Strawberry: Well, people always say that and think that, but I finally made my commitment and my relationship with God real. I took off my running shoes. Because we run for real when we live according to the world's standards, and I lived in that and I understand that. I remember through the process of really getting my relationship back right with God was those six months I took by myself and staying at my sister house, her apartment, and had nothing.

I was stripped. I asked God to strip me - just really clean strip me. And I remember staying in her apartment, her little apartment. Here's eight-time all-star, made millions of dollars and lived in big homes, drove the fastest cars, here it is I'm in my sister apartment, in her bedroom every night, on my face, crying out to God, and asking God to forgive me - not the world, because I already know what the world has offered me.

Asking him to forgive me. It took six months. No women, no sex, no drugs, no alcohol, church three times out of the week, read my bible every night, and made the commitment, the honest commitment that I knew I was called for. There's a great purpose in all our lives. We're all called for great things. And I always believed that God had a great call on my life, but I was, like, too afraid to answer it because I felt like I couldn't commit myself because I was a part of what the world's standards were, and that's what I was living in.

I never worry about that. I never think about that. I think about where I'm at today, and I think about each day when I get up and I say thank you, and I try to continue to go forward and do the things that are important to me. A lot of times, we think especially men; we have this trip about ourselves. Our egos run wild about how great we are and how sophisticated we are and what we look like. That's all insecurity stuff, and I realized that.

I realized what was really important, more than anything, and that's why I think that's the world we have to get as men. Sometimes we think because we make millions of dollars and we live up on top of the hill, nobody can stop us.

Tavis: Let me seize on a word you've used a couple times in our conversation now, because I think it's a powerful word, and that's the word calling. You've referenced a couple times now the fact that when you - where your calling is concerned, that you were running. And you said earlier you took off your running shoes.

What do you understand your calling to be? It wasn't to be a baseball great?

Strawberry: I think baseball was just an avenue.

Tavis: Okay. So what was the calling, then?

Strawberry: Because I think the great calling for my life was to help others - to truly commit my life to other people, especially young people, more than anything. When I look at young people and the troubled mind they have and the troubled spirit they have, it's real.

I believe that because of the fact I had it too, so I understand it. It's a difference if I didn't have it and I could sit here and tell you I have a calling in this area, but I had a trouble spirit - who am I? What am I? Why don't I love myself? Why don't I love the way I look? I went through all those insecurities and I was a big-time star playing baseball.

Tavis: So now we're into the story, so let me follow you inside the book. So you have this insecurity - never mind the skill that you have, you have these insecurities; you just listed a bunch of questions that you've been asking yourself for a major part of your life. That insecurity came from where?

Strawberry: I believe that insecurity came from a dysfunctional family. My dad was a complete raging alcoholic. He beat the crap out of me and my brother, Ronnie. He told me and Ronnie we'd never amount to nothing, we'd never be nothing. I believed it. I thought that's just the way life is. Even when I got into sports at a young age, I knew I could play sports, I knew I could - but I was driven. That was a thing where I was dedicated. I wasn't dedicated to, like, accepting myself because of these scars.

These are deep wounds, deep scars that young people get when they're abused and stuff, and I didn't want to - I don't go on in my book to use that as an excuse. I take full responsibility for all my actions and everything that I did. But I can remember trotting around the base after a home run and thinking - the crowd's on their feet - and thinking, "I'm nothing."

I know those feelings. I had those feelings, no matter how well I did. I could put on a uniform and go to the ballpark and I can excel with the best. I had no fear in that. But when I took that uniform off and I went home, I had fear. I had fear about me and who am I.

Tavis: It's a fascinating dichotomy. What do you make of the fact that you're at Mets Stadium or whatever stadium you're in, you're cranking home runs - you cranked a lot of them - you're cranking home runs, you're running around the bases, people are on their feet going crazy and you're hearing in your head that I am nothing. Help me understand that.

Strawberry: Yeah, well, that was just a true way of life for me. That's why I believed that for so long, because that's what I was told.

Tavis: And the adulation never tamped that down?

Strawberry: Never. All you do is stuff it. That's what happens - you stuff it. And then actually you get into the point of escaping, and the escape clause is what, drugs, alcohol, nightclubs, strip joints, women. Whatever it may be, that's what you have a tendency of turning to.

But that doesn't fulfill you, and it also doesn't make you a real man. We sit around and think we're real men because we do that, and I hope that men understand this, but that's not a real man. When I finally got to the point of understanding what a real man was, it's you love your wife, you love your family, you love your community, you love God, you help others. That's a real man. That's when you separate yourself from - I had to separate myself from all the fancy things.

I used to wear diamond earrings in my ear and big jewelry and I thought I was it. But that was just a false image of who I was. The real, true man comes forward and he produces real fruits. I wasn't producing real fruits at that time. I was just producing the false image of what the world speculate about a person.

Tavis: Steroids was not the thing in your heyday, when you were playing in the league, but that didn't stop you from using drugs, though.

Strawberry: No, no. Drugs was like an escape clause for me. I drank and drugged because I wanted to escape from all these people in the media didn't know me, so that was a big escape clause for me to escape from all the hoopla about how great I was and what I was, will I live up to these potentials.

And you get caught in the lifestyle. You get caught in the lifestyle of the freedom that you have as an athlete, because you're making millions of dollars but when you go out you ain't got to pay for nothing. It's a whole different lifestyle. There it is, you're looking at people starving that need something, but here it is athletes and entertainers, we get praise just because we're athletes and entertainers.

Tavis: You mentioned the media a moment ago. How much - and again, I'm not asking this question to set you up to use it as an excuse, and I know you won't. What did the media help do to drive you - I don't want to say crazy, but to push you away? And I'm asking that question before the media glare is so intense on young athletes that people end up doing all kinds of things to run away from that.

Help me understand what the media did. How complicit was the media in Darryl Strawberry's (unintelligible)?

Strawberry: Well, I think they -

Tavis: Especially in New York City.

Strawberry: Yeah. I think what they do is they make you believe that you're not a real person, that if you're not fulfilling their expectations, it makes a person believe in himself that, well, I'm not real because all I do is not enough. And when you have to go through that whole process and you're not doing enough, you start doubting yourself, more than anything.

I never doubt my ability on the field. They couldn't touch me when I got on the field. But when we're talking about every day living life and being a father, being a husband - I got five beautiful kids that adore me, and I love them. And they know everything that I've experienced in life and been through because I've shared it with them.

I didn't want my kids to have to go through what I had to go through. My kids, they're so funny. They've never experienced life like I did, and I used to tell them about it, sit home and tell them about my life, how I used to live, had to sleep in bunk beds. My daughter just looked at me - "You slept in bunk beds, Dad?" And I used to tell them I had one pair of tennis shoes, and it's like, what? When they had closets - they live a whole totally different life, a separate life than me, and they've been at private school all their life and they lived all this fancy way and stuff.

So I wanted to make sure that they had the best. Regardless of what I ever experienced and was going through in my life, I wanted the best for my children and I've given my children the best. And so all these other things that occur in my life through the course of my baseball career, dealing with the media and fans, it was all good for me. Some people might say it wasn't.

But the only way it's good for you, if you learn. I had to learn through going to jail and going through the headlines, ended up in prison. Eight-time all-star, four-time World Series champion, end up in a prison. That was God telling me I'm going to save you from yourself because you can't save yourself. Because I got something for you to do, before all this is over and said and done. There's a greater purpose on your life because I called you, not what man think of you.

And that's what that book is, it's an inspirational book, it's a redemption book, but it's a faith book. It's about faith, it's about not quitting.

Tavis: Let me ask you a question about that. I have no reason to doubt - and I'm not asking this question to cast aspersion on you - I have no reason to doubt that your faith journey isn't real. I know my own faith journey has been and I would never suggest to anybody sitting on this set in that chair that what they're suggesting to me about the journey they've been on isn't real.

Having said that, how do you respond to people who might think here's another athlete, here's another entertainer who's trying to redeem himself or herself, and whenever they do it God is always the way out. (Laughter) It's always I saw the light and God has put me back on the - people who are cynical about stuff like this, what do you say to them?

Strawberry: That's their problem.

Tavis: Right.

Strawberry: I don't worry about them, because I know the truth. Because you didn't walk in my shoes. You didn't live through the hell I had to live through. You didn't live through the nightmare I had to live through. And I would say that the fact is for them to understand it, why don't you try God for yourself? Why don't you try him for yourself and find out his goodness and see what he is and see what he means to you?

Because they don't understand, they're looking for this big lightning bug to come down or strike or whatever to hit you, but it's a personal commitment and you have to get a personal commitment with him, because he already knew me, and that was the whole thing in my life.

It's not about what they know and what people think. Because see, if we live by people's opinions, we'll never be able to reach the promise that's promised to us. Because each one of us got a gift down inside of us that's promised to us, but we have to tap into that real gift.

I'm not talking about the talent of being a professional athlete and using - or whatever, I'm talking about the real gift that comes. Like I said, my commitment is to the Lord. Do I care what others think? No. I care what God thinks. See, that was my problem a long time ago, is I used to care what everybody else thought of me. I care what God thinks about me today.

Tavis: But in fairness to you, though, it's kind of hard not to. When you're a baseball player - and again, I come back to this - when you're on the biggest stage in the world in baseball, New York City, it's kind of hard not to care what other people think about you.

You can take it too far, but I'm just trying to give you some love. It's hard not to in New York City, man.

Strawberry: At that time that was probably - I cared too much.

Tavis: That's another issue, though, exactly.

Strawberry: Yeah. I cared too much of what people were thinking, and that's where the self-destructive behavior was always dangerous.

Tavis: Do you think, all the troubles notwithstanding that you had, do you think you lived up to your potential? And if you don't think you lived up to your potential, as some fans don't in New York City, how close - could you tell me where you think you were or could have been?

Strawberry: Oh, I could have easily been the greatest of all time playing the game of baseball, because baseball was simple to me. But I didn't have life skills. Life skills is a major difference in how well you do, and you look at some of the great players that come along, they usually have life skills to play because sports is just putting on a uniform and getting applause, or being cheered or being booed. How do you deal with it?

What ticks you off, what makes you happy? Are the cheers or the boos that you go through bring frustration to you?

Tavis: To your baseball career, since again I'm following you in this conversation, you talk about things that tick you off and things that turned you on. As you look back on your career now, what they said - the writers, that is, sports writers said that Darryl didn't do, what part of your game has the sports media still not given you enough credit for? What part of your game were they too harsh on you about?

Strawberry: (Laughs) Well, I think my effort more than anything, because they said I looked like I wasn't hustling.

Tavis: He wasn't going all-out.

Strawberry: Yeah, he doesn't go all-out.

Tavis: And what do you make of that criticism?

Strawberry: I know deep down inside I was dedicated. There was a tremendous dedication to that, and every time I put on a uniform and stepped on a field I was serious about winning. I had an attitude and a chip on my shoulder about that. But they always said I wasn't giving it all. Well, what is giving it all? What is giving it all? If you don't know what it's like to do it, how can you say what is not given all?

Because you see he doesn't make a play or you see he strikes out here, or this play happens, that play happens? Well, that's part of sports. Nobody's going to be perfect out there. You're not going to be Mr. Perfect where you make every play and you hit every pitch that comes to you.

So a lot of times, they were very critical of me about that and I was young, naïve, stupid, and I got angry and I spoke my mind.

Tavis: Who do you see on the field now that most reminds you of Darryl Strawberry at his best?

Strawberry: I really don't see any players that reminds me of me, but I do admire a player that plays in New York, and that's Derek Jeeter, a guy that he probably never had my talent and my ability to play the game, but he has done the right thing with his career. He has done it the right way. He's played the right way, he's had character, he's never ran his mouth about people, he respects life, he respects the game of life, he respects the people that he's played with, and he's never had this egotistic mind about how great he is.

Tavis: And they love him in New York.

Strawberry: They love him, man, and they should love him in New York. We talk about all these other great players that have come through and be a different talent, but Derek's a winner. People love winners.

Tavis: So you ever look at Derek and think, "That could have been me, plus I'm more talented than Derek is?"

Strawberry: No, because I realize that my time - it was my time. It was different. And I never had anyone to actually try to give me some insights. And I remember when Derek was coming up and I gave him insights, and I told Derek, "You're going to be great in New York." And he kind of looked at me. I says, "Trust me. They're going to love you here."

And I says, "Do me one favor - don't make the mistakes I made. Make the right decisions, make the right choices, and choose the right people to be around. And I said, "Another thing you got going on your side, you're good-looking." (Laughter)

Tavis: Yeah, of course A-Rod might think he's better-looking, but that's a whole nother conversation for another show and I don't want to start nothing in New York City between A-Rod and Jeeter again. That said, Darryl Strawberry's new book is called "Straw: Finding my Way." It is a courageous telling of a story about a guy whose career we all loved and followed, and I think you'll be empowered by what he shares in the new book. Darryl, nice to have you on and congratulations, man.

Strawberry: All right, thank you, man.

Tavis: Good to see you, man.

Strawberry: Good to see you too.

Tavis: It's my pleasure to have you here.