To at the present time, 43 years later, Darryl Strawberry still has a nickname for his 1981 season with the Class A Lynchburg Mets.
“I call it,” Strawberry said by phone last week, “sucking season.”
The sucking season was essentially the most difficult of Strawberry's life on the time. It was the season he failed on the baseball diamond for the primary time. It was the season he first heard racist insults from the stands. It was the season he was on the verge of quitting baseball and hanging up his jersey for good.
And when Strawberry's No. 18 is retired June 1 at Citi Field, it's only fitting that amongst his honored guests might be the 2 individuals who got him through the poor season: manager Gene Dusan and teammate Lloyd McClendon.
“Everyone looks at success, but I look at the people who had a big influence on me,” Strawberry said. “There is no way I would be on the field after my number was retired if it wasn’t for people like her who supported me through the most challenging and difficult times when I was young.”
The first month of Strawberry's first full season in pro ball had not gone well. It's hard enough for any player to fail for the primary time on the sector. Strawberry had several additional attentions on her.
The previous summer he had been the primary selection at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, where his coach had called him “the black Ted Williams” in Sports Illustrated. While his signing bonus wasn't a record, it was greater than double that of the previous No. 1 pick.
And he was a black man playing in a town in southern Virginia. When he struggled on the sector, he heard it from the Carolina League crowd. Home games, away games, all of the games – Strawberry has seen the worst.
“They called me all sorts of curse words and said negative things,” Strawberry said. “You’re talking about the Deep South. I thought, ‘This is crazy.’ I grew up in Southern California and growing up we never had to experience anything like that.”
“Listen, it was 1981. Society as a whole didn't fully accept us – black people,” McClendon said. “They used to pass the hat to anyone who hit a home run. We hit home runs and got nothing.”
In early May, Strawberry desired to take his bat to the stands, he said. Instead, he took his racket home.
“I just checked out,” he said. “I disappeared.”
“He left for a few days,” Dusan said. “It was worrying that he left. I had a feeling he would come back. I knew he would come back.”
Instead of chasing after Strawberry, Dusan gave him space. He didn't even tell higher-ups within the Mets' front office.
“If I did that today, they’d fire me,” he chuckled. “It was different in the early 80s.”
Two days later, Strawberry returned to the park, thanks largely to his relationships with Dusan and McClendon. Strawberry and McClendon had met the yr before at rookie ball in Kingsport, Tennessee, once they were rooming together during their first summer within the South and had one another's backs.
“I guess we had to protect each other,” McClendon said.
Lloyd McClendon, pictured coaching the Tigers in 2019, was a very important figure in Darryl Strawberry's early skilled years. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Associated Press)
And McClendon had been out at the beginning of the 1981 season in Lynchburg due to a broken hand he suffered in spring training. But when Strawberry left the team, McClendon's rehab period became much shorter.
“When I saw him in the park, I was happy,” Strawberry said, “to see a face and someone of color like me.”
Dusan arranged for the 2 to live together again, though McClendon had married.
“You have to take care of him,” McClendon recalled Dusan saying, “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,” said McClendon, who was 22 this season, “but I was definitely a friend and a voice he could talk to. “Whatever wisdom I had, I tried to pass it on.”
And Dusan's tough-minded approach as a manager was exactly what Strawberry needed at that time. The day Strawberry returned to the club, Dusan wasn't exactly glad.
“I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you're healthy,” he told the player. “We have to go to work.”
From that day on, Dusan recalled, Strawberry was the most effective player he had ever coached.
“He was there every day for extra hits,” Dusan said. “As soon as he applied, he was the man.”
There was a reason Strawberry was at all times there for extra punches.
“Let me put it this way: Gene was a pain in the ass for Darryl and me, in a good way,” McClendon said. “When we were on the road, he would wake us up every morning at 8 a.m. and we would have to go to the ballpark. I guess he saw something special in both of us. He definitely saw it in Darryl.”
“Gene Dusan was like a father figure to me that I didn’t have. He embraced me to overcome some adversity early on,” Strawberry said. “I became part of his family. It was just very personal for me.”
How much of an element of the family? Strawberry helped babysit Dusan's children.
“Geno kept me going and focused on not looking up and interacting with the people up there (in the stands),” Strawberry said. “That really helped me because I really didn’t want to play another minute there.”
“He taught us so much not just about baseball, but about life in general and how to go about your business,” said McClendon, who went on to officiate greater than 1,100 major league games. “You stand up, live by your word and learn to be a man of honor. It was pretty cool.”
For Strawberry, suckling season stays a very important a part of his story. This first experience of adversity helped him get through the numerous subsequent difficult times he endured, whether self-inflicted or not. It was a learning moment, he said, one which at all times happens when his children want to provide up something during a difficult time.
In 1982, when Strawberry filled in for Dusan at Double-A Jackson, Miss. played, he broke through with 34 home runs, 45 stolen bases and an OPS of over 1.000. Two years after the Suck season, Strawberry was the National League's rookie of the yr.
“I made the right decision to fight through the adversity and believe,” Strawberry said. “I am forever grateful for that and for real people. These are real people. These are not people who sugarcoat everything about you. But the people who showed me how to overcome.”
“It’s hard to believe,” Dusan said as he watched the variety of the teenager he managed go into retirement. “I appreciate how he feels about me. I’m happy with him.”
image credit : theathletic.com