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Live the Chumba life at ChumbaCasino.com. This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on this show from the arts to sports and from business to history and everything in between, including your story.
Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. They're some of our favorites. After years of hard living, blowing through more than $30 million, former slugger Darryl Strawberry found his true calling and sat down with Greg Hangler to share the story. Darryl didn't waste any time getting to the heart of his dysfunction.
Here's one of Major League Baseball's greats, Darryl Strawberry. Pretty much probably my parents. And, you know, that's really where my story started from, you know, in my life. And I think it was more of a dysfunction, you know, in my life because of my father. You know, he was more of a, you know, abusive man, very, you know, alcoholic and drank a lot and came home a lot, you know, with just so much confusion. And then there was for the last time he came home with the confusion of being drunk again and and then pulling out a shotgun and said that he was going to kill the whole family. And had it not been for my mother, me and my brothers would have killed him that night had it not been for her getting us out of the house, because we were like, really fed up with it because we had seen this so many times over and over again. And we just had reached a point, you know, I was only about 14 years old. So me and Ronnie, my brother Ronnie, my brother's, that's a one year ahead of me, me and him had the real run ins with my father about every little thing, every little infraction that came up, you know, it was always a beating, you know, he had to take our shirts off, make us take our shirt off and lay across the bed.
And, you know, like a vacuum, vacuum clean extension cord, he used to use that to beat us. And and it was like, there was no love there, you know, there was no love. And, you know, there was no understanding. And we just we just kind of grew up we grew up in a place of hating him and, you know, kind of wishing, you know, the fact that we used to sit in the rooms and say I'm wishing that he was dead, you know, because I remember my brother Ronnie said one time after he got a beating, he goes, I'm gonna kill him one day, you know, and, and, and we came close to that night, you know, Ronnie was the first one to grab the butcher knife, you know, and I grabbed the frying pan.
And we came really close to killing him that night. And like I said, had my mother not gotten us out the house. This is the relationship that I had with my father, it was a brutal relationship. And, you know, I just I just needed some guidance. I needed some, some, some men in my life that you know, could really help me understand what the importance it is to be a man. So, you know, the beatings from my father and the rejection from my father left me and my brothers like really cripple inside. And my pain would eventually lead me to my greatness and my greatness would eventually lead me to my destructive behavior. So I always say one is not well on the inside, eventually it will play out in their life.
I think a lot of people look at celebrities lives and think that we should should have it all together because they have everything but they don't really know what the childhood was like and where you actually come from, and what happens to a person. So my father background was really hard. You know, he was the only child, you know, finding out from you know, hit some of his cousins and stuff. His father was very abusive. And his father was alcoholic. And he saw his father actually beat his mother over and over in front of him. So he kind of repeated the same, same habit that his father had. And I would go on to repeat the same habit my father had to so learning that it's a generational thing and not until it's broken.
It cannot be fixed. And I realized that, you know, in my life, but I realized that my father had a lot of issues. And it was probably because of what he saw growing up, you know, watching his father, you know, be the man that he was and, you know, all the things he probably experienced in his household.
He brought into his life when he got married and had kids himself. I was brought up in Watch, California. And it was it was it was so weird and so different, you know, living in a place like that. It was very challenging. It was a lot of, you know, a lot of crime, you know, and, you know, we were kids, but we were most of the time we're in the house at night.
But you can hear the gunshots and you can hear all different type of things, you know, that we grew up around and you see all type of things on the streets, you know, during the course of a day growing up as a kid. And, you know, we really never got into a lot of things because we like sports. We and my brothers, we were always in activities like in the play sports. And then it was a coach that was close, close by us that saw us the three strawberry boys. And he wanted all three of us on the same team. You know, we were all young, you know, and he put us all on the same team. And he just thought highly of us.
And he just said, I need to raise these boys, right, because they don't look like they have a father figure in their life. And he raised his right, you know, been taking us into places that we never thought we could ever imagine be going to play, play ball at ballparks and stuff like that. So I grew up in a very broken, empty neighborhood. And I think that was because my mother always wanted to get out, but my father just didn't want to move forward. And then she finally moved us forward.
And he moved forward with us to when I moved over into the South Central area of Crenshaw, Ohio, where I went to school and everything. And from there, you know, after experiencing that time that night, my mother put him out and he was never there anymore. So it was just us and her raising five of us by herself. So it was it was very challenging for my mom. She was a wonderful woman and she worked very hard to, you know, make things work for us. And she kept food on the table for five over there was an incredible job that she was doing just to take care of five kids by herself. She was the secretary, you know, at Pacific Bell. And she worked there for a long time.
She had a steady job. My mom was a very bright woman. You know, she's well educated. She spoke well, you know, and she had just such a great piece about herself. And she raised us right.
That's the thing about him. She raised us right. She raises with principles, respect and everything else.
And she always made us understand that, you know, better than anybody else. And those are those are the most important things growing up in in our household because we had to respect our household because, you know, I thought I was right, like a really big shot baseball player, little league baseball player, high school, whatever it was. And I would come in the house with that hat on and she was like, you better take that hat off your head before I knock it off, you know. So there were some real things there, you know, and my mother was little and I was big.
I was a big kid. And, you know, and I would like say something on the side of the side of my mouth and she would say, what did you say? And I was like, oh, I didn't say no.
She said, come here. And she popped me right in the mouth, you know, so. So that was the teaching of us how to have respect. And you're listening to Darryl Strawberry. And what a story and the pain. Well, he said it led to his greatness, but his eventual decline.
More of this remarkable story, Darryl Strawberry's story here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture and faith are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more. All right. We're all set for the party. I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses. And I plugged in the Bartesian. Bartesian? It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails, plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites, too.
I just got it for 50 off. So how about a Closmopolitan or a mistletoe margarita? I'm thirsty.
Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength and wow, it's beginning to feel more seasonal in here already. If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a Bartesian because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds. And I just got it for $50 off. Tis the season to be jollier.
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Don't delay. I don't know if you know this, but when you don't have time to read The Washington Post, you can listen to it. Almost every article has a listening option. And right now you can become a Washington Post subscriber for just 50 cents a week.
It's an incredible deal. Stay on top of what's happening by signing up at washingtonpost.com slash pod. That's washingtonpost.com slash p o d. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku channel your home for free and premium TV is giving you access to holiday music and genre bass stations from I heart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like I heart Christmas and North Pole radio. The Roku channel is available on all Roku devices, web Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with I heart radio on the Roku channel.
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Zumo is easy. And we're back with our American stories and the story of Major League Baseball player Daryl strawberry. We last heard Daryl tell the story of how his mom once punched him in the mouth after he talked back to her as a big shot baseball player at Crenshaw High in Southern California. Let's return to Daryl and his story. You know you think about it raising five kids black kids all by yourself and it's a struggle with no father. But I think we were so broken and depleted from the fact that my father was such a raging alcoholic and the rejection that was so real it just left it left me and my brother Ronnie real cripple inside and we we did we we ended up going down some really dark roads and you know growing up and I would and when I say dark roads I mean like junior high school I got kicked out of like four junior high schools because I was troubled inside and you know burning up bathrooms I was smoking marijuana every day and and then I finally went to high school they finally like pushed me on through high school and got me out of junior high because I was so so troubled and I remember my first year in high school I got kicked off the baseball team because I was so troubled and inside and a lot of people don't even know that I you know I became a big star but I was troubled and the coach me and the coach butted heads you know because he I walked off the field one day and he thumped me on the head it's all black high school and my baseball coach was white and he was incredible his name was Brooks Hurst he coached the all black black team and you know he was he was right about it I just thought I was a young hot you know phenom out of you know out of Rancho Park you know league ball and coming into high school and being on the varsity 10th grade and I kind of walked off the field like like it was no big deal and he just thumped me in the head and I took the jersey off right there on the field during the game and I threw it in his face and I quit and and he was just trying to build character in us to you know you know to be something different you know I think you know he's coaching all black players and so you can imagine you know what he's got to go through he's a white coach you know in a black all black high school and he's coaching all these great talented black players with egos flying everywhere you know he's got to maintain whatever he has to maintain to make us understand that we need to hustle we need to be players to play the game the right way and boy that was that was a lesson that I had to learn right there really hard not to ever quit again and learn to dig dig through and fight through situations and you know the coach was the coach was remarkable you know after my freshman year I came back and played my junior year and we sat down and had a talk and and I told him I was wrong and you know I just really needed to learn grow up and learn about myself and and he accepted that and allowed me to be back on the team and and then we go on to be this powerhouse baseball team in high school you know with myself and Chris Brown who was our third baseman and he got drafted by the Giants and he ended up playing big leagues with the Giants and you know I played with match and Eric Davis was my friend he played at Fremont and you know we just all just grew up together and you know we played in high school but I just remember how good we were in high school we went to the city championship 1979 with coach Hurst he bought so much discipline to us and we end up losing the city championship at Dodger Stadium in 1979 Granada Hills John Elway beat us in the city championship and the issues inside of me were stuffed down so far because of being multi-talented and I took my energy in high school to use it for basketball and baseball sports you know because sports is a great outlet to not think you know because you can't think when you play sports you have to either be there or you're not there because I've seen a lot of players that were probably better than me and a lot of great players in our high school but their thinking process was just too much and they could never fulfill the promises over their life and I was just one of those guys that didn't think I just actually went in there and I performed you know because I wanted to play I mean I was driven because of my father rejection I think it drove me into greatness because he said I wouldn't be anything and I was like I'm gonna show you that I'm gonna be something I'm not gonna be what you are and you know I'm gonna have a family one day and I would I used to talk to myself in the room and watch baseball says I'm gonna play in the big leagues one day and you know that was that was my driving for us you know because of the rejection and it drove me into my it drove me into being who I was and loving the game but the issues were always there you know we need that affirmation we need that approval from a male figure that we it's okay and a lot of times a lot of boys don't see their dads around because they're so busy in life and because that's what life make it is we live in a society that makes you well you have to be busy you have to be working and you don't pay enough attention and and this is what I've seen happen in our society because what happened to me I've seen happen to so many young young kids I mean I used to run a treatment facility and and as I've seen so many young white suburban kids all addicted you know to opiates and heroin and all kind of stuff because of rejection and no one's around your dad's wrong because the first thing I ask him is where's your dad well he's too busy worrying about business instead of worrying about family and and and you leave you leave people so broken from that and we don't understand that it's so real especially in the times that we're in now and everything that's out here you know it's it's out here at the fingertips of them to be able to get and be exposed to and you don't realize that you know they get exposed to all the wrong things because they search for so hard for that fatherly figure because mom's gonna always be there mom's mom's gonna take care of the kids but where's that male figure you know but at the same time girls look for the same thing too because I just didn't see boys in there I saw the girls in there you know broken and been slaves to addiction and because they didn't have a male figure in their life and you know people don't we don't understand that as a society we think you know it's just about going and doing it yeah we have to do we have to provide but also at the same time we have to make time I was just me and my wife just spent the last you know week with our my girls here with their boyfriends and just being dad you know and those things all those things important to me my kids have never been broken because the curse was broken off of me and they were young when I was in the midst of using and playing baseball so they didn't get to see a lot but they heard a lot and people said well your dad was a great baseball player but he has so many struggles and my daughters be like no my dad's my dad's a preacher you know what are you talking about you know they was so they see me as a different person but I had but I explained to them who I was before I got to this place here and I explained to them you never want to you know be in a place like this I told them you could pick your sins but you can't pick your consequences because they are real great pushing things that pushing things down was really hard you know because you really don't know who you are I mean yeah I mean I played baseball and I knew I was a baseball player and I knew I was achieving all these great things no question about it but that that really doesn't define who you are I think I think that's what you do and I think so many people get that confused and that's why you see so many guys whatever celebrities they are you know that have problems you know have deep problems they're a lot deeper than just being successful and most people think well you have everything is having everything doesn't make you well you know and that's what it was for me you know things were stuffed down so far and the things that were stuffed down in me had to do with my childhood it had to do with growing up and not having the father around and being rejected I think that left me more broken and empty more than anything because you know when you think about it my father didn't see me playing low league he didn't see me playing legion ball he only saw me when I was in high school and saw me when he heard about me in high school so I was left in a place where I was so I was so so shallow you know I mean I knew I was I knew what to do for us playing but but as a person you know I didn't have you know great confidence in myself and and belief in myself because I I was left with all this pain inside and I just wanted to be free of it and a lot of that had to do with you know my father the rejection and being broken for so long and I did all these great things and you know I won championships I hit home runs I made all-star games you know all that it all that was great you know from a standpoint of being Daryl strawberry the baseball player but who am I as the man you know and I struggled with that for a very look very long time my goal was to get to the big leagues as soon as possible and be able to take care of my mother I think that's because she had taken care all of us and me being drafted was exciting it was exciting day when draft day was coming you know because I knew I was gonna be somewhere in the mix of the draft because the year before that four players got drafted off our high school team and all the scouts were asked and coach well what about the left hand and and he's and the coach said well he's a junior he has another year of playing and and they was like he's a junior he's like yeah he's he's a junior he's got another year there goes wow and um I was playing basketball too and and coach Hurst used to say well a lot of scouts didn't want me playing basketball they said well he's the next he's like the next Willie McCubby and the next Ted Williams and I was like well who is Ted Williams you know when we come back more of Daryl strawberry's journey here on our American stories all right we're all set for the party I've trimmed the tree hung the mistletoe and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses and I plugged in the partition partition it's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too I just got it for 50 off so how about a klasmapolitan or a mistletoe margarita I'm thirsty watch I just pop in a capsule choose my strength and wow it's beginning to feel more seasonal in here already if your holiday party doesn't have a bartender then you become the bartender unless you've got a Bartesian because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds and I just got it for $50 off tis the season to be jollier add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek sophisticated home cocktail maker Bartesian pick up your phone and shake it to get $50 off any cocktail maker yes you heard me shake your phone and get $50 off don't delay I don't know if you know this but when you don't have time to read the Washington Post you can listen to it almost every article has a listening option and right now you can become a Washington Post subscriber for just 50 cents a week it's an incredible deal stay on top of what's happening by signing up at washingtonpost.com slash pod that's washingtonpost.com slash p o d it's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays the roku channel your home for free and premium tv is giving you access to holiday music and genre bass stations from iheart all for free find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iheart christmas and north pole radio the roku channel is available on all roku devices web amazon fire tv google tv samsung tvs and the roku mobile app on ios and android devices so stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iheart radio on the roku channel happy streaming deciding on what to listen to is hard using zumo to stream music from iheart 90s radio is easy or play iheart country or hip-hop beats your choice all for free stream easy with zumo play get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins no signups no accounts no hassle this december get cozy on the couch with charlie's angels starring drew barrymore lucy loon cameron diaz and looper starring bruce willis and emily blunt all streaming free on zumo play go to play.zumo.com now life is hard zumo is easy take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world the news agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening but why from me emily mateless and me john sopel with global's award-winning podcast the news agents dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current affairs and the news agents usa listening to the news agents on america's number one podcast network iheart open your free iheart app and search the news agents to start listening and we're back with our american stories and with darrell strawberry story and my goodness so often on this show we talk about fatherlessness and the effect on both males and females and so when you heard darrell say we searched me and my brother so hard for that father figure where is that male figure and my goodness we asked that question a lot and hope to inspire folks by these stories to be better dads a lot of our problems will be solved in this country if that happened let's return to darrell strawberry and by the way his dog who will briefly be interjecting some background barks you know and my coach would come to he would come to my basketball games and he would see me dunking on people he would see me falling he was just like cringing and saying i hope he doesn't break his ankle i hurt himself out there on the basketball court but i was just a competitive person and then i go on to be drafted in my senior year by number one draft pick in the country and there i was i wanted to make a decision to play i had a scholarship to go to oklahoma state to play basketball and baseball but i was the number one pick and i was sitting there and i said i want to play i want to go through the professional ranks and see what it's really like because i saw these other guys go through it and three of them screwed up their first year and chris brown continued to go on and he ended up playing in the big leagues just like myself my brother michael was also drafted he was drafted by the dodgers later on in his college he went to college and southwest college and he ended up being drafted by the dodgers i recredited my ability to play to all the coaches that were in my life man named by mr moseley and a man named by earl brown they were my coaches in summer league ball and they taught me the fundamentals of how to play baseball and i think it's so so critical for people to understand the fundamentals of baseball are what's going to make you be able to play at the highest level i think sometimes people think well if i could have do it you know i can make it a lot of guys never made it because they half did it it's those that you know really stay focused and work hard on them and i think that's what happened to me i stayed hard on working on everything that they were teaching me and i was a good listener i listened to what the coaches had to say i didn't think i knew it all because i wanted to get better they saw something in me that i didn't see it myself and a lot of times that's really what happens to to us as boys you know we don't see it in ourself we we know it good but we don't really know how good and the coaches you know one coach mr moseley was my baseball coach and he used to tell me the importance why he would come pick me up every day because he was like wanted to talk to me about you know how great you could be and what it could be like for you but he also showed me most of these guys don't make it because of the girls you know they allow the girl to hook them in the nose and take them by the nose and take them away from going to practice and all that stuff and he didn't want me to ever get into that and i didn't when i was young like that you know i was always on the ball fields and i was always practicing and he was you know he taught me a lot about that and he taught me that there are major distractions out there for you and that's what a boy needs to hear and a lot of guys had talent but they got distracted because of girls because of partying because of this and that and i didn't get into all that i didn't get into all that until i got into big leagues yeah i went to the minors i went to kingsport tennessee was my first year and it was like oh my god i've never been out of southern california and i ended up in kingsport tennessee the middle of nowhere i was like oh my god that was a shock culture shock to me i was i couldn't believe where i was at and then the next year i went to lynchburg virginia you know and it was lynchburg virginia and i was like oh my god and i was down deep down in the south and and i didn't really want to play tomorrow i almost quit that year because i had to go through so many racial issues and you know of you know the fans yelling at me and saying things and calling me up boys out of my name and calling me inward and you're not that good and it was really tough and i i came close to quitting i told the match i didn't really want to play no more baseball i want to probably go back to college and probably try to play some basketball but they said well give it one more year and then i gave it another year i went to jackson mississippi and then when i went to jackson mississippi that's when everything just took place i became this great baseball player and i just knew i was going to be at a at another level of playing from that point in jackson mississippi so i went on from there and i won the texas league mvp and i went to tie water for one one month the next year in 1983 then i was up in the big leagues right away you know i got involved in the heavy drinking once i got into professional sports and and got to the major leagues i became an alcoholic at the age of 21 i knew i was an alcoholic already just like my father but then i got introduced to you know the cocaine the hard drugs you know at the major league level and that was really that was really it that was the defining moment of what would change the course of me inside because now i had found something that would allow me to escape you know the reality of drugs people don't think you know nothing's wrong with you know you know marijuana if you're a kid and you grew up smoking marijuana eventually somewhere down the line you're going to switch and you're going to you're going to try something else and something else is going to change you and that's what it did for me you know i i got i i guess they call you graduate from you know the the minor leagues to the big leagues welcome to the major leagues and you know my first trip on the major league uh playing you know a veteran player sent me to the back of the plane and said welcome to the big leagues kid there it was they introduced me to cocaine and i went back there and i hit it and i liked it i wanted to be a part i wanted to be a part of the guys you know because there was a missing inside of you know being uh being a part of something because you didn't have a father figure because he never showed you that kind of you know uh there there there are consequences behind your action i i believe that's what you didn't learn and so i i just picked up all these things you know from uh age of 21 being a big league ball player going on to win rookie of the year and you know there was already drinking party and they took me to a club one night you know the night on the first road trip and showed me the girls and you know i thought wow you know this is this is really cool this is what it's all about and a little did i know that that would be a a devastating part of my life that would bring about a great destruction in my life because you know what it's all at your fingertips and you know and and the thing about it is you know when you're there and you become a star like i did uh nobody's gonna tell me no it'd be like yes you can do whatever you want to you know whatever kind of party you want whatever kind of girls you want i mean i have women everywhere i'm married you know just living any old kind of way and uh you know outside relationships girls here girls there you know uh and everybody think that's you know everybody thinks that's great they what they you know when they they this is what they look celebrities life is all about they love they love that lifestyle they love it that they can live any kind of way doesn't matter who you have at home and who you hurt you can do what you want because you're such and such and and this is what this is what's been created for a long time it's still going on you know with hollywood and athletes and everything it's it's created a the craziness of the craziness of a chaotic life style and this is why nobody stays married nobody stays together and everybody's broken up and everybody's broken we leave this one because i'll meet the next one and it's just the most insane way to live and i think people think you know well i wouldn't do that you don't know what you would do if you was in that it's it's a hard situation it's a hard lifestyle to be able to understand when nobody tells you no when everybody says yes you can do whatever you want it's sin fun yeah but it's consequences behind it you know and you you want you'll never understand it if you never come to understand god's grace always that's why i always preach about you know if you don't understand the grace of god um then you don't understand god is grace is something you don't deserve and he gives it to you and when you when you come to that place to understand that that's how you have a real transformation because i don't deserve to be here but he has given me the grace to be here and my goodness what a lot to unpack there and i'm sure you're going to want to hear this story again go to alamericanstories.com play it for your kids play it for family play it for boys who don't have fathers especially and girls who don't have fathers because this will resonate so much of what he's saying will resonate big baseball star or not as he put it sin is fun but there are consequences and my goodness the consequences of having a bad father a really hideous one unimaginable you know those of us who have good fathers well we're just go home and hug your dad is all i can tell you go home and hug your dad when we come back more of this remarkable story tarryl strawberry story here on our american stories all right we're all set for the party i've trimmed the tree hung the mistletoe and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses and i plugged in the partition partition it's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too i just got it for 50 off so how about a clausmopolitan or a mistletoe margarita i'm thirsty watch i just pop in a capsule choose my strength and wow it's beginning to feel more seasonal in here already if your holiday party doesn't have a bartender then you become the bartender unless you've got a bartesian because bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds and i just got it for 50 off tis the season to be jollier add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek sophisticated home cocktail maker bartesian pick up your phone and shake it to get 50 off any cocktail maker yes you heard me shake your phone and get 50 off don't delay i don't know if you know this but when you don't have time to read the washington post you can listen to it almost every article has a listening option and right now you can become a washington post subscriber for just 50 cents a week it's an incredible deal stay on top of what's happening by signing up at washingtonpost.com slash pod that's washingtonpost.com slash p o d it's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays the roku channel your home for free and premium tv is giving you access to holiday music and genre bass stations from i heart all for free find the soundtrack of the season with channels like i heart christmas and north pole radio the roku channel is available on all roku devices web amazon fire tv google tv samsung tvs and the roku mobile app on ios and android devices so stream what you love and turn up the cheer with i heart radio on the roku channel happy streaming deciding on what to listen to is hard using zumo to stream music from i heart 90s radio is easy or play i heart country or hip-hop beats your choice all for free stream easy with zumo play get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins no signups no accounts no hassle this december get cozy on the couch with charlie's angel starring drew barrymore lucy loon cameron tes and looper starring bruce willis and emily blunt all streaming free on zumo play go to play.zumo.com now life is hard zumo is easy take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world the news agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening but why from me emily mateless and me john sopel with global's award-winning podcast the news agents dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current affairs and the news agents usa listening to the news agents on america's number one podcast network i heart open your free i heart app and search the news agents to start listening and we continue with our american stories and with darrell strawberry's story let's pick up where we last left off i agree with the fact that you know there's so much stuff that is set in front of us that keeps us from reaching our purpose with god because there's so many distractions the enemy has placed so many distractions in front of us from an earthly standpoint where we can't we can't really grasp for uh the goodness of god until we actually have an encounter with him and then when we have an encounter with him then we go oh my gosh i mean i'm like oh my gosh how did i live so stupid for so long how did i live in this you know you know filthiness for so long you know after you know who jesus is after you know the hanging on the cross of calvary and the shedding of his blood and and who would want to live like that you know you don't want to live like that i don't care how successful you are you know you don't want to live that way i mean i saw gary carter and mookie wilson who were at the height of their careers playing baseballs but i saw him live for god when i was playing and i was wondering why were they why were these guys so happy well i know that today because they were free on the inside they wasn't in bondage they wasn't in chains you know they wasn't struggling you know they wasn't they wasn't straddling the fence they wasn't hypocrites they wasn't saying jesus but i'm going out going to strip clubs you know they they go out to dinner with us and they say well i'll see you guys later after you know after dinner i'm going back to the hotel while the rest of us going to strip clubs and going out to drink and meet girls these guys are going back to go to sleep and coming to the ball park the next day and never condemned us but just we're our teammates i i thought it was just just incredible that you can actually live that way because you know you grow up and you see so much dysfunction in your life and you see your father you know be a womanizer and an alcoholic and and you see other guys are just most the same you know the way they treat treat women you know and then you see guys like this when you get to the big leagues of course gary carter and mookie live different you know but i was around a lot of other players who did the same thing they were you know proclaiming you know i have a great marriage when i'm at home but when i'm on the road i'm a totally different person you know and and these two guys you know didn't do that you know and that's what that was was was so unique and it was you're attracted to it you know because it's it's something it's something real about them something something far greater than than them just putting on a uniform and and saying i plan to i plan the big leagues you know because they didn't because you see because you see the back of the plane when you're on the back of the plane you see the rest of you guys all of us that's run run to the back or you know a bunch of scumbags you know in the back you know that's what we just call ourselves and you don't want to come back there because we drink we smoke cigarettes and we play loud music and and we talk about what we're going to do when we get into town and stuff like that and then you see guys sitting up in you know according to the front you know more according to the front like mookie and gary you see them and you know you drink they drink milk and you know they drink water and you think you know people think well they're just too good you know it's like and then you know the guys you know get on the after the guys get on the bus you know the guys are hammered all you know the scum bunch is hammered and they yell at them hey gary you want some milk you know and you know it's just like you want to smile and you know we didn't realize that we didn't realize the importance of what we were saying yeah we didn't i i know now that i was seeing a man you know i wasn't seeing a boy like the rest of us because we we considered ourselves and we thought we yeah we're macho man we drink alcohol and we party and and you see these guys and they take care of their bodies they they don't they don't you know use their bodies as as as slaves you know to go and be in sin and stuff like that and i just man i i just wish i wish i would have known better and wish somebody would have helped me to understand you know why they were living like that and maybe my whole life could have turned out different but it turned out uh the way it did but i just think about a lot of times in the midst of my career i wish i would would have known god in my career like i do today and people wonder how did i get to this place where i'm at today with god you know well god had to sit me for seven years because i was broken for so long he had to sit me for seven years to equip me so that i would bring about discipline and have some change in my life so what i did learn not to live anymore for me i learned to live for god i learned to live a totally different way and and that's the challenge for anyone who is trying to get on the other side of life you know i just i'm married today you know over 14 years and we've been together for about 21 years and when we started when we started on the journey um together and when she came into my life i was i was in the midst of addiction and she was pulling me out of dope houses you know i was shooting dope smoking crack and i was three million dollars in debt and just wanted to be left out there and for dead and die and i says well why don't you she says god has a plan for you i says why don't you and that god just leave me here and let me die and she said you're just not that lucky and and then we finally come to a place and we get together and and and get married and start doing it right and then she finally questioned me when are you gonna ever take that uniform off and i was like wow that hit me like a ton of bricks you know it's like you see like you when you're gonna stop you know identifying yourself as darryl strawberry the baseball player and when you're gonna be darryl strawberry the man that god's called you to be and that really stuck to me you know that really hit me hard because you know she was right i was carrying this you know this this uniform around and the trophies and the success that i had instead of carrying the mantle and the peace peace around me that you know god gives to us and once i let go all that she was right i went i entered into this incredible place with god and it was it was such great joy and great peace and a relief you know for myself to be this new person and see myself as new not see myself as the old you know that's that second corinthians 5 17 therefore if anyone's in crisis a new creation old things will pass away behold all things have become new so i can never get to the new if i'm holding on to the old so i had to let go of the old to get to the new because god has something new every day for you and when i started waking up i started waking up with new things every day and new things to do new things to worship god and thank god just for the little things and which which is important and not not the success but the little things i'm talking about is just like life you know and freedom and not addicted and and not a slave to this and not a slave to that so that was a real defining moment in my life you know with my wife tracy you know taking off that uniform and i've had some real revelations you know with two women in my life and i say god has a great sense of humor because i was a womanizer and i was all around women all the time and there he would he would use my mother to pray for me when i was a heathen and we found a journal under her bed when she was dying that she was praying for all of us god knock him off and strong and saving and then she then he brings tracy in my life she's pulling me out of the door post and asked me uh telling me that well you're just not that lucky god's god hadn't let you go yet when are you gonna uh take the uniform off and make the change and and and those are those are things that i i really take to heart because the fact that my mother would pray for all of us and i ended up getting saved and not only did i get saved i ended up leading my entire family to the lord and i ended up leading my father to the lord before he died so i i was changed you know and god had saved me and i was preaching and and traveling and i was in california and he was in a hospital my brother told me in san diego somewhere and i told him why i got to do a conference um saturday morning and and he was telling me that then god friday night god got just came all over me about my father just he says i want you to go down to the hospital and see your father and he goes i want you to repent to your father and he says don't say anything about what he did to you i want you to repent for keeping him out of your life and your career and i was like really god he was all over me about this and i i know it's god when his presence and his poor and then my wife was like i said i called my wife i said god's all over me i can't sleep and i gotta preach tomorrow morning and she says well i think you need to you need to do what god is telling you to do and she prayed over me and then i went to sleep and i did the men's breakfast saturday morning and then sunday came i i went down to san diego to see him in the hospital and i did exactly what he says i said i came to see you and said you know the lord changed my life and and he says uh yes and i said uh i'm i'm here to just ask you to forgive me because i've been i was wrong will you forgive me and a tear came out his eye and i just lost it i just laid in his lap and just cried so hard it was just it was so powerful it was just i just laid there and cried and cried and cried and told him i'm so sorry and the lord said raise up and then i raised up and lord said now lead him in the center prayer and i led him in the center prayer i said would you like to accept the lord as lord over your life and he accepted the lord and sent a prayer and he died a couple months after that but god in that moment in time that i was there god had said spoke to me about the forgiveness wasn't for him the forgiveness was for me so i can get well get free that's why i never got free and i remember him saying don't ever make it about you because it's not about you it's about what i want to do through you and he says how dare you not forgive him and i forgave you and that was the incredible moment and you know here it is i go on i tell people that all the time i said there it is god used me to go on and leave the man that rejected me and beat me to him and you've been listening to darrell strawberry and what a story and thanks as always to greg hengler for getting us this great story and by the way to get much more detail about darrell strawberry's life buy his book turn your season around how god transforms your life at amazon.com or heck go to a bookstore and buy the book and by the way buy two because this is a great book to give to a friend this kind of testimony my goodness be still my heart darrell strawberry's life story a life of redemption a life of real hope here on our american stories all right we're all set for the party i've trimmed the tree hung the mistletoe and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses and i plugged in the bartesian bartesian it's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too i just got it for 50 off so how about a clausmopolitan or a mistletoe margarita i'm thirsty watch i just pop in a capsule choose my strength and wow it's beginning to feel more seasonal in here already if your holiday party doesn't have a bartender then you become the bartender unless you've got a bartesian because bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds and i just got it for 50 off tis the season to be jollier add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek sophisticated home cocktail maker bartesian pick up your phone and shake it to get 50 off any cocktail maker yes you heard me shake your phone and get 50 off don't delay i bet you're smart yeah and you like to hold your own in the group chat we can help you drop even more knowledge my name is martine powers and i'm elahe isadi we host a daily news podcast called post reports every weekday afternoon post reports takes you inside an important and interesting story or the kind of reporting that you can only get from the washington post you can listen to post reports wherever you get your podcasts go find it now and hit follow it's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays the roku channel your home for free and premium tv is giving you access to holiday music and genre bass stations from i-heart all for free find the soundtrack of the season with channels like i-heart christmas and north pole radio the roku channel is available on all roku devices web amazon fire tv google tv samsung tvs and the roku mobile app on ios and android devices so stream what you love and turn up the cheer with i-heart radio on the roku channel happy streaming deciding on what to listen to is hard using zumo to stream music from i-heart 90s radio is easy or play i-heart country or hip-hop beats your choice all for free stream easy with zumo play get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins no signups no accounts no hassle this december get cozy on the couch with charlie's angel starring drew barrymore lucy loon cameron diaz and looper starring bruce willis and emily blunt all streaming free on zumo play go to play.zumo.com now life is hard zumo is easy take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world the news agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening but why from me emily mateless and me john sopel with global's award-winning podcast the news agents dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current affairs and the news agents usa listening to the news agents on america's number one podcast network i-heart open your free i-heart app and search the news agents to start listening you
