Darryl Strawberry breaks down addiction & redemption in 'Another Life' + talks '86 Mets, Jeter's Yankees, Barry Bonds & steroid era

0:00Speaker 1:I learned a lot about life, being in a city like this, to be able to endure and be able to go back and lift somebody else up. Because that's what New Yorkers do when you're here. When you have struggles, you have issues, they don't give up on you.

0:30Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, what up, y'all? This is Fat Joe, BX's own.

0:35Speaker 3:Know what it is, your boy Jada. You know what it is, the Joe and Jada show. Every show legendary, every show iconic. You never know who's going to touch the blue couch. You can bet your bottom dollar it's somebody that won't touch your couch.

0:59Speaker 4:When you think of today's guest, you think of somebody with one of the coldest swings baseball ever saw.

1:10Speaker 2:Big home runs. Bright lights. Shea Stadium.

1:19Speaker 3:One of the most legendary eras in New York sports.

1:24Speaker 2:History.

1:26Speaker 3:But this man's story goes way past the highlights. He's lived through the fame, the championships, the temptations, the losses, the battles, and found a whole new purpose on the other side. He's a Mets legend, four-time World Series champion. And now he's showing people that no matter how far life takes you down, it's never too late to start over.

1:55Speaker 2:Give it up for the one and only Darryl Strawberry. Woo! Thanks for coming.

2:11Speaker 5:I've been hanging out with him for about an hour, but now he got the, I don't know, all of a sudden after that intro, he got the Dow Strawberry face right now. That shit just came out of nowhere. I was hanging out with him for an hour. All of a sudden, I looked up just now and said, holy shit, fucking Dow Strawberry.

2:29Speaker 3:Who was you talking to an hour ago?

2:32Speaker 2:Bro! I don't know.

2:33Speaker 5:I was talking to him for a whole hour. We talked about a whole bunch of shit, but all of a sudden, I don't know. You must know how to throw the Dow Strawberry face on, right?

2:42Speaker 2:Well, no. He only had it all his life.

2:44Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. But I'm sitting here with New York legends, man. I'm a New York guy. Of course, I'm from South Central L.A.

2:53Speaker 2:So I know what it's like. I know what the streets are like. I grew up in that.

2:56Speaker 1:So that was the most important part of my life growing up and coming here.

3:02Speaker 2:And playing in New York.

3:04Speaker 1:That's what made me a great baseball player was the fans, the people, the atmosphere, not being afraid of the challenges that you have to face because you grew up on Crenshaw High. You know, a lot of guys say they're from Crenshaw High. I won number eight at Christian High. I won number 25 playing basketball at Christian High.

3:25Speaker 2:Listen, Ice-T was here. Ice-T, another one.

3:28Speaker 5:We call him the king of gangster rap in the way he was describing hip-hop, right?

3:34Speaker 2:Because I just noticed something. He's... He was.

3:39Speaker 5:Describing like, you know, he'd be over there when the New York rappers go over there. He'd try to dress like the New York rappers and then figured out, let me dress like an LA guy. But you personally grew up in Crenshaw. then came to New York where they invented hip-hop. So how was that like traveling from the West Coast, you know, Eazy-E, Jerry Curls, all that, to New York City?

4:06Speaker 2:Like, you got to see the best of both worlds. Well, it was pretty easy.

4:10Speaker 1:Because of growing up there and being a part of all that. Being right in the middle of that, you make a decision, which... are you going to take? You know, I was on the west side and there was an east side. So you had to be extremely careful about which sides you go on and what color you were wearing because, you know, the blood's in the crib. So it was a part of just knowing how to react and knowing how to not back down and be tough. I think that was the most important thing for me coming into New York. And once I found out about the New York atmosphere and the people, I realized that I was going to fit in just perfect with them because playing baseball and knowing the fact that The expectations are high and you come in here with a lot of demands on you to perform, the media, the fans, and stuff like that. Can you as a player handle the adversity? And what I mean by that, can you handle the boos? Can you handle the cheers? See, a lot of guys just like the cheers, but I love the boos because the boos always got me off. They always made me feel like, well, okay, you're going to boo me. Now I'm going to hit two off the

5:16Speaker 1:scoreboard and you're going to want me to come out for a curtain call. I'm going down in the tunnel to smoke a cigarette because I got this different type of mentality where I come from. And hip hop was always special from the West Coast, East Coast. It was always special at the time that I was coming.

5:37Speaker 2:Up in the 80s.

5:38Speaker 1:It was very powerful with the guys that were just talking about the Curtis Blows and stuff like that.

5:43Speaker 2:I remember from the beginning. This one is for the OGs.

5:48Speaker 3:Let's keep it 1800.

5:50Speaker 5:You know what I just thought about? That's pre-steroid era, huh? So anybody who got busy at that time got busy, right? And how did you feel about when people that you thought were the greatest and this guy's a monster. He's hitting them all out the park to only find out they were taking steroids.

6:14Speaker 2:At the time.

6:15Speaker 1:What was that like to you? What was your initial response? I didn't have any response. We're all baseball players. You still got to perform. Regardless of what anybody want to say. You know, Barry Bonds is the greatest player to ever play. They're a player that I saw walk on the field that could do everything just natural. Good at all. A-Rod was the same way. Everybody want to jump on them and say, well, they did this and that. Well, it was a payday for them. Everybody was getting paid. So they saw other players doing it. So, Why not? You know, why not jump in? Hey, had it been my time, I probably would have done the same thing. It was just a part of the culture, the time where I was at in the game in the 80s and saw these younger guys coming up and recognizing that they were going to be great.

6:59Speaker 2:They were very talented.

7:00Speaker 1:You cannot deny players talent and what they achieve. They have to go out there and do it. Baseball is so much more difficult than football and basketball. Baseball is a one-on-one individual where you got to go up there and the guy's dropping 95.

7:20Speaker 2:Can you put the head out and turn it around? And a lot of guys can.

7:25Speaker 1:And those guys could do that at their young age and they did it at their old age. So I wouldn't sit around and criticize them for what others were already doing and they made a way for another way. That's what sports is all about. Every generation is different. The times I was playing, there were amphetamines in the game. I took amphetamines every night to light up so I can go out there and get Get busy. It was just a part of what it was. So I would never criticize any other athletes and say, well, they did this.

8:01Speaker 1:That's wrong for any athletes to point at others. You still got to work hard and you still have to believe in yourself.

8:08Speaker 5:Basically, for everybody out there, if you use this stuff We're not encouraging somebody to use it, but you still got to be able to know how to connect with the ball.

8:18Speaker 3:It's not going to make you hit or catch or do none of that. People don't know. You know, there's some people who's like, I want to pay taxes. I want to be in the jury. I want to be like jury duty.

8:30Speaker 2:And some people really don't know shit.

8:33Speaker 5:So you got to like spoon feed it to them and be like, listen, you take the stuff. We don't recommend it, but it doesn't automatically make you a superstar.

8:44Speaker 2:You have to perform. When you was young, was baseball always number one?

8:49Speaker 1:And basketball was just... Pretty much. Pretty much baseball was. You know, I played at Crenshaw, and a lot of basketball players come out of Crenshaw that were really good. Marcus Johnson, big John Williams with the LSU, a couple other guys. But I was more connected in baseball.

9:06Speaker 2:Myself, Eric Davis, Chris Brown, we were trying to follow.

9:10Speaker 1:Eddie Murray and Ozzie Smith because they had came from the same place. We played, we all played up with the same coach in the summer league out in Compton. Earl Brown, he coached all of us. He used to tell us in joke and say, well, you guys is not going to be like Eddie and Ozzie. No, we said, me and Eric used to say, we're going to be better, you know. But that's the, that's, the competition that you have coming out of California. And baseball was always driven because when I saw Cincinnati Reds and I saw Pete Rose play, he wasn't the most talented player on that team, but he outplayed everybody. And he hustled, uniform was dirty.

9:46Speaker 1:I said, now that's what a baseball player look like. And then when I saw the Colbert, Dave Parker, 6'5, I saw him throw, I saw him hit, and I saw him run. I said, okay, now I'm 6'5. That's why I want to be like the Colbert. So that what really attracted me to baseball, and that's when I really got real focused in on the game of baseball and started to understand what it was going to take to get to the next level.

10:15Speaker 5:Behind the Balls presented by Sprite.

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10:39Speaker 5:The video was so necessary. It was so New York. It was so gritty and grimy. And to see these young warriors, man, arguably one of the greatest songs, the greatest beats of all time. The story behind how he made the beat was crazy. Definitely an incredible part of hip hop.

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11:17Speaker 2:At what age.

11:19Speaker 5:the white guys start sitting in the bleachers. Because that's a heavy indication in the hood. When you play sports and the white guys... Stephon Marbury told me he was 10 years old and white men used to come sit out there in the winter while he was dribbling in the snow.

11:36Speaker 2:And he knew, oh, I'm.

11:37Speaker 5:Out of here. Coney Island ain't going to be the last stop for me. When did you know? Because I'm sure you've seen other kids hit home runs. When did you know, yo, I'm an elite? Like, I might be going to college for this. I might be, you know, going to the major leagues. It was late because, you know, I didn't start playing until I was 14. I didn't go through the T-ball and the Little League because, you know, I grew up in a home.

12:04Speaker 2:you started playing at 14. Yes.

12:07Speaker 1:So I grew up in a home with a dysfunction father, you know, that was an alcoholic.

12:11Speaker 2:So it was always crazy.

12:13Speaker 1:So it wasn't no sports, you know, it wasn't no him being there, taking us to be on teams and stuff like that. So it wasn't until he was out of the house, you know, after the last episode we had, you know, when I was about 14, he came home drunk again, put on a shotgun and say, he was going to kill the whole family.

12:28Speaker 2:Me and my brothers went into action.

12:30Speaker 1:So we came this close to killing, um, thankful for my mom getting us out of the house and making us go down the street. And when we came back the next day, it wasn't there. So right after that, I went in to start playing baseball. There were coaches that started to come around. Now, see, what people don't understand, coaches are going to have the greatest impact on a person's life or athlete's life because he's going to guide him to his destiny.

12:57Speaker 2:Most coaches will do that.

12:59Speaker 1:And after I was 14, that's how I started getting into baseball. And I kind of like started watching baseball, the Dodgers and the Reds on television game of the week. And I rolled up on the door in my room. I'm going to the pros. And my sister said, you going to the pros? I was like, yeah. She's like, you crazy. I said, yeah, I'm that crazy to believe it. And, you know, from watching it and getting there to playing, and once I hit the field, I always told myself I'm the best player on the field. I don't care who's on the field. It doesn't matter who's on the field.

13:33Speaker 1:If you're looking at somebody else, you're not looking at yourself. And I was always looking at myself and my ability to play the game and learn the game. And that's how I got to the place where I got to. A couple of times, you know, I came close to quitting. Once I got into pro ball, I had to go through the minor league system, going down in places like Lynchburg, Virginia. And they started calling me boy and you're not that good because I was the first pick in the draft and I was 19. And my manager, Gene Dusan, was like, don't look up there because I had that Louisville slugger.

14:10Speaker 1:He thought I might have ran up there and started eliminating folks. So he was like, they're just crazy, you know, and they were saying all kinds of things. So I had to experience that. And I wondered if I made a big mistake by doing that. And I used to tell my mother, I want to quit. She said, you're not quitting. My mother never let me quit. And that was a good thing about having a good mother that no matter what.

14:35Speaker 2:She said, you got into it, you're going to finish it.

14:39Speaker 1:And she wasn't all hyped up about my baseball career success and everything. But she said, you got into this and you need to finish what you started. And so that's what was really my driving point more than anything is having a street sense, because I grew up on the streets, and knowing how to navigate around situations. And if you don't know how to do that, you'll find yourself giving up. And that's what I wanted to be able to give something different to my kids and stay strong in those areas and realize that don't give up because I want to teach my kids that adversity is a part of the challenges of life. And when you have to go through those and you get through those by not giving up, you can achieve anything. And I think that's what made me excel at the highest level because I knew I could achieve.

15:30Speaker 2:That's awesome. Why did you feel like now was the right time to write this book? Well, because it's not about me. It's about people. I lived the life.

15:40Speaker 1:I've been at the pinnacle, top, and I saw so many people in prison more than anything because I experienced that myself for addiction. I went to Florida State Prison and ended up with a T17169. And I did 11 months on an 18-month sentence. And I saw so many of us. And it really spoke to me.

16:07Speaker 2:And when I.

16:09Speaker 1:came to the point of having a transformation in my life, I realized that I needed to go back in there to encourage them. I can't change their circumstances, their situation, but I wanted to go in there and let them know that they're loved. And that their life matters no matter what they've been through. Because a lot of times we don't know where folks come from. We don't know what happened to them to get them there. And I think they just end up with a number caught up in the system and.

16:34Speaker 2:People throw them away.

16:35Speaker 1:And I just didn't want to do that. I wanted to go back. And I think that's what this book is about. It's about different people. I go into and talk to the kids about the hard drugs of overcoming those opiates and heroin, losing their life. And I go to the maximum security prisons where I love the brothers. You know, I love going in there, walking the yards with them.

16:57Speaker 5:And just being, just being, being. You know, me personally, I always sold drugs, right? And I always looked at drug users as being weak people. It's just the way I've been triggered.

17:13Speaker 2:My whole life, right?

17:16Speaker 5:And recently, I was having a surgery. And the man, they got to put me to sleep. He says, now this is going to take the anxiety off. It was the best shit I ever felt. I was mad that he gave it to me. Because I was like, Oh my God, what the fuck is this? To make a long story short, right? When I woke up, I asked him, what the fuck was that? Well, he told me. I didn't even ask him. I was upset because he was like, fentanyl. I said, yo, I didn't ask you.

17:58Speaker 2:Right?

17:59Speaker 5:I didn't even want to know what that felt like. And I'm going to be honest with you. I never used drugs, never smoked cigarettes, never smoked weed, never this. I thought about that shit for like two weeks straight. Like I was just like, yo. And I finally realized when you telling your kids and you telling your loved ones, yo, stop. Like, yo, you fucking up your life. Regular people who never got high, they really have no clue of what they up against.

18:37Speaker 5:Because unfortunately, you got to feel like the best shit ever. And you up and you trying to convince somebody not to do the best shit ever.

18:48Speaker 2:I'm already too old to feel like this.

18:50Speaker 5:This shit happened two, three weeks ago.

18:53Speaker 2:He gave me this shit. I said, oh my God, this shit.

18:57Speaker 5:And then I finally realized what I've been trying to convince my brother about. Yo, get off this shit. Yo, you got to come and suffer with us. You got to feel emotions like us. You know, you can't just get the good stuff. I never realized what we was up against, telling people don't use drugs.

19:20Speaker 2:It's a hard situation.

19:22Speaker 1:It's a very hard situation and it is the best ever. It's an escape from the pain of what happened to you, the wounds that are inside of you. That's all it does for that period of time. And that's why most people get to that place like that because they need to escape from the reality of what they've been through, the trauma, the abuse, the rejection. It allows you to not feel that. at that particular time, like you said, you went to the doctor, you got that.

19:54Speaker 2:Yeah. And I know all that. And you do feel like that.

19:57Speaker 1:I've been through many surgeries and, and they're getting ready to put me under and they give me something and I'd be like, Oh, can I take this home with me? Cause it's going to help me sleep.

20:12Speaker 2:And yeah. And that's the reality of it.

20:14Speaker 1:That's the reality of people that usually get connected deep in drugs. Like I did. It wasn't because of my stardom. It was because I was broken. You know, I was trying to suppress what my father had beaten inside of me.

20:33Speaker 2:You know, when my father, he was strong.

20:37Speaker 1:And when he used to beat you for any little thing that you did wrong, he'd make you take your shirt off, lay you across the bed, and he'd beat you with an extension cord off the vacuum cleaner. So he comes from Mississippi, and I didn't know his father was an alcoholic. And he was the only child. And he saw his father do that to his mother. So it's like a repeated behavior. And I used to go to my room at night after meetings and stuff, and I used to sit there and cry. And I used to say to myself, I am never, ever going to put my hand on my kids. because it will leave those scars on them forever. And I never did put my hands on my kids.

21:21Speaker 2:Same thing.

21:22Speaker 1:And when they got into trouble like I would do at my age, I would make them.

21:27Speaker 2:Stand in the corner.

21:28Speaker 1:Because I didn't want them to be affected like that because people don't realize people are truly affected from real rejection and abuse when they're young. And it turns them It could turn you into a monster and it could kill you. Or you can take it and go through it and you can come out on the other side and now you can go and give it back to help somebody else. And that's what another life is about. Another life for me, it's not about Daryl Strawberry. I'm great.

22:03Speaker 1:It's like, yeah, I was successful. I love New York. I learned a lot playing in New York. I learned a lot about life. being in a city like this, to be able to endure and be able to go back and lift somebody else up. Because that's what New Yorkers do when you're here. When you have struggles, you have issues, they don't give up on you. They lift you up. And that's what I enjoy the most about the fact of being able to write a book at this time and go back and say, here, take this, people.

22:39Speaker 2:Use this.

22:39Speaker 1:I'm showing you the blueprint. I've already done it for you. You don't have to end up like I did. You don't have to end up in the jumpsuit and the handcuffs. I tell my daughter this all the time. I said, my daughter getting into business and all that. Every now and then I can't help but just jump in. And then she's like, yo, dad, I got my own team. We doing our thing. And I'd be like, look, you don't have to go through what.

23:06Speaker 5:I went through. I did that. It didn't work. I'm just letting you know. I'm not trying to shut down whatever you're doing, but I think the biggest thing people can learn is you can learn from other people's mistakes by watching it.

23:23Speaker 2:You don't have to try it yourself. You don't have to do it yourself.

23:27Speaker 5:If you know your friend that was intelligent, that was your man, that this and this and that, fucked up to drugs and he can't get off that shit, what makes you think you're stronger than him to be doing it? So you got to learn from other people's mistakes. I think that's very valuable. I think we owe people. We owe our community books like this.

23:51Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot.

23:52Speaker 5:And so, like, giving them back the knowledge and saying, listen, man.

23:56Speaker 2:I went through some shit. JoeAndJayTheShow.com.

24:03Speaker 3:We got new merch fresh off the presses.

24:06Speaker 2:Go get it.

24:07Speaker 3:Bang.

24:08Speaker 2:On a big, bomb, JoeAndJayTheShow.com. You can get these. A little cold for a t-shirt with a hoodie.

24:17Speaker 5:It's my favorite right there. I need an extra large. JoeAndJayTheShow.com. Go there and get it. And it's even harder, right? Because you telling me you did 11 months. I was going to ask you, and I think about the soul of town, right? Whenever a celebrity or somebody goes to jail or whatever, I think about that first time you walk in there and they're like, holy shit, it's Dow Street, baby. And then you got to lay on that bunk for the first time and be like, holy shit, what the fuck am I doing here?

24:59Speaker 2:Did you have that type of moment?

25:01Speaker 1:I had the moment where when I went into the prison system and the warden told me, you don't belong here.

25:10Speaker 2:And he said, do your time and get going and get moving forward.

25:17Speaker 1:Because you're talking about a place where it's real. There's no joke. And I don't care who you are. You're going to be challenged at some point, sometime. That's just the way it is. And when I got there, I wasn't in fear. I was in the fact that, okay, I need to get this over with. Because I can't keep having this over my head. I'm not a criminal. I got a substance abuse problem. So, okay, it's going to be 11 months. I could do this probably standing on the top of my head. Just the way it is.

25:54Speaker 1:I used to think because of where I'm from, right? I already been tough from the street. So I wasn't like, oh man, I'm afraid. You know, it's like, okay, here we are. How are you going to deal with it? And I went in the system and I dealt with it. And I made a lot of friends, you know, because I'm a cool guy. I'm not a guy that's looking at it. throw the knuckles but if you want to throw the knuckles I throw those too because that's where I've been through that you know from the streets and playing baseball so I'm a lot of them already know that and so you got challenged a few times you know when you're playing sports there and playing basketball and you're dunking on fools yeah you're dunking on fools and they're talking and they're getting mad and I was like yeah whatever let's do it but people like always would push you back so you wouldn't get into those places where And you get put in the hole and stuff like that. And so, I mean, the fact that it happened is the lessons that, do you learn the lessons in life?

26:55Speaker 2:This is what happens to a lot of people that don't.

26:57Speaker 1:They keep repeating the same thing over and over and over again, looking for a different result and thinking it's a different way to do it. But it's not when you get caught up in the system like that. And I used to tell a lot of brothers that. I said, I'm not coming back here. I got a letter A and some guys got D, C, F. I've been back there six, seven times and talking about a different way of doing things when they get out. I said, there's no different way when you get yourself involved in the system like this. And I was prosecuted in Tampa. I was prosecuted by Pam Bondi. she was on prosecuting me.

27:37Speaker 1:She was telling the judge he needs to be locked up. The judge was like, no, he don't. He's not a criminal. He's just having a drug problem. He's like, who did he kill? She's like, well, he's just, he's destroying Tampa. She's like, no, he's not. He just violated probation. So it taught me a lot about the system and people. And I got a real great education about life. Life will give you a good education, no matter if you're successful and you go through some things. And if you're successful and you don't go through some things, life is going to challenge you at some point. And if you don't have life skills, you're not going to be able to make it through. Because that's what you have to have to be able to get through this whole thing that we call life up there.

28:30Speaker 5:You win a chip with the Mets. You win three chips with the Yankees. Which was the more fun team?

28:40Speaker 1:Probably, that's easy to say, the 86 Mets. We're the more crazy team that I've ever played with. What consists of crazy? You're doing whatever you want, however you want. But at the fact Some motherfucker was getting high, going to the game high. No, we didn't get high going to the game. People exaggerate when they say that. You don't win 108 ballgames getting high. We might have been taking amphetamines and we were crazy. We were going to put these knuckles on you and stuff like that. We were going to go out and drink and be wild.

29:15Speaker 1:You talking about after. They used to say Babe Ruth used to get hammered every night.

29:19Speaker 2:Yeah, you were going to go out and drink. You got women everywhere. You married. You know, you.

29:25Speaker 1:You're going to have fun because it's like a candy store. You go to the candy store and get what you like. That's what it was like for us in the 80s. And there was no hangover. about that, you know, because it was the 80s. It was different. New York was different. And we were like a band, like rappers. You know, you go into town and you turn it out and behind the scenes, it's a different story, you know?

29:55Speaker 2:It's turning up. Ah!

30:00Speaker 1:So the Mets. I'm saying that was the team, the 86 Mets. It was like really... Who was on the 86 Mets? Gary Carter. You was going up against.

30:13Speaker 2:Fernando Venezuela. I was taking him off the scoreboard. You know they still got murals of him in L.A. and all that. Fernando Venezuela. You was parking him. Taking his shit off the hat. Going up like this. Who else is part of the team? Hernandez. Carter. Keith Hernandez. Wally Backman. Dykstra. Lenny Dykstra. Kevin Mitchell. Doc Gooden. Ron Darling. Bobby Ojeda. Rafael Santana. Oh, my God.

30:43Speaker 1:Ray Knight, tough. But you go down the list of our team, and it wasn't... He was a hell of a first baseman. He's the most intelligent player I have ever played with.

30:55Speaker 5:And I could tell. How about that? I could read his IQ every time he was making a play. You knew Keith Hernandez was a smart motherfucker. He ain't look dumb for nothing.

31:07Speaker 2:Nah, man.

31:08Speaker 5:Just like when we skipped to the Yankees, I would say my favorite Yankee of all time was Thurman Munson, just as a fan, because he.

31:17Speaker 2:Was a wild white boy, backcatcher.

31:20Speaker 5:I mean, you know, he gave me everything King Fernandez ain't give me.

31:25Speaker 2:I'm like, yo, this is a wild boy.

31:27Speaker 5:He look like Jake Paul playing baseball or some shit like that. But on the Yankees, on the winning side of the Yankees, who'd you play with on those teams?

31:39Speaker 1:I played with Tino. I played with Bernie. I played with O'Neal. I played with Scott Broses. I played with the one and only, the great Jeep, Derek Jeter. Probably the best person between him and Carter are probably the best people I've.

32:01Speaker 2:Ever met in the game of baseball. Derek Jeter.

32:03Speaker 1:Yeah, they don't say anything negative about nobody. Jeter never did. Carter never did.

32:08Speaker 5:He does a lot for the community. Jeter, the Turn 2 Foundation is always.

32:13Speaker 1:Helping the people. Folks talk about how he's not this player, that player. The guy played the game the right way. He went out there. When he put the uniform on, he didn't have to voice his opinion about being the captain.

32:29Speaker 2:He was the captain because of the way he played.

32:33Speaker 1:And That is the way people should look at players that stand out. You know, they stand out more of looking at other guys and, well, this guy's better.

32:44Speaker 2:But Derrick was Derrick. They never get into Derrick G. Back to the Mets, though.

32:50Speaker 3:When Davey Johnson said, we're going to win this whole, did y'all really believe that at that moment?

32:55Speaker 2:Or what did you think when he said that? We were true gangsters. We knew we were going to win. Because we had lost the year before to the Cardinals.

33:04Speaker 1:We won 98 ballgames and went home. And in our locker room after that series, it was just really quiet. And we knew to ourselves that we had lost the division twice back-to-back, 84 and 85. We lost to the Cubs, then we lost to the Cardinals. And it hit us right in there.

33:27Speaker 2:We knew.

33:29Speaker 5:She's the only good luck I got right now about Philly with LeBron and all of them. Every team always lose the first year. They never just straight go. So it's the only thing I can keep telling myself we're going to beat these guys. Philly does stacked up in the basketball side. I'm like, yo, they always win one. They always lose a year to feel that And then come back, hopefully they lose this year.

33:55Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying? I'm keeping it real. I'm keeping it a buck. Well, that's a good question. Because see, Davey Johnson was a guy that played the game. And he had a personal understanding about players. And he knew how to get players and put players in a position to be successful.

34:18Speaker 2:And he never....

34:20Speaker 1:Would throw his players under the bus. What goes on in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse. We fight and we fight, but it's not coming out to the media. And we're not going to let the outlets know anything about inner stuff. You know, and we had inner stuff because we had a lot of personalities. And, you know, a lot of times they wanted to, a lot of times, you know, guys wanted to push my button. But I was the wrong guy that you didn't want to push my buttons because I was different. I didn't play around when you pushed my button. But when I get on this field and we all get on this field together.

34:58Speaker 2:We're going to wax people.

35:01Speaker 1:It was no worrying about that. It was no pressure when he told us that spring training, we're going to win it all. He didn't just say we're going to win it all. He said we're going to dominate. And we got off to a two and three star, something like that. And we had to welcome home dinner and keep told everybody relax. It's just the season had just started. And once we went into St. Louis and we swept the Cardinals and Whitey Herzog, our manager for the Cardinals, made a comment. He says, nobody's going to beat them.

35:30Speaker 1:And we just took off and ran away with that division.

35:33Speaker 5:So somebody could actually say something that you hear and it could affect you.

35:39Speaker 2:Mentally like, look, this.

35:42Speaker 5:Certification, they know we coming to win.

35:47Speaker 2:Let's do it.

35:47Speaker 5:So something like that could actually motivate you to go all the way.

35:52Speaker 2:Oh, no doubt about it.

35:53Speaker 1:But we had this swag about us because when we were coming into your town, we coming to tear it up. Yeah, we're coming to tear it up on the field, off the field, just all around. You know, it was just, that's just the way it was for us.

36:10Speaker 5:Tap your hoes, your clubs, and we're going to hit the home run the next day.

36:15Speaker 2:See you next week.

36:19Speaker 1:It was just the kind of way it was for us and the personality of the team that we had.

36:25Speaker 2:We had some bad guys.

36:26Speaker 5:Doc Gooden looked like he was having the time of his life at that time, too.

36:29Speaker 2:Well, Doc Gooden was very unique.

36:32Speaker 1:I don't think you will ever see anyone as good as that at a kid at 19, 20 years old. 1985, he dominated basketball. major league hitters like I've never seen. They talk about a lot of great pitchers, but he was only 20. And you're talking about a guy that had command of his fastball and could throw his breaking ball at any time and have Dawson, Mike Smith, Pete Rose, all those great Hall of Famers and freeze them and throw gas. I mean, I think guys knew when Doc was pitching, they were early and Batting practice, they would take BP, and then all of a sudden they scratched because their neck hurt or something like that.

37:19Speaker 5:How was my man Goose Gossage? Goose Gossage with the legendary mustache. Goose was wild. Goose could get busy, huh?

37:29Speaker 1:Yeah, Goose could get busy, and he'd give you that look, and he'd intimidate you with that look he had on his face.

37:35Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a brownstone cow, boy. You know, like... You know what I've learned?

37:46Speaker 5:The things that really matter, you can't rush them.

37:49Speaker 2:Facts.

37:50Speaker 3:You can't rush the sauce. You can't rush the music. You can't rush relationships. And you definitely can't rush great tequila.

37:58Speaker 5:That's why 1800 Tequila stands out. The name goes all the way back to the 1800s when the Beckman family started making tequila. And that patience, that attention to the craft has been passed down through more than 11 generations.

38:15Speaker 2:That's legacy.

38:16Speaker 3:Sometimes you just got to let something cook. Juan Beckman Vidal aged 1,800 aneo longer than he even had to because he knew it wasn't ready yet.

38:26Speaker 2:I respect that.

38:27Speaker 5:Don't put it out just because you can put it out.

38:29Speaker 2:Put it out when it's right. That applies to a record.

38:32Speaker 5:A conversation, a move, a making, and clearly a bottle of tequila.

38:37Speaker 3:And once you get it right, you share it with your people. That's always been part of the story. Good tequila, good conversation, and the people around you really appreciate both.

38:47Speaker 2:Passion, hard work, honesty.

38:49Speaker 5:Those words are written on every bottle of 1800. And honestly, that's the foundation for anything built to last.

38:58Speaker 3:So take your time with what you're creating, and when the moment is right, share it.

39:02Speaker 2:With your people. 1800 Tequila. Good stuff takes time.

39:06Speaker 3:And the best stuff's meant to be shared with your people. I got a three-part question. What was it like getting drafted, number one? What was New York like at that time? And what was it like winning the National League rookie of the year?

39:27Speaker 1:I think when I got drafted in 1980, out of high school, I know my mother drove me that morning to school and she was a little nervous and I wasn't. I figured I'd probably get drafted because four players got drafted the year before in 79 after we lost the city championship to John Elwin in Madagascar Stadium. And all the scouts was asking the coach about me. And they said, he's, he told him he's a junior. They go, he's a junior. Yeah.

39:57Speaker 2:He's got another year high school.

39:58Speaker 1:So when I came out that my senior year, you know, my first game, I had like 50 scouts out there looking, coming to see him. Cause I was called a black Ted Williams. Someone would call me, uh, Willie McCovey. I was long linking. And, And being drafted that year, they came and got me out of class. And they said, you've been drafted. I said, okay. They said, you've been drafted number one.

40:21Speaker 2:I said, okay.

40:24Speaker 1:I just wanted to get drafted. And they said, you're going to the New York Mets. I said, okay, where the heck is New York at?

40:33Speaker 2:Wow.

40:34Speaker 1:And, you know, I finally got a chance to come here and see New York.

40:39Speaker 2:And I thought to myself, when I saw this place, I goes, wow. Oh my God. What year you get here for the first time?

40:47Speaker 1:I think it was, I came up when I was about 19, 20 years old from the minor.

40:53Speaker 2:League player of the year, stuff like that with the organization.

40:56Speaker 1:And they brought me to New York and I came here and I thought.

41:00Speaker 2:Yeah, what year?

41:01Speaker 5:What year?

41:02Speaker 2:That had to be 1984.

41:07Speaker 1:One, two, I came up in 83 before I came up, um, because I won rookie of the year, but I had to be in 82, something like that. And, and, and coming down the streets and I was like, Oh my God, how am I going to figure this out?

41:18Speaker 2:They got one way streets. You don't have that in California.

41:23Speaker 1:You don't go one way, you know, one go this way, one go that way, one go that way. I was like, man, this is going to be really crazy to figure out. Um, when I was, I was thinking about that one, it was like 20 years old.

41:35Speaker 2:Yeah.

41:36Speaker 5:So you get to New York City when the Bronx look like Palm City and shit like that.

41:43Speaker 2:No, I mean... You ain't go.

41:45Speaker 5:Pick up no chick in the South Bronx where the shit look like she was living inside the broken building and shit with the extension cord.

41:54Speaker 1:New York was to me, it was like South Central, the ghetto hood. So I kind of.

42:04Speaker 2:Similarities. Yeah, similarities.

42:06Speaker 1:I kind of felt like I'd be all right here.

42:08Speaker 2:And I got here.

42:10Speaker 1:And I finally got here in 83, my rookie year. And I struggled when I first came up, like every player will.

42:18Speaker 2:Struggled at the big leagues. I was 21. I was supposed.

42:22Speaker 1:To be at the ballpark early at 1 o'clock, hitting Coach Jim Fry, and I didn't show up until 3 o'clock.

42:27Speaker 2:And he got in my face.

42:30Speaker 1:He said, kid, if you ever want to be great, at this Major League League, I would be at this ballpark early every day. And from that day forward, I was at the ballpark early every day. I got to the ball with seven o'clock game. I'm at the ballpark at two. And he worked me through that whole process. And he got me to understand more about, it's not about the talent. It's about being here and taking it all in and also working on the things that you're weak at, not the things that you're strong at. See, most athletes only work at the things that are stronger and they don't work on the weak things. And so you want to be able to balance yourself. And he taught me that. And then we got Hernandez in the trade.

43:13Speaker 1:He came from St.

43:14Speaker 2:Louis.

43:15Speaker 1:I had no idea who he was. And people were like, oh, it's a big deal. And Hernandez started to see me play. And he started to.

43:24Speaker 2:Think, wow. Wow.

43:26Speaker 1:Was this little skinny 21-year-old kid they got hitting the ball off the scoreboard already.

43:30Speaker 2:Hit this shit off the ball.

43:33Speaker 1:And he was thinking to himself that I want to get out of here because I come from the Cardinals and I go on to win rookie of the year that year. But he said his father told him you need to stay and sign with the Mets because they got some more players coming up with a farm system that's.

43:48Speaker 2:Just just like strawberry and they're going to be pretty good.

43:52Speaker 1:And that was big for me because to be able to have him teach me the game and elevate me to the next level was incredible because Players like that are always going to have an effect on you. When they're not jealous and they know you're talented, they're going to teach you how to do this. And he was that guy that was teaching me how to hit left-hand pitching and showing me how to do that, showing me how to get up in the box and get back deep when he's throwing fastballs and get up in the box when he's throwing off speed, catch it. Man, I hit 20 home runs off left-handed hitters and left-hand pitchers in 88 because of knowing how to do that.

44:30Speaker 2:So.

44:31Speaker 1:Those are the things that have become important when you're playing sports and you listen to guys that have the knowledge like Hernandez have.

44:41Speaker 2:I told you I seen pictures of, who was it, Harlem? Willie Mays?

44:47Speaker 5:Like Willie Mays, you know, the Yankee Stadium was in the polo grounds first. And they got pictures of Willie Mays just playing stickball outside with all the kids in Harlem. He's just a beautiful sight to see. You ever did stuff like that with the kids out there and try to play baseball with them and stuff like that back in the day?

45:11Speaker 1:We grew up on like a broomstick hitting rocks. That's how I learned to start swinging. So you had to have hand-eye coordination because you had to be able to see the rocks to hit them. And That's where I learned. I think that's where I learned how to be able to pick up the spin on the baseball. Because when you hit rocks, you got to pay attention. You got to focus. You cannot take your eye off of it because you're.

45:38Speaker 2:Going to miss it.

45:40Speaker 1:And when I started to learn about baseball, I started to learn how to see the spin coming out of the pitch of hand and everything.

45:46Speaker 3:And.

45:47Speaker 2:Those are the things that kids get away from.

45:50Speaker 1:Well, it's different now because they have all these different platforms, AAU Travel Ball.

45:56Speaker 2:There wasn't no AAU Travel Ball for us. We didn't have no money for no AAU Travel Ball. We couldn't afford that.

46:02Speaker 1:We had to play with rocks out there until you got to a place where you got on a team.

46:07Speaker 2:And now this is what baseball is.

46:09Speaker 1:And I was fortunate, like I said before, to grow up with Eric Davis and Chris Brown and play with those guys. Because they were multi-talented athletes, too, out of L.A. and played basketball. Eric went to Fremont. Chris went to Crenshaw with me. And to be able to watch them play just kind of motivated me even more. Like, hey, you know, we can come out of here, too, and be successful. When you see other guys from the hood play and you play summer ball together, you know what he can play.

46:41Speaker 2:That's great.

46:43Speaker 5:It reminds me of my little man there.

46:45Speaker 2:He's from Brazil.

46:48Speaker 5:When that FIFA was going on, they were saying the story that the Brazilian players got good because they'd be in these little favelas and they start playing soccer in these little favelas and they get so nice on their feet that when they get into like a real field, they're able to move because sometimes the limited things in life, things that can limit you in life can actually make you greater.

47:19Speaker 2:You know, that's an important thing.

47:21Speaker 5:You put me in such a humble position because these years you're.

47:25Speaker 2:Talking about 81, 80.

47:26Speaker 5:Man, I was still eating free lunch.

47:31Speaker 2:Come on. I was eating free cheese, man.

47:34Speaker 5:And so the fact that, you know, you bringing them years, I got to look at that story and be like, damn, man, did we ever think we'll ever meet?

47:43Speaker 2:The hell Strawberry... The man, the myth, the legend.

47:48Speaker 5:It's a big deal for us to meet you, bro, and have you on our show.

47:51Speaker 2:It's an honor, brother, man. Well, same here, man.

47:54Speaker 1:Because I go back in those days, you know, when you had to get lunch bags at school and stuff like that. A lot of people didn't grow up like we did. And what you were just talking about. And it's real humbling. And it makes you tough. Makes you not forget.

48:11Speaker 5:Never. You know, I jumped on the car of Dave Winfield. I was in the All-Star Weekend in Houston and a man pulled up to a party and I jumped on his car because the only way I could go to Yankee Stadium was with the Winfield Foundation. And the man used to give us free tickets to my projects to go to the Yankee game. So when I saw him, I just couldn't believe it because for us, living five minutes away from the.

48:39Speaker 2:Stadium, it was still... We never seen green grass. We never seen lights. We never heard.

48:46Speaker 5:And now, you know, the announcement and all that stuff, it was a big deal for us to get inside the stadium. And so shout out to Dave Winfield for doing that for me, man.

48:59Speaker 2:The name of the book? Another Life, baby. This ain't that. That ain't this. It's crack and kiss, goddammit. Make some noise for Darryl Scott! Darryl Scott! God, bury me in this lake.