(noted author Darryl Strawberry, far right, shown with Gary Carter and a very well dressed Mets fan)
Dwight Gooden has already told the tale of Kevin Mitchell decapitating a kitty-cat. Jeff Pearlman reminded us that Frank Cashen wanted to kill Randy Niemann for pouring champagne over the GM’s head. Really, what else can we learn about the exploits of the 1986 World Champion New York Mets? According to a forthcoming tome from former Mets OF Darryl Strawberry, the ’86 Amazins were “the boys of summer. The drunk, speed-freak, sneaking-a-smoke boys of summer”. Brace yourself, for what might be the least revelatory baseball book of 2009. From the New York Post’s Page 6 :
Beer “was the foundation of our alcoholic lifestyle,” Strawberry writes. “We hauled around more Bud than the Clydesdales. The beer was just to get the party started and maybe take the edge off the speed and coke.” The team’s mantra on the road, he writes, was to “tear up your best bars and nightclubs and take your finest women . . . The only hard part for us was choosing which hottie to take back to your hotel room. Lots of times you . . . picked two or three.”
Although he doesn’t name names, Strawberry relates how team members picked out girls from the stands for quickies. He once watched a pitcher march a frisky fan to a private room for oral sex: “I was jealous. When I saw her heading back to her seat, I gave her a sign. She smiled, turned right back around, and met me in that same little room . . . I had to be quick and run back out on the field.”
Another time, “I was in the clubhouse, having one last quickie with this cute little Florida girl. Charlie Samuels, the equipment manager, came in and caught us. He just stood there shaking his head while I finished up.”
Such feats might have been widely known in NYC, but I found it surprisingly congenial of Darryl to go down on a fan in the middle of a game.
He just stood there shaking his head while I finished up.â€
“shaking his head”, indeed.
Hmm, what was Man-Ram doing when he went into the Green Monster during the game? He claims it was a bathroom break, but word has it that there’s no bathroom in there.
Kind of pathetic and classless for Strawberry to write about all this tabloid trash after eveything he has gone through. I would have thought that all that adversity would have humbled or at least matured him a little bit. But, I guess he needs the money.