Sports

STRAW’S ROAD TO RECOVERY: LET HIM PLAY

BEFORE we jump to conclusions on the latest chapter of the soap opera that is Darryl Strawberry, it is essential to remember one key fact.

All we know for sure is that Strawberry, the Nose that Can’t Say No, checked himself out of a voluntary rehab center after a 3? month stay.

It doesn’t mean he is back on drugs, although considering his history, he very well might be.

It doesn’t even mean he is drinking again, even if he was seen in a Fort Lauderdale “swinger’s club” with a stripper on his arm and a glass in his hand.

And it doesn’t mean that Bud

Selig, the infinitely wise and compassionate Commissioner of Baseball, should slam the door shut on the possibility that Darryl Strawberry will ever play Major League Baseball again.

In fact, perhaps it should mean just the opposite.

Maybe the ultimate solution to the Darryl Strawberry Problem is the simplest.

Let him play. Now. Today.

Or at least, before this season is out.

Let the natural selection process that is professional sports determine Darryl Strawberry’s fate, because by now, we all know that Darryl Strawberry himself can’t do it.

Nor, it appears, can anyone else, neither the powers that be nor the Powers That Might Be.

After all, they’ve tried everything with this guy.

They’ve tried love. They’ve tried tough love. They’ve tried deterrence and shame and punishment.

They’ve even tried colon cancer.

No one has been able to scare Darryl Strawberry straight, or shame him straight, or reason him straight.

Maybe the time has come to think outside the box where Strawberry is concerned. Perhaps laissez-faire is the only fair policy left.

Let him play.

Lift the ban that precludes Strawberry trying yet another comeback at age 38.

First of all, what, and whose, purpose does it serve to keep Strawberry out of baseball?

What difference does it make, anyway?

If you are arguing that drug abuse will make Strawberry an ineffective player, don’t worry about it.

Professional sports has even less tolerance for losers than it does for druggies. Ineffective players are soon unemployed players.

And if your argument is that Darryl Strawberry should not be allowed to play baseball because he makes a bad role model, I would submit that no one who plays a game for a living should serve as a role model for anyone’s children.

Kids who have to look to strangers for guidance are kids who are being poorly raised at home.

In reality, what has Darryl Strawberry done to deserve banishment from baseball?

He hasn’t Latrelled a coach, or Ray Lewis-ed a man in a street fight. He hasn’t Everetted an umpire or Rockered a variety of ethnic groups. He never Charles Barkley-ed a little girl in the stands, or Albert Belled a photographer.

OK, so he did take a swing at Keith Hernandez, call Wally Backman a “little redneck,” and busted the nose of his first wife.

But all that was a long time ago. Doesn’t the statute of limitations ever run out?

Like most drug addicts, the bulk of Strawberry’s crimes have been committed against himself and his family.

You can’t even argue that his latest “hiccup” hurt the Yankees, because it was their choice to entrust the DH spot in their lineup to a guy with Strawberry’s shaky history.

Don’t blame the addict for that. Blame the guy who chose to depend upon him. Plus, the Yankees are going to win their division without him, anyway.

And if you want to argue that allowing Strawberry back into the game somehow hurts its “integrity,” well, you’d first have to believe that professional sports has integrity.

There certainly are worse human beings than Darryl Strawberry playing major league ball right now; cashing major league checks twice a month and enjoying major league treatment every day of their lives. (See above).

Why, then, should Darryl Strawberry be kept out? Is Selig looking to make an example of him? To what end?

It is as silly, and even cruel, as the jailing of Robert Downey Jr. for the crime of injecting heroin into his own veins.

The guy needs help, not the company of hardened criminals in a room with no windows and a steel toilet seat.

Strawberry needs help, too, although exactly what kind has

yet to be determined.

Clearly, conventional methods are not working for him.

Maybe it’s time to go the unconventional route.

Give him back his bat and ball and let him sink or swim with them.

If he can play again, great.

If so, my guess is that suddenly, there will be no more positive drug tests, either because Strawberry will be on his best behavior, or because of that interesting little oddity of professional sports where the biggest stars never seem to be found guilty of anything very serious.

Funny how it is always the lowest guy on the depth chart who is found to be taking steroids.

And if he can’t play, do what happens to all professional athletes who suddenly find their bats have run out of hits, their arms have run out of pitches, their fists have run out of KOs.

Cut him loose. Then, it will be time for Darryl Strawberry to truly confront reality, for the first time in his adult life.

From what we know, it seems the reason Strawberry walked out of that rehab center-which he had every right to do, remember?-is because he wants so badly to play baseball. It’s the only way he has ever known to make a buck.

Maybe the very fact that baseball is still out there for him-and you know that by next year, Selig was going to lift the ban anyway and Boss Steinbrenner was going to give him One Last Chance-allows Darryl Strawberry to play fast and loose with his life.

Maybe if he is really given one last chance, and fails at it, then Darryl Strawberry will get to work at what he really needs to accomplish, which is recovery.

For the past 20 years, baseball has been Darryl Strawberry’s safety net.

It has also been his crutch.

Sooner or later, Darryl Strawberry is going to miss that net. The crutch is going to be kicked out from under him. Someday, it is all going to get real for him, and then, it will be time for him to deal.

In the meantime, give the guy a break.

Let him play. Now.

Because heaven knows, the rest of his life is going to be nothing but hard, and maybe hopeless, work.

It’s about time he got on with it.

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