A Legacy Beyond Baseball: A Conversation with Darryl Strawberry

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Thinking Christian, this episode was recorded a while back. It's a conversation with Darryl Strawberry. And if you haven't heard, Darryl Strawberry was having some health problems here recently. And so I thought it'd be appropriate to replay this episode. He's just got a great heart, a great story, and a great ministry. It's amazing what God has done in his life. And so our prayers and our thoughts go out to Darryl Strawberry and his family as he deals with what I believe is a heart attack. But just encourage you to listen to this interview. Like I said, we've released it before. But this version actually has a lot more content in it than the one we previously released. And just thought that this was great stuff that we could put out there to direct people to Darryl, to his ministry, and ultimately to what God has been doing in his life. So Darryl, if you're out there, I just wanna let you know, we're praying for you. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for doing what you do. And it's just a blessing to watch the way God is using you. And I trust that you will get better, that you will be healed, and that you will continue to do the Lord's work. We're actually gonna begin the interview with a conversation from Darryl just talking about his experience with God and how God has used him over the years. And so what you're gonna hear is just Darryl beginning to talk through his story. And my co-host, Richard Beattie and I will peppering questions as we go. But we're gonna start out with Darryl. So thanks for being on this episode. Thanks for listening. And just encourage you to enjoy this time with a great guy who's got a great ministry, Darryl Strawberry. What I love about God is God doesn't waste anything. I think it's our lives that end up with the broken pieces and we need hope in our life. And there's only one hope and it's finding the savior. And that's a process. That wasn't an overnight miracle. I wish I can sit here and say, I wish it would have been done a different way, but it had to be done the way it was done. And I understand that more than anything today after going through the life of trials and tribulations and coming to the top of the mountain and going to the bottom of the pit probably was the greatest thing that ever happened to me because there's only one thing when you go down to the bottom is either you look up and you find the symbol of the cross or you continue to go in the same direction. And throughout that process, I looked up and I was able to find the cross and able to find freedom through Christ and I'm forever grateful for that. How long, if you don't mind me, how long have you been out of baseball? How long have you been, well, maybe I'll ask two part question. How long have you been out of baseball and how long have you been doing your ministry? Well, I've been out of baseball almost 23 years now. I think from the time of playing and everything that I had experienced, it's been 23 years since I've been around baseball. And I've been out for a very long time. I just kind of went back this year and went to spring training with the Mets this year in New Ownership and I just had a bitter taste in my mouth with baseball, not all of baseball, but with the Mets organization for a long time. And I had to get over that. That was my own issue and I had to get over it and to be able to get over that, to be able to go back into baseball and see baseball from a totally different perspective now. And, you know, that's a joy to be able to understand it from this side and being in ministry, you know, we've been in ministry, we've had our ministry over 27 years. I just started preaching about 16 years ago when God called me to go full-time ministry. But me and my wife have always had a heart for people and hurting people and broken people that are lost in, especially in the same kind of place that we had been in addiction. And we know that it's an epidemic across the nation and people are hurting from all kinds of walks of life, but understanding the importance of going back and being able to encourage people and encourage them through our faith. It was our faith that made us well. We tried everything and I tried everything and I never got well trying everything from a natural standpoint. It wasn't until I went to the supernatural and entered into that relationship with Christ. And that's when, you know, my life really started to change. I started to focus on something greater than what I achieved as a baseball player. So what kind of audiences do you usually speak to? That's a good question. I mean, I do a lot of men's conference. I preach in a lot of churches across the country. I travel probably like 260, 70 times out of the year. My schedule is loaded. I didn't know that God calling would be so good and it would be so great to be able to help the multitude of people. And I just remember when God was calling me, him speaking to me and saying that, you know, I'm going to make you evangelist and I want you to go study Billy Graham and I want you to understand what an evangelist is and how to go in and be bold and preach the gospel. And I never looked back, you know, and it's been a great run. And sometime I got to, I thought I had like really paced myself when you're like that when I was playing baseball, but you got to really do that when, you know, when you really work for the Lord and see what his purpose is for and the multitude of people that he called you to help and bring back to him. Yeah, very cool. Yeah, Daryl, I want to say too, you know, I've been following you. I think 1983, your rookie year with the Mets. It was around that time. And, you know, I, I wonder what was it? What was it like to be, I mean, you were, you were very young at the time. What was it like to be, you know, suddenly you're, you're thrust into the show, right? So did you, were, were there people around you that, that were what pretty much a lot of, just a lot of temptation. Yeah, go ahead, James. You need to say something. I was just going to say, Richard, I think we lost you there a little bit. Darryl, did you get enough of that question that you understand what he's asking you? Yeah, I got enough of it. I was talking about what, what was it like and, and the temptations. Yeah. It was, it was very challenging. I think it was something that I always wanted to do. I always wanted to be a professional athlete. And to be able to get to the major leagues at a young age, at the age of 21, and kind of be just thrown into that New York atmosphere, the lifestyle. And I just remember my rookie season, I got off to a really rough start and I was struggling and it was really hard, but I had one coach that was there and it was the hitting coach, Jim Fry. And I was supposed to be at the ballpark early. I love telling this story because I was supposed to be at the ballpark early at one o'clock and I didn't show up till like three o'clock and he got in my face when I got to the ballpark and he said, if you ever want to be great at this game, you'll be at this ballpark every day early. And from that day forward, I was at that ballpark every day early. So he kind of pushed me into my greatness and he helped me understand that it's important to be here to continue to work no matter how talented you are. But players, the players I was playing with were older players. So there was a, it was a bad team. They were in last place and no, nobody was going anywhere from those players that I was playing with. Most of them was on their way out. So I realized quickly that it was a business. They were in the business part of it. They were just making their money and they're moving on. And I just got introduced to all the wrong things. You know, I just remember a veteran player on my first road trip, a veteran player sent me to the bathroom and said, welcome to the big league kids. I never mentioned his name, but welcome to the big leagues. And there it was, he introduced me to cocaine. And I went back there and I hit it and I liked it. And I thought, hmm, this is nice. And then a first road trip, they took me out. They said, put your bags, leave them at the hotel and take them up to your room when the bags come and meet us down in the bar. So I met him down in the bar and he took me out to this nice club. And there was, they showed me the life of, you know, a bunch of girls and drinking and partying and hanging out. And that's how I got introduced. You know, and the reason why I say that is because I was broken on the inside. My father was an alcoholic and my father rejected me. And my father used to beat the living crap out of me. And when he came home for the last time when I was about 14 years old

Because my father said I would never be anything. And here it is, these guys were accepting me as being Darryl Strawberry, a baseball player. And I thought, this is it. This is the life I want. And this is the way I got introduced to Major League Baseball. Of course, it was the wrong way, but I thought to myself, I'm happy because my father said I wasn't nothing. And these guys accepted me. Was that a pretty consistent activity for you? I mean, that's just the way baseball kind of went, or did it calm down and, you know, slow down and speed up as you went through your career? I mean, what did that look like? It was pretty fast-paced, fast-moving. I mean, the drugs wasn't there early in my career. I just tried it a couple of times, you know, when I was with those guys, and that was it. And I went on off into another direction, and I got serious about playing, and I wanted to be the best player that I could be. But the alcohol was still there. I was always drinking, and I was always at one night, and I was always chasing women at night. And even if I was married, you know, I was still on the road. I was always in the clubs and chasing after girls and drinking all night and partying. And that's just the way I learned how to do it. It was a way of life, you know, because I realized that I didn't have anything else inside of me because I was so empty on the inside, and I hated my father and the rejection that he gave to us left me broken. And I always tell people, brokenness is real. I tell them lawlessness brings about brokenness, and it just continues to break a broken generation until someone breaks that off of the family. Of course, I have broken that off of my family and my kids, but I went through it my whole entire career being broken and empty on the inside. And people say, well, you had everything. Yeah, I had everything from a worldly perspective, but I never had anything from a peace perspective. And that's a big difference in your life when you're playing sports and you're accumulating all these earthly things and living behind community gates, and everybody thinks you should be well because you got a big bank account and you should be well. Listen, money doesn't make you happy. Money provides for you and buy you things, but it doesn't make you happy on the inside. You know, and I think that's what a lot of celebrities don't understand. You get all the success you want, all the trophies you want. At the end of the day, you still go home and you look at that stuff sometimes to yourself, and you're still empty on the inside. You know, there's only one person that can fill that empty void on the inside of all of us, and that's Christ himself. You know, the rest of us search for everything else. And I didn't realize that that would be the fulfilling of my life. My life is full, you know, after knowing that Christ is Lord over my life. You know, regardless of how successful I looked in those times, I was never fulfilled on the inside. And when you're never fulfilled, you're always chasing after more, chasing after the next to be better, to be bigger, and to do more, and to do more. And then when you get to the top of the mountain, you realize that no one is home. Yeah, I always, I mean, I love the passage when you're talking. I go back to the passage where Paul says, you know, I've learned to be content in want and in riches. And it really is true. We have to learn to be content, and we can't learn to be content without Christ. It doesn't matter what we have. It doesn't matter how comfortable our lives look from the outside. There's just something in us that... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? 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If we don't learn that contentment, if we don't have Christ in our hearts and we're not living our lives for Him, we're never going to have that sort of peace and contentment that you're talking about. How were you introduced to Christ? What was your journey there from a religious perspective? Well, I was always introduced to Christ through looking at my mother. My mother was a very faithful woman and went to church. After she divorced my father, she'd never remarried. She was married to the church. She was married to God and she lived according to the biblical principles. She never tried to preach to us. She was just a living example. And I know that. And that's why I sit here today because when I look back over my life and realized that my mom was leaving a legacy for her kids that Jesus is Lord while we were living heathen lifestyles and lost and broken, she was living a life of faith. And she passed away at the age of 55 from terminal breast cancer. And when she passed away, my sister finds a journal under her bed. And in the journal, she's praying to God while she's dying. She's praying to God over her kids. And when she got to me in the journal, in the prayer, she prayed. Her prayers to God was, Please knock him off of his throne. And I know the day will come when I see her, I'll be able to give her the biggest hug and thank her for always praying for us. Because my mother wasn't crazy about my baseball career or my success and everything. She was happy for me, but she was more concerned about my salvation. She was more concerned that I would find my way to the cross. And I just remember when she was dying and I was over there in the bed before she passed away one night and she asked me to pray for her. And I prayed for her. And she said, You could pray. She said, The Lord just spoke to me. She said, The Lord said that he's going to get it out of you. She says, You're going to go through it, but he's going to get it out of you. And I just looked at her and said, Mom, don't tell me that. Don't tell me that. You know, I was at the time I said, Mom, I need a drink. You know, she was like, Oh, you go right ahead, but he's gonna get it out of you. You know, because I've been I've been praying for you and I'm going to continue to pray for you. So I always tell people that mama had to die so we can live, her kids. You know, when she crossed over, she left a legacy to us that her faith was the most important thing. And that's what I got to see. And that's why I believe I'm living today the legacy that she prayed for, that God would save me. And she never turned away from the fact that her kids was the most important thing. And I got my Christian walk was from seeing my mother. And then 91, in 1991, I went to a Morris Cirillo crusade in Anaheim, California. And I got saved in that crusade. I mean, I got saved that Sunday. I went there for four nights and I heard the gospel of Jesus Christ all three of those nights. And Sunday came and Morris Cirillo says, anyone want to come down and lay hands on you and the Lord wants to do a miracle in your life? And I went down with thousands of people and he laid hands on me and the power of God came over me. And some guy looked at me and says, I don't know who you are, but he says, God has called you. And I just thought, oh my God, he sounds just like my mother. That's pretty amazing. So, I mean, yeah, your mom sounds like an amazing woman and that's a fantastic legacy to have to keep up. I mean, it sort of reminds me. There's a great story about Dion Buie when he's on his deathbed and his kids are gathered around him. And he says to them, I've always been ambitious, but not ambitious to leave you with great wealth, but to leave you with a lot of work to do. And he starts divvying out what he wants each one of his kids to do with these various ministries he's built over the years. And you know, your story reminds me very much of that with your mom just sort of saying, hey, listen, you're not, you know, you do you, but ultimately God's got something more for you. Fantastic. Yeah, it was, it's so real, you know, to be able to really actually look back over it and realize what she was doing. She was covering us in prayer. And little did I know that I would come to that place and really get saved and changed. And, you know, it was a process. Even when I got saved, I didn't immediately click in. You know, I went through another 15 years lost because I never went through the discipleship, you know, and I think that's what people

Oh my God. She, she, I was like, no, she was crazier than me, you know, to be coming and chasing me down and telling me that God has a plan for me. And little did I know that God is never going to do anything different. He's gonna always do what he's always done. He's always used people to help people. That's his biggest gift, you know, to be able to help someone else is use one of the people that who is walking with him, loves him, and that can lead a person back to their faith. And I think that's what happened. She led me back into church and from there we spring forward and everything just started to going a different direction. I got serious. I got in church. I separated myself from everybody and I just went into a place of consecration and I saturated myself in the word and I stayed out of the lifestyle for many years and everybody thought I was crazy. I was saying, well, I'm gonna follow Jesus. And they're saying, yeah, let's see how long it's gonna last. Well, it's been 20 years now and they still sitting waiting for me to come back because they just don't understand that the biblical principles and when you do decide to surrender yourself to Christ and do God's will and not your own will, your life changes forever. So I always say to myself that, you know, God has a plan. It's just a matter of man getting out of the way and let God plan work instead of his own plan. You know, as somebody who's traveled a lot for work over the years, I did some work as a consultant and so I was on the road an awful lot, lived away from home an awful lot. You know, I can only imagine how difficult that discipleship process actually was when you're sort of destabilized in that way. Did you find that to be problematic? I mean, you know, constantly traveling and sort of just the inconsistency that comes with that travel. I always felt a little unrooted when I had to do it. You know what I mean? There wasn't like a, I knew I had a home base, but I was seldom there. And so how did you manage, you know, sort of getting away from the lifestyle, doing the discipleship that you're talking about? What did that look like as you're sort of continuing to travel and continuing to do these different things? That's a good question, you know, and the thing about it was, is my wife, you know, she was so good and at the point of her life, she was, she was settled in with who she was in Christ and how she was being discipled by God. And I used to watch her and she would get up every morning at 5:30 and she goes downstairs and she studied the word and she'd be with God. And I just like, God, I'm not getting up at 5:30 in the morning, you know, but I, but I realized that I had to do something different. And that's when I started saturating myself and locking myself up in a room and just being with God and hiding out with God because I realized that God cannot reveal himself to you if you do not know him. And she knew him. She had a relationship with him. So I needed to have that own personal relationship with him. And so I wasn't really traveling at that time. It was a foundation that was being built and I thank God for it because every time somebody wanted to call me for something and do something and come and speak, my wife, she was so funny. She would like tell them, well, no, he's not coming. He's not ready yet. You know, he's not ready to go in front of a group or go to a church or uh stand in a pulpit to talk about God. So God had put that hedge of protection around me through her to really let me just soak in the word of God and, and be alone with God and spend the time that I needed to spend to develop. And when I say develop, you have to develop the character of God inside of you. Not just, I don't want to be in that place anymore where I'm just someone talking about Jesus, saying his name, but I'm denying his power and I'm denying the finished work on the cross. So I had to learn about all of that stuff before I was able to go back out there. And, and those years were, uh, those years were the most challenging years of my life because what God was doing was God was really stripping me. And also at the same time, he was cleansing me. And I'm thankful for that. I went through that process because a lot of people don't want to go through that process. You know, they want that instant gratification fix and they want to be on the speaker and the platform. And I think the Lord spoke to me about understanding the importance of the time that I needed to develop and grow because he was saying where I'm going to send you, you need to be equipped because if you're not equipped, the devil's going to put a choke hold on you and he's going to kill you. And when you don't realize that, I think you get out there and you may sound good, you may sound great, but if you're really not grounded and have that foundation to go out there and travel and do these things and live according to the biblical principles, you're gonna fall back into your own self. You're gonna wanna be about you. And I didn't wanna be about me anymore. I had been that way for playing Major League Baseball and people applaud me and cheer me because I was down strawberry great and winning and success and championship. But who am I as a man? You know, and that was the most important part of the transformation that I needed to understand. I needed to understand that God was trying to make me the man that he wanted me to be so I would have the character when he put me in a platform to go out there and speak about who he is. Nice. So, Darrell, on that renewing your mind on a daily basis, which Romans 12, when, what, what is that like for you? It might not be at 5:30 in the morning, but, but I mean, that's really what you need to prepare yourself for whatever is hitting you on that, that obstacle course every day, right? That is so true. Renewing your mind was being, being separated from everything and I think that's what's important. A lot of people don't wanna do that part. They wanna continue to be a part of the worldly things. And for me, it had to be where I couldn't be a part of those things anymore. I couldn't go around with all the guys that I played ball with and really having the conversations and talking about the same thing. I had to renew my mind through the word. I had to wash it. I had to let the, let the Lord wash me and cleanse me from all of those things because those thoughts are all our natural thoughts and God thoughts are not like ours and his ways are not like ours. And so I had to learn to live according to his ways and understanding of, you know, be still and know that I'm God. You know, those kind of things like that were important when I started learning the importance of the word is, is learning scriptures and learning how to live through the scriptures, not learning how to live through my flesh or my own ideas. I had to learn how to live according to what the word of God was teaching me. And for me, that was just a lot of time away from everybody and everything. And it was a, and I think I started volunteering. That's what the Lord told me. Go volunteer and do something to get over yourself because you got to get over yourself if you really want to do God's will. It can't, can't be no longer about you and what you think and your ideas. And I had to get over myself and I had to learn to go do things like going into the detention center and speaking to young kids about my life and telling them that you do not wanna um go down these roads because it's a dead-end road. And living according to God's will will change everything about you. So I started doing a lot of those things for a very long time. And it wasn't not a whole lot there to go out and speak about, you know, at the, at that particular time because I was still growing in the word and the transformation was still taking place. And, you know, I had, I had my wife, she, she really protected me from that, that life, you know, because she know that I had come, I had come out of that life. So she didn't want me to go back into it unless I was fully equipped and had the biblical principles down inside of me because if you don't have them down inside of you, you're going to stray back into those ways and I didn't really want to go back into those ways. So I say it was a lot of downtime, a lot of lonely time, but I'm grateful for the downtime and the lonely time because it made me a better man and made me understand how to live under God's principles. Who were you working with? You know what I mean, aside from your wife, who were you working with during that period, Darrell? Like I was just in church and our pastor, we were living in St. Louis and we were going to church, um, church on the rock, Pastor David Blunt. And he was such a great teacher. And I had to learn what faith is, you know, faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. I had to learn to, I had to learn to hear and had to learn, hear his teaching. And that was the really discipleship of, of me growing. And what I say by that is I, how would that happen is, yeah, we go to church on Sundays, but we go to Bible study on Wednesday night.

driver's license, and I started with nothing. And that was the best place to be able to start for me, was with nothing, because God wasn't concerned about what he didn't get to me. I already had a bunch of stuff in life. He already knew that that did not work. So he knew exactly what he was doing in my life to make me disciplined enough to be able to learn how to start studying and taking notes and going to church and hearing the word and learning the word of God. I was going to say, hearing about discipline, Daryl, I was thinking that Jim Frye may have been prophetic, that, you know, that that was a lesson. That was a spiritual lesson, and you didn't even know it at the time, did you? I had no, I had no idea, but that would be a lesson in my life that I would have to learn about discipline. And Jim Frye was one of the other people in my life that was able to teach me that because my high school coaches was able to teach me that playing basketball too, about discipline. Because if you got in trouble in school or something like that, you wouldn't play in the game. You wouldn't practice. You would just run suicides all day and practice. So that was another lesson. That was another lesson of discipline, and I was getting them when I was very young, and then I got them from Jim Frye when I was really young at the major league level of learning how to be disciplined and learning how to control yourself and learning the importance of participating and helping yourself too. Jim Frye taught me that. So I think after all the things over the many years of having great seasons and being successful as a baseball player, and I always say as a baseball player, but not as a man. I was always, I was always failing as a man. And why? Because I never saw what a man's supposed to be like. I didn't see it in my own household and I missed that. And the society tells you, well, you're a man because you're successful and you can do whatever you want to do. You can cheat on your family. You can lose your family. You can always get another family or you can always get another lady. That's what society tells you. And I didn't realize that that was a lie until I actually came to the Lord and got close to the Lord and realized that being a man is one that walks in obedience and that live according to the biblical principles. And you don't stray away from that. You stay the course no matter what the difficult times that you're going through and no matter what it looks like, if you stay, if you endure, God has something greater on the other side. And I think a lot of times men don't even know that because all we know is what we see from our society, our television, our cell phones and stuff like that. And we get consumed with that and we don't get, we don't get in the word enough for ourselves so God can reveal himself to you because the revelation comes through the word. It doesn't come through anything else. Right. One more question about, and going back to baseball, you did have some positive influences or I don't know if they were positive influences on you, but I think about Gary Carter and I think about the late Gary Carter. You know, those, they were born again believers, you know, whether that was later or at the time, were they positive influences on you at the time? That's a really good question, you know, because the fact is that Gary Carter and Mookie Wilson was the two most positive influences on my life because of the way they lived their life. How do you talk about a whole team? You talk about two guys that actually lived the right way. Two guys that were drinking milk while everybody else was like off the charts. You know, and I just, I just remember how they were and I just remember how all the other players were like so envious of Gary Carter because he was a personality guy and he was always smiling and he was so happy and it was such great joy in him and, and he loved coming back home from the road and, and because he was going to be with his family and, you know, the rest of the guys, everybody else was a bunch of wild heathens on the bus, you know, coming back home and, you know, just talking crazy all the time and saying, Gary, you're back home, you know, how's your milk drinking doing? And, and I just thought to myself, this is a guy that has everything. This is a guy that does not condemn anybody. This is a guy that loved everybody. This is a guy that was happy. This is a guy that was free. And why was he free and happy? Because he loves Christ and guys couldn't accept that, you know, it was like such a thing of being around that, that you're weak when you walk that way and you live that way. And that was the way he was the example of what we should be living like. And I know I wanted what he had, but I could tell you, I just didn't have the guts to do what he was doing. And I knew he was at peace with himself. I knew he loved God. I knew he loved his family and I knew he appreciated the fact that, yes, I'm a great baseball player, but Christ is the center of my life. And when you can do that among everybody back in those days of playing baseball, you stand out and a lot of people are going to persecute you. And they, of course, they all persecuted him across the board, you know, from playing in Montreal, coming to the Mets and why is he smiling? Why is he so happy? Well, because he was free. He didn't have any bondage. He didn't have anything hanging over his head. He wasn't worried about anything. And he knew his life was rich in Christ. And I admired that about Gary more than just him being a great player. I admired the man he was. And, you know, he stood up to everything. And he was the guy when someone was said about him, he was that exact guy that would turn his cheek and let him look. He would look the other way. And that was a hard thing to do. I would never do that. I mean, I know I saw it many times when he turned his cheek because people had something to say about him and looked the other way. He didn't condemn. He didn't say anything negative towards anybody. So I was really impressed with the fact that him and Mookie Wilson could live a life among this atmosphere and live it the right way. That was that I am impressed by. I was never impressed by a lot of things. I wasn't impressed by my success, the team's success, but I could tell you I was impressed by those two guys, the way they lived their life with the rest of us being on that ball club. That's great. Thanks for sharing that. That's yeah, I always saw that. And I never was able to I'm glad that I was able to ask you about that because that's the whole thing. We talk about that with useful to God. It's living that life. You're living it out loud and everybody can see it. And then people like you are at that at that point saying, I want what this guy has, you know, and and eventually that's that's where you are now. So that those positive influences on your life. Yeah, they are. And I think a lot of times a lot of people don't pay attention to the positive influence on your life when you in professional sports. But I always did pay attention to that because I knew in my heart because I knew my mother was a Christian woman and I knew living right was real because she lived right. And to be able to see those two guys live right. I knew it was a real thing that they were doing. But I was just thinking, you know, this this has got to be extremely difficult to be among, you know, such. Such characters and so many characters and different personalities and different styles and so many different languages of talking and saying things. And these guys never talked like that. I was just like, that's really that's really powerful. You know, they really stand for what's right. Gary Carter is the reason Gary Carter is the reason I'm standing as a man today because I saw what a man looks like, a real man looked like and how he really lived his life the right way. And I knew it was real. And I just was hoping one day that I can get to that place and and be just like that. And before he passed away, I got a chance to see him. And he was the guy that told me he was he was the guy that told me one day when we were playing at the height of my career. He said, I'm telling you right now, your life is not going to be about baseball. Your life is going to be about God. I see your heart. God's going to use you mightily because of your heart. And he told me that way before, way before this even ever took place in my life. He says, you know, he said, I don't say this about a lot of players, but he says, the heart of you is going to be the difference. And that's what God's going to use because of your heart and the man that you are inside. And before he passed away and he saw he saw my transformation and he said, I told you. And he said, I'm so happy. He was the happiest guy for me because he said, I knew God was going to use your life as an example. And he was going to use it for good to help so many people. That's great. What is your you know, you've mentioned a couple of times. You went back to spring training. You know, you've had I assume a lot of different, you know, you mentioned the guys who were sort

How do they sort of just say, you know, how do they respond to this sort of the new Daryl? Well, I think some of them didn't think it was real, but I think they're at a point now because it's been so long, and they've seen that I haven't changed and I haven't wavered and I haven't come back to the lifestyle and I don't, you know, talk that way anymore. But I tell them all the time when we get together, like we're getting together next Monday, I got an 86, I'm out in the mess and having a golf tournament in New York, you know, to honor the 86 Mets and, you know, raising money for those that are suffering with addiction. So they know it's real. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? 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And it goes, Oh man, you're preaching, man. They said, I was watching you. You were pulling me in. I say, well, I always tell them, this is what I always tell them. I say, listen, I'm no better than any of us. I just made a better decision for myself. And that's what I want them to be able to understand that anybody can make this decision for themselves to follow Christ. And when you make that decision for yourself, it changes everything about you because Christ is the only one that can change you. You can't change you. You can't change the ego. You can't change the attitude or whatever, the selfishness, the self-centeredness. Only Christ can change that. I couldn't change that in me. I couldn't change the ego. I always tell guys, the ego is a three-letter word, easing God out. It's easing God out. You're going to ease God right out of your life because you want to do what you want to do. And I know that for a fact because I was there and I don't have to be in that place anymore. And they go, man, you're so humble. You're so different. I said, well, it's because of the love of God. And like I said, I don't try to go around any of them. I don't try to preach. I try to be a living example for them more than anything and try to treat them as, I treat them just like Christ treated me. He treated me with love and compassion. And I treat them the same way. And I don't try to boast about myself and try to make myself as bigger than they are. Like I said before, I just made a better decision and a different decision to live a different way. Do you get the sense that a lot of them are experiencing the same sort of brokenness that you experienced before you came to Christ? I mean, obviously, we are all, you know, before we come to Christ, we all have some form of brokenness. But I'm wondering if you saw a very sort of similar emptiness in their lives. They've achieved, you know, fairly at a fairly high level in sport. They, you know, earned a lot of money. They've, you know, lived a pretty fantastic lifestyle by, you know, certain standards. And then to come to the end of that, and especially now, maybe most of them are probably retired, I would assume, from the 86 Mets. You know, are you seeing them sort of begin to resonate with the way you've made your change in your story in a different way as they reflect back on what they've what they've experienced? Yeah, so a lot of them have asked me about it. And how did I get there? And I told them, it's not overnight. It's not overnight miracle. It's a process. And I told them, you have to walk through life and you have to walk through life making some serious changes about yourself. And you have to ask God for his forgiveness. I say you have to repent to God and ask him to forgive you for your shortcomings. And I says, we all are sinners. The Bible said that, you know, for we all will fall short of the glory of God. And I just try to explain to them, I was a sinner and I needed a savior. And I needed someone to save me from myself. And that's what they need, too. They need someone to save them from yourself. If you're still running around with a title on yourself, then you can never fulfill the promises over your life that God has for you because God's not looking for a title. You know, God's looking for somebody that's available and that's willing to do his will and not make it about himself and make it about other people. And I think that's what a lot of them are struggling with. And I see a lot of them and I from time to time, their struggle is still deep. It's still, they still wear the uniform. See, Darryl Strawberry is not wearing a uniform anymore. Yeah, he was number 18. And yeah, that was great. And that was wonderful. And there were some great things happened. But I became this man when I met Jesus. And, you know, I have to be real with them about it. I became this real man. You become a different person on the inside of yourself. You don't look up from the outside and say, look at me from the outside, but my insides are not well. And that's what they all experiencing right now. And not just even them. I tell you, in sports, 95% of the players will end up lost, broken, divorced, or something. 95%, even the great ones, they can achieve great things, but they will lose a family because they can't get past themselves. They can't get past, you know, the victories, the trophies, the success and stuff like that. See, the devil has set up a platform for us to fail in without knowing Christ because he'll give you everything. He'll allow you to have everything and achieve everything. But one thing he does not want you to know, he does not want you to know who you are in Christ. Your identity, if you ever find your identity in Christ, then you will separate yourself from that. And I think players cannot separate themselves from who they are when they put on the uniform and been successful for so long and achieved so many things. And I know that's true because I was just like that. And, you know, I feel for so many guys that have played and so many guys that are playing now still carrying that, you know, I just didn't want to be one of those guys anymore. Guys, I tell you this, I didn't want to be one of those guys anymore where I was talking about Jesus, but really not following Jesus. And you hear a lot of people will proclaim and say, I want to thank God and I want to praise God for his goodness, but am I truly following him? And I didn't want to be a hypocrite anymore. I didn't want to straddle that fence and talk about Jesus and not knowing the finished work on the cross and, you know, him going to the tomb and getting up early Sunday morning for me that I may have life and may have it more abundantly, you know, in abundant life. I think a lot of times people be thinking, well, I'm gonna get a bunch of stuff. No, he's talking about I'm gonna give you peace, joy, wisdom, knowledge, power. I'm gonna give you something far greater than stuff. So I wanted to be able to receive that. And once I received that and started to understand that, I started to understand the importance of who I am and how to go back and help these other guys. And, you know, I just want to be a living example to these guys that I played ball with. And hopefully they can see. And some of them ask me a lot of times, man, how did you do it? I said, grace. You know, it's not me. It's the grace of God. I try to get them to understand it's his grace that will sustain you. It is his grace that will keep you. And it is his grace that will take you to a further, greater place, farther, greater place than you could ever imagine in your life when you understand grace. Grace, I say grace is something I don't deserve, but he gives it to me anyway. And, you know, me understanding that has made me well because I know I don't deserve his grace. Well, when you go around and speaking and teaching, I mean, obviously you have an evangelistic message, but you also speak to believers, I assume. And do you see the same struggle within the church? I mean, where people really are straddling a fence and sort of pursuing riches and wealth and trying to, you know, I love the parables or, right, and the seed that falls within the weeds, right, the thorns, right? It gets choked out by the worries and the

all these worldly things that they're trying to achieve. And when they get them, they realize that it doesn't satisfy you at the end of the day. I think they don't understand it's never gonna satisfy you. It's a part of life of living here, of course. But at the same time, what's gonna satisfy me? You know, that's the big question with those that are believers. What's gonna satisfy me? What's gonna make me understand what's important? And I think King Solomon makes it clear in the book of Ecclesiastes, you know, a man that had everything, that accomplished everything, and he goes on to say it's meaningless under the sun without God. So he's basically telling us that it means nothing, you know, and I think that's the problem with so many people. They don't participate in God's will for their life. You know, a lot of Christians go to church, and they're good Christians, they go to church, but that's all they do. What are you doing for the kingdom? You know, it's not until you get outside of yourself, get outside of your four walls of your home and in your life and actually get into the trenches of doing work, then you will understand the great purpose of who you are in Christ. It's not until they learn that. And I think so many don't do that. I think that's the problem with so many good people that are Christians. It's never about somebody else. It's always just their routine. You got to get over your daily routine and you got to get uncomfortable and you got to learn to go to places that are not comfortable for you. Go to places where broken people are and lonely people are. And then you'll learn so much more what it is to be a Christian. And then you'll learn how to sow into these. See, so many people, you know, you got wealthy people that are Christians, you know, and they have enough money to sow into these kingdoms, different places for God's kingdom to help so many people, but they haven't experienced it because they don't get outside of their own little self and what they do. So they never understand the importance of what it is really truly to be a follower of Christ. You know, to be a follower of Christ is to come here to, when you do become a follower of Christ, it's to come here to change and help and love somebody else that needs to know Christ and they need to be able to see Christ in us. That's the key for Christians is people to be able to see Christ in us. And if they don't see Christ in you and you just say you're a Christian, then that's not going to help anybody else want to come to the place of knowing Christ because they don't think it's attractive. Well, you're a Christian, but you're selfish and you're self-centered and it's all about you. Thanks. Yeah. That's great. Gerald, I want to also ask you, do you see yourself going back into baseball at all and seeing yourself as that 21-year-old kid and seeing that number one draft choice or all of those kids that are coming up? And you have a story. You also have a relationship with Jesus. Is that something that you see yourself getting back into? Never. And I don't say that in a bad way. I mean, baseball is baseball, and baseball is a business. And baseball don't want to be clouded with faith. That is, you know, a business and organizations that they say, okay, you can be faithful, but just don't throw it on everybody else. And it's so sad because you're not throwing it on everybody else. You know, it's a small percentage of players that walk around there in a uniform that truly love God and have to live in that industry. And I realized that when my days of playing, when I saw Carter and Wilson, and when I went back to spring training and when I got there and I got into the team meetings and in spring training, and I sat there and I listened to the language and I thought, oh my God, it's still the same. It hasn't changed. After all these years, you know, it's still the same, same thing. And you realize that that's not gonna change. No one man is gonna come in there and penetrate that and describe what faith is to them because first of all, you have too much. They make so much money and they have too much stuff and they have everything that they think you need in a life. They have everything from a material standpoint, from homes, cars, success, money in the bank, but they don't have the God piece because they're afraid of the fact that if I come to a place of talking about God, people are going to not like me. And I'm so happy that they don't like me. I'm so glad. Now I understand it more. I understand it more than anything now. It's a real joy to me to be driven by my faith in Christ and stand and not compromise and go to places and people see me and it goes, well, he needed Jesus. I don't really need Jesus because I have all of this. And they don't understand, they don't understand the word of God and they don't understand at the end of their lifetime that they would have to meet God and we all would have to meet God and face God. And, you know, guys never gonna ask me about, you know, championships and trophies and success. And, you know, he's gonna ask the question, what did you do for my kingdom? And I think a lot of times people don't realize that. And it's sad because they don't know that. It's so sad because they don't know that in baseball because the thing that hangs over players' heads is just being successful and leaving a legacy for baseball. I mean, I left a legacy playing major league baseball, but my legacy is more important that my children see my life and know that Jesus is Lord through my walk and my faith and what I'm doing. And that's what's really important for me is I would love to be a part of baseball and do something with ministry to help to encourage the players, but that's not a whole lot that goes on with that because they push that to the backside. They don't want that in the front of players. They don't wanna shove it down the player's face because they want their players to be whatever they want them to be. And it was like that when I was playing and it's still like that today. I'm watching the time and you've been with us for almost an hour. And so I just wanna kind of give you a final word. I mean, as you think about, you know, the most powerful message you could give to folks, what is it that you wanna leave people with as we kind of close out our time here together? I just really wanna leave people with the fact that no matter what your life condition is, God loves you. And they really need to know that. It doesn't matter if you're broken, you're lost, you're going through some type of struggles. Don't sit on the sideline and see yourself as a victim. I tell people all the time, I'm not a victim of what happened to me. I'm an overcomer by the blood of the lamb and understanding that Christ came for you and he has a perfect plan for your life and he just wants to rescue, redeem and restore you to wholeness and righteousness and put you in right standards with God so you can truly live the abundant life and do great works for him. At the end of the day, it's all about winning souls and not bragging about yourself, but helping somebody else come to have a personal encounter with Christ and their life can be saved, you know? And I think that's important for all of us to understand as we walk on this journey together as believers, being a great example for Christ is more important than being a great example for being successful. I could tell you the most, the greatest success I've had in life is becoming a true follower of Christ and being able to do great kingdom work and seeing the multitude of people come and come from the broken places that they are and be touched by the Lord. That is the greatest gift that one could ever experience is to see someone else being touched by the Lord and being rescued. I just want people to know that God wants to rescue you regardless of what somebody else has said about you. Well, with that is a fantastic message. And, you know, it's something that I've experienced in my own life to be very true is that, you know, the worst case scenario is living life without God. And, you know, the greatest successes are when we just sort of surrender ourselves over to him and let him do with us what he will. And so really appreciate the time you spent. Very much appreciate your story. And thank you so much for telling it. And it's just been amazing to spend some time with you and to hear what God has done in your life. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian Podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Everybody talks about life after death, but what about life during life? Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here, and on the Greg Laurie Show, we're tackling life's biggest questions like, why am I here? What really matters? And what happens when I die? I'll discuss cultural topics with friends and experts and examine the biblical truth behind everyday issues and even share stories about my own personal spiritual journey. Listen now to the Greg Laurie Show on lifeaudio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.