Darryl Strawberry's Pastoral Mission
Former Major League Baseball All-Star, Darryl Strawberry, whose legendary play on the field was coupled with a well-chronicled battle with addiction and legal problems in his personal life, said he is no longer the man he was before and that his top priority is leading people to Jesus Christ. He is now an ordained minister leading a wide-ranging ministry, including Christian-based recovery programs.
"I'm over 'Strawberry,'" he told USA Today Sports in his first interview with the media since becoming a preacher and ministry leader three years ago. "I'm over Mets. I'm over Yankees. I don't want to exist as Darryl Strawberry, the baseball player.
"People don't understand that's no longer you. I'm not a baseball player, anymore. That person is dead."
Strawberry, who played for the New York Mets and New York Yankees during a 17-year career that included four World Series championship rings, leads a ministry along with his wife, Tracy, devoted to helping people "who are suffering and in bondage to afflictions that are destroying their lives and relationships."