Commentary : Strawberry Will Never Become the Leader Mets Want Him to Be

Darryl Strawberry lost his fight when he walked out of camp. He lost the decision. He condemned himself.

His fight with Keith Hernandez Thursday and leaving practice because the New York Mets wouldn’t renegotiate his contract are joined at the hip like Siamese twins and as inseparable.

Ultimately, the Mets -- winning and losing -- are in jeopardy. Strawberry and Hernandez shook hands in the presence of the team psychiatrist and the manager decided to call the matter ended. He had to say it. But something like this on a team like this is never ended.

As veteran Bobby Ojeda put it: “Nope.” Ballplayers have had contract squabbles since the beginning of time. Ultimately they go back to work. Usually they’re able to separate their animosity from their work. What this reveals will not go away.

Hernandez may be able to close it out of his performance, but Strawberry is more volatile and immature. He will be booed harshly on his first appearance at Shea Stadium, which is the last thing he wants. He could brood himself out of the season. He could pout himself out of New York, and he could have been king.

The manager tried to sell Strawberry on assuming leadership this spring, and now that notion is gone. “Unquestionably,” Davey Johnson said. “I don’t think he’ll find a lot of sympathy.”

Unless a man hits .350, leadership is a function of maturity. Strawberry has exposed his immaturity.

Strawberry deeply feels a need to be appreciated. He is convinced that he isn’t. Apparently he didn’t need much convincing. This new agent would be the villain except that Strawberry is big enough to be responsible for sorting out advice. He previously has been excused for adolescent behavior.

He wanted to be seen as the leader and paid accordingly. He was willing to fight Hernandez for the designation, as if whipping Hernandez would have established leadership. They are neither stags fighting for domination of the herd, nor kids in a schoolyard.

The day started innocently enough, with the Mets posing for a team picture. If Strawberry had been late and missed the event as he did last year, he might not have taken a swing at Hernandez. But the smoldering resentment would have burst into flame eventually.

Perhaps Gary Carter would have been the target. Strawberry sees the co-captains as robbing him of the recognition he deserves. The issue that brought on the fight Thursday was about as critical as the assassination of the archduke was in starting World War I.

While Strawberry and Hernandez were being held apart, Strawberry barked: “Let him go. Let him go. I’ve been tired of you for years.” And there it was.

When Hernandez came to the Mets in 1983, he was the man of substance they lacked. He helped a young team mature. He saw, he observed and he influenced. Often, he goaded and cajoled Strawberry to be all he could be. Strawberry said he appreciated it, even welcomed it.

In 1987, when the Mets failed to repeat as champions and Strawberry said he was too sick to play against the hated Cardinals despite cutting a rap record in the afternoon, he resented criticism. Now, Strawberry is an established star and he can have revisionist ideas of his relationship with Hernandez: What once was guidance now was meddling. “Something that has been going on for a long time,” Strawberry said. “It just came out.”

Hernandez’ leadership role has changed with the success of the team. He acknowledged that some players resent his role, and so has backed off. But his image as the leader, as the key man, persists in the media.

Strawberry finished second in the National League MVP voting. He thought he should have won. In the aftermath of Thursday’s photo incident, Hernandez loudly accused a reporter of telling Strawberry that Hernandez had campaigned against him. Hernandez has his own sensitivity and insecurity.

Into the mix, add agent Eric Goldschmidt. Strawberry had this season and next year’s option season remaining on his five-year contract. When it was negotiated with agent Richie Bry, it was a pretty contract. Baseball inflation has left Strawberry behind an estimated 70 players, and underpaid.

Wednesday, after issuing his ultimatum, Strawberry called a paltry $1.4 million for this season and $1.8 next season a “disgrace to me and my family.” It was not intended as a laugh-line. Agent Goldschmidt and client Strawberry said if that disgrace wasn’t rectified Thursday, Strawberry was leaving. And Strawberry left. “When the season is over, we’ll sell his house in New York.” Goldschmidt said. Strawberry would sit out the option year, the agent vowed, to force a trade. The die was cast.

Goldschmidt, a 29-year-old accountant, looks too small and too baby-faced to play anybody’s villain. But this is a time of new agents promising to get more for players than established agents.

This agent does not get a commission from the existing contract. A new contract is in his interest. Strawberry wouldn’t be breaking Goldschmidt’s contract. His clients, Goldschmidt said, “live by it.”

If he hadn’t established this artificial deadline, if he had gone quietly to Frank Cashen and Al Harazin, the Mets’ negotiators might have pulled together a bonus at the end of the season and assurances that a better contract would follow. Goldschmidt left them no choice but to stonewall.

Strawberry will be 27 years old in nine days. He is accountable for his actions.

It used to be that losing caused dissension, but now in the time of big money and fast agents, it seems that winning causes dissension. There are endorsements and appearances and books and acclaim. Everybody wants a bigger piece. Almost nobody repeats these days, do they?

While the agent depicts it as a matter of business, Strawberry reveals it as much more fundamental. “I feel like I’m not being appreciated for what I’ve done,” he said before leaving. He has been brooding a long time.

And when he had emerged from that grasp of peacemakers, he looked at Carter and said: “You’re next.”

Hernandez’ position may be in jeopardy in the eyes of some teammates. But Strawberry can’t have it. Eventually, he would have survived Hernandez’ time, but now he may not even be able to survive himself.