Strawberry: Failed Test Brings Unemployment : Baseball: Outfielder is released by Giants after violating drug policy. Game suspends him for 60 days.

Darryl Strawberry’s stormy career took another turn for the worse Monday, when he was suspended by baseball for violating its drug policy and subsequently released by the San Francisco Giants.

Strawberry, who was also cited by baseball for not adhering to an after-care program, failed a recent random drug test.

“Naturally, you are disappointed, but you realize the nature of the disease and how one slip can ruin things that are being rebuilt,” said Giant Manager Dusty Baker, an avid supporter of Strawberry.

The 60-day suspension--Strawberry’s first by baseball--comes on the heels of tax-evasion charges filed against him in December by the U.S. Attorney’s office. In a plea-bargain agreement still being worked out, Strawberry will plead guilty to one felony count in exchange for three months in prison after the 1995 season.

Baker said, however, that Strawberry was troubled about fan reaction to the prison term, and believes that might have led to Strawberry’s most recent fall.

“He explained how he felt the fans were going to get on him and how that was going to happen on a daily basis (as the term approached),” Baker said.

Provided there is a strike settlement, losing Strawberry is a blow to the Giants, who had counted on him as their No. 3 power hitter behind Barry Bonds and Matt Williams. But General Manager Bob Quinn said it was made “very clear” to Strawberry when he signed with the team last June that with any violation, he would be cut loose immediately.

Strawberry was not available for comment but his mother, Ruby, said that she feels bad.

“He’s just Darryl, just like the rest of the children I have raised, and maybe sometimes all the (celebrity) status makes a person try to be what other people think they are,” she said. “To me, if you do that, you are living outside of yourself. In that sense that might have been the case with Darryl.

“I just think all of these things have pushed Darryl away from baseball.”

The players’ union said it will have no comment until after meeting with Strawberry and the doctors involved.

Strawberry’s substance-abuse problems became known in 1990, when he entered Smithers Clinic in New York for alcohol rehabilitation. Strawberry was playing for the New York Mets at the time.

Last season, Strawberry avoided suspension by entering the Betty Ford Clinic after admitting to the Dodgers, who had signed him as a free agent after the ’90 season, that he had a problem. He had skipped the team’s final spring training game against the Angels in Anaheim.

Three weeks after completing the rehabilitation program, Strawberry was released by the Dodgers, negotiating a $4.857-million settlement of the more than $7 million remaining on his contract.

The Giants and Baker gave Strawberry a second chance on June 19, when the club signed him for the minimum wage plus $7,000 a game. His presence in the batting order behind Bonds and Williams helped the Giants win nine consecutive games and 17 of 21, cutting their 9 1/2-game deficit to the Dodgers in the National League West to half a game by July 27.

Strawberry was not signed for 1995, but he was one of the few players the Giants had offered salary arbitration. Now, that is all moot.