COMMENTARY : Strawberry Suffers the Saddest Strikeout

The bottom for Darryl Strawberry, until he goes to prison, was Room 41, U.S. District Judge Barrington Parker’s courtroom on East Post Road in White Plains, N.Y. This was the end of a fall that began a long time ago, maybe the first time Strawberry hit a baseball out of sight. It was about 1:45 p.m., and Judge Parker asked Strawberry if he understood he was pleading guilty to a felony of his own free will.

“Yes, I do,” Strawberry said.

Parker asked Strawberry to explain how he had come to be a convicted tax cheat. The last sports star who had to talk about this before a judge was Pete Rose. Rose also did time. Finally Strawberry pleads guilty to cheating somebody besides himself.

“Between 1986 and 1990 I did quite a few card shows for a great deal of money,” Strawberry said.

“Basically I know that money should have been reported . . . but I didn’t report it on my taxes,” he said.

Strawberry’s talent for hitting a baseball was supposed to make him better than prison, better than some of the kids with whom he grew up in South Central L.A. All it got him was this spot before a judge in a room about half the size of a baseball clubhouse.

At about 2 p.m., Strawberry went into a conference room where he would sit through an exhaustive probation interview. The reporters waited outside for him. They always waited for Darryl.

After a few minutes one of the bailiffs came out and said, “This could take a couple of hours.” Past him you could see into the conference room. It was not even half the size of Room 41. The stage, once so grand for Strawberry, keeps getting smaller, until it will be the size of a prison cell. Once, the biggest ballparks could not hold Darryl Strawberry.