A Day with Darryl

Why autism has changed the life of a baseball great.

By Cris Italia

Christopher Bryant watches him enter the doorway and his eyes almost popped out of his head. This familiar man seems like a giant to everyone and immediately attracts attention. He is now in full view, but Bryant is hesitant. Darryl Strawberry strides through the lobby of Family Residences and Essential Enterprises (F.R.E.E.) in Old Bethpage, N.Y. He passes Bryant, a student, who still can’t bring himself to say hello. Strawberry walks through a door and is stopped on the other side by a fan.

“I remember you,” she bellows. “I got your autograph at Roosevelt Field Mall in 1987. I got yours and Roger McDowell’s.” The female fan’s recollection of the moment brings an ear-to-ear grin to Strawberry’s face. “That’s amazing,” he whispers.

Behind him now, Bryant has sprung through the doors. He quietly asks, “Is that really Darryl Strawberry?” The former Met and Yankee great turns and says, “Yes I am, how are you doing?” Bryant lunges forward and hugs the man he has watched over and over again on television playing America’s past time.

“I can’t believe he’s here,” Bryant says. “Why would he come here?”
Good question.

Why is a former baseball all-star walking through the halls of F.R.E.E., a school for teenagers and adults with developmental disorders? “I just want to help,” he says. “Any way that I can.”

But his reason for being here is more deeply rooted. Just a few years ago Strawberry had a new lease on life. He had met his current wife, Tracy, and was living in St. Louis when his wife’s sister, Angie Moynihan, asked Strawberry if he could come visit her school. Moynihan serves as the special education director at the Center for Autism Education in O’Fallon, Mo. It was Strawberry’s first interaction with autism.

“It was an overwhelming day for me,” he explains. “I can’t tell you how good it felt, but the expression on their faces and being around them really made me happy. I remember leaving there that day and saying to myself, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’

“I remember looking into a child’s eyes and seeing something that I had never seen before. There was an instant connection where I thought to myself, ‘These children need help.’ There was no way I could leave there that day and not do something for this community of people. It was a life-changing experience.”

Strawberry would immediately work with his wife on starting a foundation that specialized in fundraising and bringing attention to autism. In just over a year, Strawberry has traveled around the country letting people know that he is here to help. “That’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been to a lot of places, letting people know that I want to be involved and I want to use my resources to help in any way that I can.”

Today, Strawberry is on Long Island, N.Y. He’s here for the weekend and will appear at the New York Yankees Old-Timers’ Day. Before he gets to that he wants to accomplish what he really wanted to do: “visit with kids and adults, talk to educators about ideas they might have and how I can help.” Three schools are on the agenda today, but F.R.E.E. seems to be the one place where everyone knows his name. Adults who watched him with their parents growing up are lining up to get a glimpse.

The hallways are swarming now, both with students and teachers who are seeking autographs. Strawberry stops for everyone and eventually ducks into a music classroom where Rich Morton, a music specialist, is teaching the drums. “Mr. Strawberry,” he announces. “Do you want to play the drums with us?”

There is silence for a moment as Strawberry takes his position and is handed a pair of drumsticks. “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” by The Beatles begins to play and Strawberry follows Morton’s lead. The classroom is suddenly filled with students and teachers. They are all gleaming and clapping along to the song. It’s safe to say that the room has never seen more excitement. There is complete pandemonium.

Jeff Cohen, the director of gift planning at F.R.E.E., looks on, but has to turn away when he wells up with tears.“I can’t help it,” Cohen explains. “It’s so overwhelming to see them this happy. You work so hard so that you can get them what they need, but you rarely get to enjoy it this much. I can’t explain what it does to me. It just makes me cry.”

Jay Tartikoff waits for the song to end before he approaches Strawberry. He is visibly shaking and waiting for the chance to meet one of his boyhood idols. With paper and pen in hand he asks Strawberry politely for an autograph, but he can’t resist bear-hugging the former Met.

Tartikoff breaks from the hug, walks away with his autograph and begins to jump with exuberance. “I got it,” he yells while holding the autograph to his heart. “I … got it!” As Tartikoff walks away he stops everyone to tell them how incredible Strawberry is and how he got a chance to hug him. “Did you see?” he asks. “He hugged me and it wasn’t just a small hug, it was a bighug.”

Later Strawberry explains the exchange. “Doing what I did…that’s what I’m living for now,” he says. “These kids are fighting for a chance and I see that when I look into their eyes"

“These kids are fighting for a chance and I see that when I look into their eyes"

At the Variety Child Learning Center in Syosset, N.Y., Strawberry is met by a gymnasium full of children singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and then each child shows Strawberry their hitting techniques off a tee. Strawberry places the ball on the tee after each swing and brings the next batter up.

“The young ones are very hard to walk away from,” Strawberry says. “I can’t help but think of my own kids and when they were this age. They are so cute and you want to do the nurturing thing. You can’t help that. There is a lot of attention on the young ones, but it makes things more urgent, because you know that these kids still have a chance. Sooner or later they are not going to be getting the same privileges they are now. When they get to a certain age the state does nothing for them. So I want to help them as much as I can now, but I also want to bring attention and make sure that the services they get now continue when they turn 8 years old and into their teens and finally as adults.”

The man who has brought him to the Barbara C. Wilson School, in Woodbury, N.Y., is Philip Tavella, Strawberry’s financial advisor. They didn’t realize until recently that they had the same passion for children with developmental disabilities. “He was coming into New York for an event and I picked him up from the airport,” Tavella says. “I was getting nervous because I didn’t want to be late for my son. I told him he was coming home and I had to get him from the bus. He started to ask me questions about my son and the school he was going to. I was shocked when he told me about his efforts with autism.”

Ever since, Tavella and Strawberry have embarked on a much bigger venture together, hoping to not only bring attention to autism, but to get others involved as well. Strawberry wants to set up a program with Major League Baseball, similar to the relationship the National Football League has with the United Way. He wants to get baseball players to share a day interacting with children who have been diagnosed with autism.

In August, Strawberry has organized his first annual golf tournament to raise funding for autism. He says that the money raised will go towards making homes for people with autism. “We have to get the awareness out to people who will talk about it,” he says with a sense of urgency.

“We can’t just raise money, we have to make sure people get involved and make a difference in the lives of people who deal with this day after day. Research is a great thing, but what about the children and adults who are already here and need help now?”

In the occupational therapy room at Barbara C. Wilson, children are crawling all over him.Some of them know that he is a baseball icon, and others don’t care. It’s his smile that warms the room and attracts them to him. “These kids have tremendous hearts,” Strawberry says. “I am blown away by each and every one of them.”

Strawberry has gone from star prospect to superstar, a troubled individual to cancer survivor. Right now he’s just happy. “I don’t know if I needed to struggle in order to be doing what I’m doing now,” he says. “But I would hate to go through life not having the feeling I had today.”