PORT ST. LUCIE — We were sitting in the dugout at Clover Park watching the Mets hitters, in particular Juan Soto, taking their pre-game rips and Darryl Strawberry, a not-so-impassive observer, was asked if he’d had “the talk” with the Mets’ $765 million dollar man.
“Not really,” said Straw who’s in Mets camp for just a couple of days before returning home to St. Louis to resume his ministry work in the local prisons. “You mean about his responsibilities here? He knows what’s expected of him. But he’s already done it, and done it in New York.”
“But doesn’t the big contract automatically create a leadership role for him?” I asked him.
Darryl laughed
“Leadership? He leads by example,” he said. “By that I mean he plays every day. Players notice that. He already has the presence. For me, that would’ve been the No. 1 reason to give him all that money — that and the fact he’s only 26. He plays every day and you got to give credit for that. Baseball’s for the younger players now.”
That Soto has played 150 or more games in all of the last six full seasons undoubtedly factored into what became a four-team bidding war all over $700 million, in Darryl’s opinion even more than the career high 41 homers he hit batting in front of Aaron Judge with the Yankees last year. “For me the most important stat of all is games played,” Straw said. “Look back through the years, the best players are the ones who play every day and are most consistent. I think of most consistent and I think of Barry Bonds. Soto too.”
I mentioned to him that Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso also post up every day.
“That’s why I really like this team,” Straw said. “They got the three big guys who lead by example just like we had Keith [Hernandez], Gary [Carter] and me in 1986.”
It is a credit to Steve Cohen that he has seen fit to bring back the most distinguished Mets alumni, Strawberry, Doc Gooden, David Wright in particular, and make them part of the organization. The Mets have always had a rich history (if limited) but never fully embraced it under the previous ownership. I remember walking into Citi Field with Tom Seaver the first time as he gazed around the rotunda in dismay at all the Jackie Robinson tributes and commented: “I loved and respected Jackie Robinson as a player and pioneer in baseball. I just don’t ever remember him being a Met.”
“I am grateful to Steve for bringing me back in the fold,” Darryl said. “That’s one of things Soto will learn going from the Yankees to over here.
“The Yankees have tradition going back 80 years with many World Series and many championships whereas the Mets have just a couple. But he’s got a 12-year contract and with Steve as the owner providing the resources he [has a] chance to catch up a lot on the Yankees. I really like the way David Stearns is going about building this team. Very methodical.”
It was a little over a year ago that Strawberry suffered a massive near-fatal heart attack in which doctors described his recovery “a miracle.” I joked with him how he seems to have nine lives, having previously survived bouts with colon cancer, not to mention years of drug and alcohol abuse. During his recovery from the heart attack, his friends attributed it to overwork in his ministry, seemingly never turning down requests to preach the good word in schools, churches and prisons.
“Are you at least taking it a little more easy now?” I asked him.
“Aw, not so much,” Straw said, smiling. “You know me. The way I look at it, I’m gonna die anyway. It’s a whole lot better going out this way than my other life.”
IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD
Last Thursday, Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg announced the franchise was not going to move forward with the proposed $1.3 billion stadium deal in St. Petersburg, citing the significantly increased cost of the deal due to delays from the hurricanes that destroyed the roof of their present home, Tropicana Field, last fall. Even before Sternberg’s decision to pull out of the St. Pete deal — which was not a surprise — he’d been told by Commissioner Rob Manfred he now needs to sell the team. From the day he bought the Rays in 2004 for just under $200 million, Sternberg was underfinanced and the major league owners have grown tired of subsidizing the Rays with $60 million in revenue sharing and another $60 million from MLB’s central fund (which essentially covers his payroll) every year he’s owned the franchise. At the same time, however, Manfred has been steadfast in his support for the Tampa Bay market and has emphatically told Sternberg he will not support a relocation of the Rays. That leaves Sternberg no choice but to sell to a local group. I’m told there are three groups lining up to buy the team, which last April was valued by Forbes at $1.25 billion, a tidy profit for sure for Sternberg.
One of them, believed to be the lead group headed by Dan Doyle, a self-made billionaire who founded DEX Imaging, a Tampa-based company that leases copy machines, which he sold to Staples in 2019 and then bought it back again along with Gamut Capital Management last year. According to a source, Doyle made an offer to Sternberg for the Rays last year but was turned down. In 2019, Doyle and his son, Dan Jr, bought a local public golf course in Belleair and turned it into the exclusive Pelican Golf Club which hosts a major LPGA event in November. A second group is said to be headed up by Tampa native and former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, Edward DeBartolo Jr., while the third group is from Orlando and has been seeking to buy the Rays for years and move them to Disney World. It’s believed, now that the St. Pete deal is dead, MLB would like the Rays to move across the bridges to Tampa where two potential sites for a new stadium have been discussed — a tract of land south of downtown Tampa near historic Ybor City and the Fairgrounds further east off Interstate 4. On Friday, the Tampa Bay Times reported that the Rays had made a proposal recently for a plan to renovate Tropicana Field in exchange for extending their lease until 2038, but added the plan was not well received by either St. Petersburg or Pinellas County officials. Said an MLB official: “That was just Stu trying to hold on to the team. Would have been more of the same old, same old.” Meanwhile, the Rays will play their home games this year at the Yankees spring training 11,000-seat home Steinbrenner Field (which Hal Steinbrenner emphasized last week was a “one-year” deal) while Tropicana Field undergoes its repairs. The city of St. Petersburg is obligated to pay for the repairs under terms of the Rays’ lease which expires in 2028.