-Darryl Strawberry in the house!
In New York! -New York!
-Come on, buddy.
Uh, we love you. I love you.
I got to say, I met you once before.
It was 1987,
and I waited for maybe three hours to get your autograph.
-Were you, like, nine?
-I think I was probably, like, 11 or 12, yeah.
-12. Okay. Good.
-And it was in New Jersey -- Paramus, New Jersey.
-Paramus, New Jersey. -Yeah, at a mall.
I waited, and I -- You were my sister´s first autograph,
and she loved you and had a crush on you.
Like, "Oh, my God. Darryl Strawberry.
We love him so much!"
And we waited, and you were so cool.
And meeting you in person was great.
And we used to impersonate your batting stance,
´cause you used to stand -- you used to stand like that.
-Something like that, yeah.
-That was your move.
-It was like a little bit more like this, you know?
It was like a lift and separate.
-Yeah, yeah, but -- but still -- [ Cheers and applause ]
-You got to get that lift and separate it.
-But still, it gets a howl, you know what I´m sayin´?
I mean, when you see that -- ´Cause look at this.
This is a picture. This is you. Come on.
Lift and separate.
That´s the way to do it right there.
Hittin´ dingers left and right.
-Oh, yeah. -I mean, come on.
You said something -- You sent a text to our producer,
um, I think last night, that I found funny.
Uh... -[ Laughs ]
-This is how you sign your name on a text.
You put "Darryl" emoji-strawberry.
[ Laughter ]
And I was like, "Yeah. That´s great."
Only you -- Only you can do that.
You own the strawberry emoji.
-I own the strawberry emoji.
That´s pretty cool, though, right?
-Of course it is! -I thought about it.
When I saw the strawberry, I thought about it.
I said, "Hmm, this´ll be pretty good, you know?
I could just put "D" strawberry.
-Yeah, that´s it.
You don´t even have to type it out.
It´s just a cool, awesome strawberry,
and I think that´s one of the reasons
I think all of my friends just love you, too.
It´s such a great name.
-Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
It was a great name for New York.
-Yeah, exactly, right? Well, wait.
Well, the Big -- the Big --
We call it the Big Strawberry here.
-The Big Strawberry. [ Laughter ]
-But we -- Well, now, I remember watching the series.
Did you ever get bothered when people in the crowd go,
"Dar-ryl, Dar-ryl"? You know what I´m sayin´?
Am I bringing back nightmares?
-No, no. There´s no nightmares. I thought it was pretty cool.
I always thought, you know, when people were saying that,
I thought they realized that I´m in a ballpark.
You know? So just know that,
I´m in a ballpark, eventually, I´m gonna do something good.
[ Laughter ]
I´m probably gonna hit a home run off the scoreboard.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, it´s gonna get you hyped up.
-Well, it does get you hyped up.
I wasn´t one of those players that worried about,
you know, what fans were saying about me or anything.
-You never did. -It never bothered me
because I had my own inner struggles,
so I really never worried about that.
When I was a baseball player, I put on that uniform,
and I had more confidence than anybody on the field.
I believe I was the best every time I hit the field,
and that´s what you have to believe in yourself,
whatever you do.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Yeah, I agree.
-Yeah. -Which brings us to the book.
Congratulations on this. -Yeah.
-"Don´t Give Up On Me."
What -- You´re 14 years sober now.
Is that right?
-Yes, 14 years in recovery. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Cool, man. -Yeah.
-So happy. -Thank you.
-And you go around, you´re talking,
and you´re spreading the word of "Hey, you hang in there.
Don´t give up."
-Well, it´s about faith. It´s about helping people.
It´s about encouraging people to believe in who they are,
no matter what´s happened.
We all have struggles.
I´m gonna overcome it by the blood of the Lamb.
Nothing great about me. [ Cheers and applause ]
So, it´s important that we know
that we have a chance and an opportunity to give back,
to help people who are struggling.
"Don´t Give Up On Me" --
What´s great from this team with Shawn, Lou, Ron Dock,
John Picciano, our team, and the doctors --
We came together, and we wanted to write this book.
We wanted to educate people about addiction.
It´s a disease, and, you know,
the stigma about people being weak is not true.
So, lives matter.
With the epidemic that we have in America today,
we have kids O.D.´ing and dying like crazy,
we need to get back to educating people
the importance of helping people,
because God loved us first,
so we need to learn how to love people.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-You´re awesome. I´m so happy to meet you.
I love -- Darryl Strawberry, everybody!
"Don´t Give Up On Me" is available now.
You´re a good man.