Strawberry going to bat for autistic kids -New York Daily News

BY RICHARD WEIR

When Darryl Strawberry looks back over his storied career as a World Series champion with the 1986 Mets, the eight-time National League All-Star says he now knows that baseball wasn't his real calling in life.

"My purpose is not about being a baseball player. I was given a gift. And I was able to do it and do it well and excel at it," said Strawberry, now 45, and living in a St.Louis suburb with his wife, Tracy, 37.

"But it truly wasn't my calling. My calling is with people ... the love, the compassion and the kindness and gentleness - that's really who I am," he explained.

It just took the "Straw Man," as the ex-Met and former Yankee was called, most of his life to figure that out.

Few athletes have endured as much as Strawberry has off the field. He lost a kidney in 2000 after battling colon cancer for a second time and undergoing a second painful surgery.

In 2002, Strawberry served an 11-month stint in a Gainesville, Fla., prison for violating probation from a 1999 cocaine possession charge. He has struggled with drug and alcohol addictions, and lost his mother, Ruby, to cancer at age 57.

But in an interview Wednesday, Strawberry spoke of how he has refocused his life, rediscovered his faith in God and created a foundation to help families with autistic children.

In 2005, Strawberry and his then-girlfriend, Tracy Boulware, were visiting a school for autistic children in O'Fallon, Mo., where her sister works as a special-ed teacher.

"I went to visit the kids.... I came out with chills. The first thing I told my wife is that we need to do something," Strawberry said.

Strawberry, who often speaks to teens at schools and prisons about making the right choices and staying away from drugs, now also volunteers for autism campaigns to raise awareness and money.

In August, he held a celebrity golf outing at a Lawrence country club that raised $100,000 for autism.

Strawberry said it pained him to see the autistic children and realize that they will never be able to lead normal lives, as his five children have.

But he also empathized with the parents of those children. "It's very painful to the families that have to deal with this day in and day out. It's a struggle. They can't go out to dinner or catch a movie," he said.

Strawberry was on Long Island yesterday visiting Evelyn Ain, the publisher of Spectrum, a Hicksville-based lifestyle magazine for the parents of autistic children that featured Strawberry on its cover last month.

Ain, who has an autistic son, Matt, 7, also founded the nonprofit group Autism United, which is opening two autism resource centers, in Old Bethpage and Harlem.

"I think we are blessed to have him," Ain said of the baseball legend teaming up with her organization to help spread awareness of autism.

"I was able to conquer life's struggles and battle through it," Strawberry said. "The real key is not quitting and giving up, and to know ... your purpose and passion."

That purpose, he feels, is no longer baseball.

rweir@nydailynews.com