In the mid-1980s, Darryl Strawberry was one of baseball's elite. He won a World Series ring, he was selected to repeated All Star games, he was a rich man. He was a troubled man. There was a divorce, there were paternity suits, there were rumors of much worse.
Finally, in 1995, he was suspended from baseball because of cocaine. Things got worse from there. There was cancer and more cocaine and jail for soliciting a prostitute. And then more drugs and more arrests and all the while there were those moments when Darryl Strawberry got up and proclaimed he was a changed man, that he had given his life to Jesus, that things were going to be different. It was such a joke that someone made a fairly profane video on YouTube mocking Strawberry and his Jesus talk.
He is still up for new starts. He is now living in Missouri and trying again:
It's Tracy Boulware, a native Missourian raised in Harvester, who has tried her best to bring light to Strawberry's dark interiors. The interracial couple was introduced three years ago by mutual friends at a recovery convention in Florida organized by Narcotics Anonymous. At the time she was working as a real estate agent in Boca Raton."I didn't know Darryl Strawberry the baseball player," she says. "I didn't know Darryl Strawberry's tainted past, because I never followed his career. I just remember seeing a really nice guy trying to put his life together."
It is easy to mock Strawberry and his Jesus talk. After all, what good did it do him? The thing is, choosing to follow Jesus doesn't make any of us perfect, it doesn't take away our temptations. Jesus does, however, offer us life and gives us grace... over and over and over. Perhaps Darryl is at peace now. Perhaps there will be no more public stumbles. I pray that is true.
And I pray it is true for me - that I will be more like Jesus.
And I pray it for Michael Vick too and hope he will look at Darryl Strawberry and discover some lessons for his own life.
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Drug addicts are almost completely innocent of guilt for their actions and behaviors. That's because drugs drive the human nature from them and put wild animal behaviors in its place.
Enjoying Pit Bulls killing each other is not an innocent action. Animalistic perhaps, but only because humans manipulate animals to kill each other for sport. Animals do not enjoy nor commit murder.
Vick is worse than Strawberry.
But locking up Vick and Strawberry is still the best way to deal with their problems (psychologists can buzz off). Like a wild animal and a heartless bastard, safety and security for "others" is the first step to reintroducing "them" to human life. Human life differs from animal life because humans can and should try to be a benefit to others.
Let's hope that both men "walk" the human path. Strawberry, since he's gottn out of prison and Vick after he gets out of prison.
Humans would be wise to study animals and to learn to be as much like them as possible. They don't hurt each other for "sport", for money or just because. They only kill for food and if threatened.
Ahhh yes we could learn much about life if only we realized we are not the higher species.
What Michael Vick did is so appalling, his "apology" was just as bad. What he did was not the act of an "immature" person, it was cold calulating, sadistic, looking for power, action of a very weak & sick human being.
He deserves jail, he deserves to never play professional sports again.
everyone is intitled to making mistakes no one really knows why he did it but s**t happens. people need to stop judging people because GOD will do that, no one is perfect. life is making choices, living and learning i did not hear anyone say that the president of the USA should go to jail or be punish for his actions (the war, illegal wire taping and lets not forget hurricane katrina the biggest crime of all).
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