Darryl Strawberry

Darryl Strawberry was born on March 12, 1962, in Los Angeles, California to Ruby and Henry Strawberry. He had two older brothers, Michael and Ron, and two younger sisters, Regina and Michelle. The family resided in Compton, a neighborhood in south-central Los Angeles not far from Dodger Stadium. His father was an employee of the U.S. Postal Service and his mother worked for the phone company; the couple divorced in 1974, in part due to Henry Strawberry's heavy drinking, gambling, and sometimes explosive temper. Greatly affected by his father's departure, Darryl Strawberry looked up to his two older brothers as role models. He shared their love of basketball and baseball and immediately became a star player on the Crenshaw High School's baseball team.

Despite his obvious athletic talent, Strawberry ran into difficulties with authority figures from the start. Criticized by his coach for taking his time getting onto the baseball field one day in his sophomore year, Strawberry quit the team for the rest of the season. When he returned to the team as a six-foot, six-inch, 200 pound junior, Strawberry began attracting interest from baseball scouts from around the country. Despite his reputation as an undisciplined player who took his natural athletic abilities for granted, Strawberry ended up as the first pick in the first round of the Major League Baseball (MLB) draft in 1980. He was selected by the New York Mets, a team perennial dwarfed by their metropolitan rivals, the New York Yankees.