This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show from the arts to sports

and from business to history and everything in between including your stories send them

to our American Stories.com they're some of our favorites after years of hard living

blowing through more than 30 million dollars former slugger Darrell Strawberry found

his true calling and sat down with Greg

Hangler to share the story. Daryl didn't waste any time getting to the heart of his dysfunction.

Here's one of Major League Baseball's greats, Darrell Strawberry.

Pretty much probably my parents and, you know, that's really where my story started from, you know, in my life.

And I think it was more of the dysfunction, you know, in my life because of my father.

You know, he was more of a, you know, abusive man, a very, you know, alcoholic and drank a lot and came home a lot, you know, with just so much confusion.

And then there was for the last time he came home with the confusion of being drunk again.

And then pulling out a shotgun and said that he was going to kill the whole family.

And had it not been for my mother, me and my brothers would have killed him that night,

had it not been for her getting us out of the house.

Because we were like

really fed up with it because we had seen this so many times over and over again and we just had

reached the point you know i was only about 14 years old so me and ronnie my brother ronnie my

brother's that's a one year ahead of me me and him had the real run-ins with my father

about every little thing, every little infraction that came up, you know, it was always a beating.

You know, he had to take our shirt off, make us take our shirt off and lay across the bed.

And, you know, like a back-and-clean extension cord, he used to use that to beat us.

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