Playing right field for the New York Mets, No. 18!.

They tried to tell me my hero had died last week.

There were rumors here and there, someone had found him in a hotel room, dead.

It took close to a day to refute them, to verify that the man was still alive.

I did not hear the whispers. I found out the next day, after the episode was over.

I am grateful that he is alive, and almost as much so that I did not have to spend those 24 hours wondering.

Darryl Strawberry was my hero.

Baseball had been introduced to me by the solid and comfortable swings of HoJo and Donnie Baseball, but Darryl was my hero.

I was in elementary school in a part of Connecticut divided up between lukewarm Mets, Yankees and Red Sox fans.

I had no such muddled feelings. I used to draw scale replicas of the Shea Stadium field on my driveway in chalk.

Any time that Darryl stepped into that batter's box, I was mesmerized.

I loved his walk, so much of a swagger and so cool.

I loved the way he wagged the bat so violently before every pitch, causing Shea's outfield flags to flutter with a flick of his wrist.

I loved that ballerina leg kick, his knee almost grazing his chin before he turned his wrists ever so slightly and sent the bat slicing over the plate.

Even the customary wad of tobacco in his cheek, a longstanding baseball trademark that is losing steam these days, was an indelible part of his winking image.

The home runs were flying off of Darryl's long bat, year after year.

New York loved him, and he was well on his way to becoming a history-making home run hitter.

Darryl played the game with a smile on his face. Darryl had fun. Darryl was a kid out there.

Turns out, Darryl's childlike aura on the field was not just an act.

His impulsiveness and his indifference to consequences resulted in a scrapbook full of tabloid-worthy behavior.

Whatever other bad habits Darryl may have developed during that time, he seems to have picked up a nasty little cocaine habit.

Sure, it was fun when the Mets were winning, but in the early '90's they became a pretty terrible team.

The next thing I knew, Darryl had signed a free agent contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

I was eleven. I was mad.

Somewhere along the line, Darryl's little habit became overwhelming.

A few highly-publicized visits to rehab followed, all of which was not looked at favorably by the people who wrote Darryl's checks.

Baseball had turned its back on him.

Each transgression made me even more angry at the man I had idolized, the man I had believed was the best hitter baseball had ever seen, the man I missed terribly in New York.

It was a sad story of wasted potential and broken dreams, but it was not a particularly unique one.

Then someone decided to give Darryl another chance.

The owner of none other than the New York Yankees took it upon himself to resurrect Darryl's career.

He swore up and down that he was clean, and Darryl finally got his chance to play in a World Series.

A more grateful man would be hard-pressed to show his face.

The sad story had brightened... momentarily.

Then it got even worse.

Soon Darryl found out that he had colon cancer.

This was followed by the inevitable jail stint for drug possession and soliciting a prostitute.

Amazingly, Darryl returned to baseball in late 1999, and he got himself another World Series ring.

It was not enough.

Soon Darryl was back in rehab and back in jail, suspended from baseball yet again.

His cancer had returned. He was unable to control the depression or the drugs or the pressure or the impulses.

My hero was released from jail a few months ago.

He is still a very sick man, though it's hard to say which illness, the cancer or the drug addiction, is getting the best of him at any given moment.

He has not been able to beat either.

Baseball is a distant part of Darryl's past at an age where he could still be wagging his bat in stadiums around the country.

I see him on television, usually in a prison-issue jumpsuit, and he looks lost.

People have plenty of harsh words to say about Darryl Strawberry and his drug problems, they breezily laugh and scoff and criticize him.

I clench my jaw and tell them to leave him alone.

I am generally the last person to make excuses for the trouble self-indulgent behavior causes, but I figure it's the least I can do for the man who made me smile, more summers than I can remember, by playing a game that he loved.

It's the least I can do for my hero.

Author's Note: I wrote this over a year ago, just for my own benefit, and was reminded of it this week upon hearing about a recently published book on the same subject by Michael Sokolove.