Success exposes who you already are
Former slugger Darryl Strawberry says he searched for a father figure in women, cars, money, and drugs, and still went home empty.
Mick Unplugged · Darryl Strawberry: Another LifeWhen Mick Hunt, who had read the line in high school, asked Darryl Strawberry, the former Mets and Yankees slugger, about it, Strawberry did not talk about baseball. He talked about identity.
The line was this, in his words: “Success exposes who you are.”
Strawberry said we end up with a false sense of who we are. He said we chase great success for possessions, and often we get those possessions, but still have to answer who we are. He believes there is a hollow place inside us, and that is why we gather more possessions in an effort to feel better, but it does not work.
“A car is a car. A house is a house,” he said. “Doesn’t matter how big the house is, how big of a car you have.” He said we simply end up with slightly more fame and a few more opportunities opened to us.
He said he did not expect fame to take over him. Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, he said he just wanted to be normal. He said his humility came from being brought up by a mother who showed him right from wrong, and that people who reach the top still have to answer who they really are.
He calls the alternative “that fake part of living,” wanting everybody to praise us while never dealing with the brokenness inside. In his case, he said, it meant not having a father in his life and searching for a father figure in women, cars, money, and drugs.
“But at the end of the day, you still have to go home to you and lay on that couch, and you’re still empty on the inside,” he said. “And I was no different than anybody else.”
Questions people ask
How famous was Darryl Strawberry as a player?
Strawberry was one of baseball's most feared power hitters in the 1980s and 1990s. He was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1983, an eight-time All-Star, and a World Series champion with the 1986 Mets and later with the Yankees.
Did drugs play a part in what he calls the void?
Strawberry has spoken openly about addiction, prison time, and recovery. He argues that drugs and other pleasures offered temporary escape but left the underlying pain untouched, which is why he now warns young people that drugs are a dead end.
Is there evidence that more stuff does not make people happier?
Psychologists often find that material gains provide only a short lift in happiness before people return to their baseline. Researchers call part of that pattern hedonic adaptation, meaning a new car or house quickly feels normal, while relationships and purpose tend to sustain well-being longer.