Between the seams: Not his father's son
"Dar-ryl! Dar-ryl!" they sang.
A gangly 14-year-old stood stonefaced, preparing to take his shots. Peron called a timeout. Flabbergasted, Peron looked into the boy's eyes and asked, "Darryl, does this bother you?"
"No," the boy replied.
"Well, it bothers me," Peron shot back.
The boy shrugged, returned to the court and sank his free throws. He would score 18 points and grab 11 rebounds in his first varsity appearance. Quite publicly, Darryl Strawberry Jr. had become his father's son.
Now 15 and a sophomore at Blair High School, he already knows that to succeed he will need to disregard barbs of those who see an infamous father in an innocent son.
Darryl Strawberry Jr. already stands 6-foot-3 and wears size-14 shoes. Long and lean and sinewy, he has the type of body that college coaches and professional scouts tend to love.
Even the boy's mannerisms startle those who know his father. On the baseball field for Blair High, his graceful, effortless gait is from another time and place. Lisa Watkins, the elder Strawberry's ex-wife and mother of his two oldest children, met Darryl Sr. when he was 19. She watches in amazement as her son gradually becomes a living likeness of his father.
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"Just standing there like him, sometimes it's like, `Oh, my goodness,' " Watkins said. "It's his dad all over." Darryl Jr.'s resemblance to Darryl Sr. belies the reality of the situation: Genes aside, the boy is not his father and never will be.
Watkins knew early that her oldest son would be the object of extraordinary attention. Even before he started kindergarten, other children would stop and stare at him.
"The little kids would always want to be with him," she said. " `Oh, that's Darryl Strawberry's son. I want to play with him.' I think it is hard, but he's so used to it. He has the type of demeanor where he stays even-tempered. It just rolls off his back and then it's, `OK, what can I do now?' "
Watkins figured out one way to deflect attention: Darryl Jr. became simply "DJ."
Even so, DJ Strawberry looks at his unusual brand of celebrity as a blessing, not a curse.
"I just take it like I'm a regular kid, except everybody knows me," he said. "That's pretty good because it gives me more friends and more people to know. In case I ever get into a struggle, I know a lot of people who could help me."
Strawberry played baseball briefly as a freshman before deciding to focus on basketball. This year, he returned to baseball and stuck with Blair's 0-20 team.
A right-handed hitter, Strawberry spent most of the season in center field before shifting to shortstop. He batted .229 with one home run but showed a patience at the plate that led to a team-high 12 walks and a .425 on-base percentage. He also led his team with 10 stolen bases.
"I've got guys with better statistics," said Scott Thayer, baseball coach at Blair, "but if you look from a scouting standpoint, no one's close. He should get drafted on his name alone and on the ability he has. He can run. He can throw. He can field. The ball jumps off his bat. Most pro teams would say, `If we get our guys with him, he'll be OK.' "
But Blair's coaches wonder whether this talented Strawberry might prefer the path of least resistance - basketball. "Those are big footsteps to follow athletically," said Thayer, who trekked to the Metrodome as a college student in 1985 to watch Darryl Sr. take batting practice before the All-Star Game. "That's a big shadow to overcome."
New high school next year
Strawberry averaged 12 points and three rebounds at Blair last season and has joined a California select traveling team. Although he is not a top prospect, his mother says recruiters from Boston College, UCLA and Arizona State have watched him play.
Next year, Watkins will send her four children, including DJ, and two stepchildren to Price High School, a small Christian school in Los Angeles founded by Frederick K. Price, the television evangelist.
Price, which won California's Division 5A (small school) championship in basketball last season and is just beginning a baseball program, is 4.5 miles from Crenshaw High, where Darryl Sr. was a reed-thin senior when the New York Mets made him the No.1 choice in the 1980 amateur draft.
The younger Strawberry knows he has plenty of time to make a mark on the court during his final two years of high school. He says that he is focusing on basketball "a little bit" more than on baseball because life on the court might result in less scrutiny down the road - "Dar-ryl" chants notwithstanding.
`That's not me'
"People expect me to live up to my dad's name," Strawberry said. "They just have to understand that's not me. That's not who I'm going to be. I'm just going to be regular DJ."
Watkins said she thinks that DJ would make more of an impact in baseball, but insists that she will let him find his way. She does have a plan for him, but it barely involves fungoes or free throws.
"I want him to grow up to be a good person," she said. "Athletics will fall into place."
DJ knows that he will hear the "Dar-ryl" jeers whenever he steps onto a baseball field or a basketball court. He says the taunts won't bother him any more than they did when he heard them for the first time at the foul line in the fall of 1999.
"It was funny to me," Strawberry said. "I was just thinking about making the free throws. You can't really pay attention to the crowd or the people outside who really don't influence your life."
Having seen it all before, Watkins laughed at the mention of taunting crowds.
"We just go along with it," she said, imitating the kids who mock her son. " `Dar-ryl! Dar-ryl!' What else can you do?"