During the Yankees’ 2 – 0 win over the Brewers, the team announces the purchase of Darryl Strawberry’s contract from Columbus. John Wetteland preserves Jimmy Key’s win with a save in his 20th consecutive appearance, breaking Lee Smith’s record.
The Yankees provide the fireworks, signing Darryl Strawberry; on June 24th, Yankee GM Bob Watson said five times that Strawberry “doesn’t fit.”
Darryl Strawberry’s 300th career round-tripper is a dramatic 9th-inning, two-run dinger which gives the Yankees a come-from-behind 3 – 2 win over the Royals.
Darryl Strawberry signs a one-year contract with the Yankees despite the fact he is under a sixty-day suspension for drug abuse. During his five seasons in the Bronx, the southpaw-swinging slugger will contribute to the team’s tremendous success in the late 90’s.
1995 – Darryl Strawberry pleads guilty to income tax evasion and will spend three months in prison, in addition to paying back taxes, interest, and penalties.
1994 – Darryl Strawberry and his agent, Eric Goldschmidt, are indicted for allegedly failing to report a half million dollars of income from the sale of autographs at baseball card shows.
1992 – The episode of the animated series The Simpsons entitled “Homer at the Bat” gets its first broadcast on FOX. In the episode, Springfield Nuclear Plant owner C. Montgomery Burns hires a team of major league ringers in order to win a bet he placed on a softball game against a rival businessman. In the end, though, it’s the hapless Homer Simpson who saves the day with a walk-off hit-by-pitch. A number of contemporary major league stars, many of them future Hall of Famers lend their voices and likeness to the show, which is considered one of the classic episodes of the series.
Against the Dodgers, Montreal’s Mark Gardner pitches a no-hitter for nine innings before Lenny Harris beats out an infield single in the 10th. The Dodgers get two more hits, including an RBI single by Darryl Strawberry, to plate the only run of the contest. After a two-out walk in the 1st to Eddie Murray, Gardner retires 19 in a row. The Expos manage only two hits themselves against the combined efforts of Orel Hershiser, Kevin Gross, and Jay Howell. Gardner is the 11th pitcher to lose a no-hitter after nine innings; the last being Jim Maloney, on June 14, 1965, and the first pitcher to hurl nine no-hit innings against the Dodgers since Johnny Vander Meer, in 1938.
Darryl Strawberry returns to New York as a Dodger with mixed results. A crowd of 49,118 mostly booing fans watches him hit a two-run home run, and they cheer when he makes the last out of the game with the potential tying and winning runs on base in the 6-5 Mets victory.
Hoping to fill the void created by Darryl Strawberry’s departure to LA as a free agent, the Mets make their first move into the free-agent market in 10 years when they sign Vince Coleman to a 4-year contract just shy of $12 million. The former St. Louis outfielder, who will spend time on the disabled list on five occasions during the next two seasons, will be hampered by injuries to his ribs and hamstrings during his stay with New York.