Yankee slugger Darryl Strawberry seems to have had drugs on his mind – much more than sex when he was busted for soliciting a vice cop, Tampa police records show.
“OK, but you can get me some stuff too, right?” the police report states the Straw Man told undercover cop Kelly Daniel Wednesday night after agreeing to meet her in a motel across the street.
“Yes,” Daniel replied. “Meet me across the street.”
The encounter began with the Yankee outfielder asking the undercover cop, “Where’s the good stuff?” an apparent reference to drugs.
DANIEL: “I am the good stuff.”
STRAWBERRY: “Oh, you are. Where can I get some good stuff to party with?”
DANIEL: “I don’t have any. But you can get it from anyone walking down the street.”
Cops say Strawberry then agreed to pay Daniel $50 for straight sex and she told him to meet her in Room 3 of the motel.
As Strawberry drove off in his gold Ford Explorer, backup cops busted him and found three-tenths of a gram of cocaine in a folded $20 bill in his wallet.
They also found a residue of cocaine powder in a wallet compartment, police records show.
At the police station, Strawberry was asked about the cocaine in the $20 bill. “That wasn’t in my wallet,” he replied.
But when Sgt. Marc Hamlin, the arresting officer, asked, “What do we have there, cocaine?” Strawberry uttered, “Yeah.”
The Yankee outfielder said he found the $20 bill in the glove compartment and his wife’s uncle, Rodney Simon, might have put it there when he used the car the night before.
But when Hamlin questioned Simon, he said he knew nothing about the cocaine and denied using or even seeing cocaine.
Strawberry was charged with soliciting prostitution, which carries a 60-day jail sentence, and cocaine possession, which could put him away for up to five years.
Prosecutors said Strawberry’s earlier tax conviction hurts his chances of being placed in a drug program and having the charges dropped.
Strawberry remained holed up in his rented Tampa home yesterday, not returning calls from teammates.
Interim manager Don Zimmer held out hope the Straw Man would one day again play for the Yanks.
“He is in all our thoughts, but life has to go on. We have to play baseball. Hopefully, down the line he will be part of it,” Zimmer said.