When Darryl Strawberry was a seventeen-year-old outfielder for Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, stardom was guaranteed. He was a boy who had everything -- a god-like physique, lightning quick hands, and even a name that seemed to be made for bold headlines. The New York Mets didn't hesitate to use their first overall pick in the 1980 amateur draft to select Strawberry, a player whom scouts compared to such legends as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Ted Williams.
Early in his career, teammates, coaches, and managers predicted nothing but success for the young Strawberry, as they projected him into the Hall of Fame. Some felt he'd easily top five hundred homeruns, possibly even six hundred. He was thought to have the potential to be one of the greatest players ever to set foot on a baseball field.
Twenty years later, however, after multiple drug suspensions, numerous trips to rehab, a jail term, a cancer diagnosis, and enough disappointments to fill up the back of a baseball card, Darryl Strawberry's career can only be viewed in terms of what might have been, what we might have seen.
Strawberry is the hook that draws the reader into Michael Sokolove's insightful book, but there's a lot more here than just Darryl. Sokolove introduces the reader to a remarkable team, the 1979 Crenshaw Cougars, a group generally considered to be the most talented high school team ever assembled. Strawberry was the phenom who drew scouts and agents like flies, but in terms of actual performance, he was probably only the second or third best player on the team. Third baseman Chris Brown would eventually play for the San Franicsco Giants and join Strawberry in the 1986 All-Star game, quite an accomplishment for two high school teammates. In addition to Brown and Strawberry, more than half of the Crenshaw team would be drafted into professional baseball.
What separates Sokolove's book from more pedestrian sports profiles is his excellent research and reporting. He provides context for the story by both presenting historical background as well as painting a picture of the world inhabited by the Crenshaw players. He raises several important issues, including the impact of poverty and racism on these emotionally fragile players, the long odds against success for young black men in America, and the startling disappearance of black players from college and professional baseball. The title of the book refers to the strong emphasis the black community places on sports, and Sokolove discusses the pitfalls of viewing athletic talent as a "ticket out" of poverty and despair. He even devotes considerable time examining California's ridiculous Three Strikes Law and its effect on one of the Crenshaw players.
In the end, this is a book more about people than baseball players. Darryl Strawberry's trials and tribulations, the game-winning home runs as well as the drug arrests and suspensions, all played out in headlines and news updates for all to see, but his story is only a more public and extreme version of what happened to many of his teammates. The Ticket Out tells the stories of what has become of the Boys of Crenshaw, men who have struggled to find their way in a world without baseball. Some have found success, while others still haven't recovered from the loss of their dream. But even after twenty-five years, they all still share the bond that came from stepping on a baseball field as a unit and knowing that they couldn't be beaten, not by anyone.
This, perhaps, is the truth that Sokolove set out to find. Regardless of what has happened to these players, no matter what mistakes they've made or what obstacles life has set before them, one constant remains. They are still teammates. They are still the Boys of Crenshaw.
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