The whole country seemed to care again. If you believed in baseball's redemption, you believed in Strawberry. His troubles with the law and substance abuse were records of public knowledge, but fans could see he was a humbled man. When he was diagnosed with cancer this month, people reacted as if it were a member of the family. In some ways, it was.
Baseball has heroes again.
Old ones such as Strawberry, new ones like Derek Jeter. This was the season of discovering them at every turn. At the victory parade Friday in Manhattan, the Yankees waved goodbye to the season, and for a few hours anyway, everyone waited a little longer before letting go of a season few of us wanted to end. Bergen Record Corp.