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Former baseball star Darryl Strawberry is now an evangelical preacher focused on promoting Israel
(JTA) — As part of his journey after a tumultuous decade and a half in the spotlight, former New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry is speaking at a pro-Israel event in his second career as an evangelical minister.
Strawberry, an eight-time MLB All-Star-turned-traveling-preacher, will be a panelist on Thursday at Extending the Branches of Zionism, an event taking place in New York City and organized by the Jewish National Fund-USA focused on support for Israel among non-Jews.
The panel will include participants from two JNF-USA programs that Strawberry supports called the Caravan for Democracy Student Leadership Mission and the Faculty Fellowship Program in Israel. Both bring non-Jews on Birthright-style trips with the intention of having participants subsequently discuss Israel on college campuses.
“I think the most important thing is, as a non-Jewish person, you have to be able to educate them about Israel,” Strawberry told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on a Zoom call. “I think in this country, a lot of people talk about Israel, and talk about the Jewish people, but they’ve never been there. So they don’t even have a clue.”
Strawberry, 60, was a New York sports icon in the 1980s as a leading member of the 1986 World Series champion Mets. With a picturesque, looping swing, the lanky 6-foot-6 outfielder could both hit for power and show off speed on the bases, drawing early predictions from sports analysts that he was destined to be an all-time great.
But Strawberry instead became a poster child for the team’s hard-partying ways, and he and fellow phenom Dwight “Doc” Gooden saw their careers hampered by drug addiction and scandal. Strawberry’s downfall included multiple stays in drug and alcohol rehab centers; multiple surgeries for colon cancer and losing his left kidney; and a charge for getting caught soliciting a prostitute in 1999, the last year he would play professional baseball.
Darryl Strawberry bats in a game between the New York Mets and the Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh in 1986. (George Gojkovich/Getty Images)
Soon after that, Strawberry began attending an evangelical church and spent seven years “being discipled,” or learning from a teacher steeped in evangelical knowledge.
“I would have never thought that was the true calling in my life,” Strawberry said. “And I would have a chance to experience the true meaning of life and be able to go to places I always wanted to go.”
In 2018, one of those places turned out to be Israel, a country he says he knew nothing about until his years of religious study.
“Once I finally got there, it was like, ‘Oh, my God, it is so beautiful.’ It’s so amazing, to be able to experience something that I’ve read so much about, and to be able to walk those grounds,” he said.
Evangelical Christianity stresses the importance of being “born again,” or having a spiritual awakening centered on faith in Jesus. Evangelicals have at different points over the past two decades made up close to a quarter of the U.S. population. (The vast majority of them are white.)
Many also believe that the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of God’s promise to give the land to the Jewish people. Christian Zionist movements such as Christians United for Israel, a group that claims about 11 million members, have played a significant role in the Republican Party’s strong support of Israel.
Many evangelicals additionally believe that when Israel’s contemporary boundaries eventually match up with the land that Jews were promised by God, that moment will kickstart the Rapture — or the return of Jesus accompanied by the end of times. A 2017 poll by LifeWay found that 80% of evangelicals believe the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 shows “we are getting closer to the return of Jesus Christ.”
For years, Strawberry — who is based at the nondenominational Journey Church in Troy, Missouri, about 50 miles west of St. Louis — has given sermons at megachurches and talked about his recovery story. More recently, he has also talked with prison inmates about turning their lives around. But promoting Israel has become a main focus for the Straw Man.
He demurred when asked for his thoughts on the country’s new right-wing government, which has drawn criticism from across the global political spectrum — including from some American conservatives — over policies it has advanced, including legislation that would sap the power of the Supreme Court.
“I keep it separated from the politics,” Strawberry said about his Israel advocacy. “I know what it’s about — it’s about the people, and it’s about the culture there. That’s what I know, and nobody else can tell me any different.
“I went there and saw, you know, the Sea of Galilee,” he added. “These are real places, you know? These are real places, and [biblical] things happened there in real time.”
New York Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher Mariano Rivera — who was Strawberry’s teammates in the late 1990s as a member of multiple World Series-winning teams — is also an evangelical Israel supporter. Strawberry said the two are friends and have bonded over their shared religion.
Strawberry wants to soon return to Israel, where he visited the Western Wall and was surprised that people knew who he was. Baseball is not a popular sport there, lagging far behind others such as soccer and basketball.
“I was blown away. I was like, ‘how did they know me over here?’” Strawberry said.
For now, Strawberry said he might track how Team Israel does in the upcoming World Baseball Classic tournament.
“How cool is that?” he said about the team qualifying. “That should be exciting, it’s an exciting time for them to be playing in that.”
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Rights Groups Condemn Re-Arrest of Nobel Laureate Mohammadi in Iran
Taghi Ramahi, husband of Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate, who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, poses with an undated photo of himself and his wife, during an interview at his home in Paris, France, October 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
International human rights groups have condemned the re-arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi in Iran, with the Nobel committee calling on Iranian authorities to immediately clarify her whereabouts.
Mohammadi’s French lawyer, Chirine Ardakani, said on X that the human rights activist was arrested on Friday after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi at his memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
Mashhad prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters on Saturday that Mohammadi was among 39 people arrested after the ceremony.
Hematifar said she and Alikordi’s brother had made provocative remarks at the event and encouraged those present “to chant ‘norm‑breaking’ slogans” and disturb the peace, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
The prosecutor said Mashhad’s chief of police and another officer received knife wounds when trying to manage the scene.
CALLS FOR RELEASE
The Norwegian Nobel Committee called on Iranian authorities “to immediately clarify Mohammadi’s whereabouts, ensure her safety and integrity, and to release her without conditions.”
The European Union also called for Mohammadi’s release. “The EU urges Iranian authorities to release Ms Mohammadi, taking also into account her fragile health condition, as well as all those unjustly arrested in the exercise of their freedom of expression,” an EU spokesperson said on Saturday.
A video purportedly showing Mohammadi, 53, without the mandatory veil, standing on a car with a microphone and chanting “Long Live Iran” in front of a crowd, has gone viral on social media.
Ardakani said Mohammadi was beaten before her arrest.
Reporters Without Borders said four journalists and other participants were also arrested at the memorial for human rights lawyer Alikordi, who was found dead in his office on December 5.
Authorities gave the cause of his death as a heart attack, but rights groups have called for an investigation into his death.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said the crowd also chanted “death to the dictator,” a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as: “We fight, we die, we accept no humiliation.”
Mohammadi, who received the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, has spent more than 10 years of her life in prison, most recently from November 2021 when she was charged with “propaganda against the state,” “acting against national security,” and membership of “illegal organizations.”
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, said on Saturday that the opposition’s campaign in Venezuela was akin to that taking place in Iran.
“In Oslo this week, the world honored the power of conscience. I said to the ‘citizens of the world’ that our struggle is a long march toward freedom. That march is not Venezuelan alone. It is Iranian, it is universal,” she said on X on Saturday.
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Pete Hegseth Pledges Retribution After Islamist Gunmen in Syria Kills 2 US Soldiers and Civilian, Injuring 3
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on US President Donald Trump’s budget request for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
i24 News – Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in an Islamic State attack on Saturday in Palmyra, Syria, where they were supporting counterterrorism operations, the Pentagon said.
Three others were wounded, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the attacker was killed by partner forces.
The Syrian Interior Ministry said that shooter in the deadly attack in Palmyra was a “member of the Syrian security forces who was influence by extremist ideology.”
President Donald Trump posted that “We mourn the loss of three Great American Patriots in Syria, two soldiers, and one Civilian Interpreter. Likewise, we pray for the three injured soldiers who, it has just been confirmed, are doing well.”
“This was an ISIS attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them. The President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is extremely angry and disturbed by this attack. There will be very serious retaliation. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
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Israel Says It Kills Senior Hamas Commander Raed Saed in Gaza
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a car in Gaza City, December 13, 2025.REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
The Israeli military said it killed senior Hamas commander Raed Saed, one of the architects of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, in a strike on a car in Gaza City on Saturday.
It was the highest-profile assassination of a senior Hamas figure since a Gaza ceasefire deal came into effect in October.
In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said Saed was targeted in response to an attack by Hamas in which an explosive device injured two soldiers earlier on Saturday.
The attack on the car in Gaza City killed five people and wounded at least 25 others, according to Gaza health authorities. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas or medics that Saed was among the dead.
HAMAS SAYS ATTACK VIOLATES CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT
An Israeli military official described Saed as a high-ranked Hamas member who helped establish and advance the group’s weapons production network.
“In recent months, he operated to reestablish Hamas’ capabilities and weapons manufacturing, a blatant violation of the ceasefire,” the official said.
Hamas sources have also described him as the second-in-command of the group’s armed wing, after Izz eldeen Al-Hadad.
Saed used to head Hamas’ Gaza City battalion, one of the group’s largest and best-equipped, those sources said.
Hamas, in a statement, condemned the attack as a violation of the ceasefire agreement but did not say whether Saed was hurt and stopped short of threatening retaliation.
The October 10 ceasefire has enabled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to Gaza City’s ruins. Israel has pulled troops back from city positions, and aid flows have increased.