Police arrested lamming ex-Yankee Darryl Strawberry yesterday after he checked himself into a Tampa hospital.
Pals had earlier rescued the ex-slugger from the Florida hideout where he’d gone after ditching a court-ordered drug-rehab program.
“I thank God I’m alive,” Strawberry told documentary cameraman Tony Zumbado, who spoke to the troubled ex-Yank shortly after he surfaced.
Zumbado said Strawberry told him he came to his senses yesterday and telephoned friends Ray Negron and Ron Dock – who had been searching for him in Tampa drug dens since he skipped out from his treatment center there last Thursday night.
Strawberry gave his pals the address of the Daytona Beach apartment where he’d gone, and they raced out and picked him up, said Zumbado, who has been filming a documentary about Strawberry for HBO.
“He looked tired, he looked worried, he looked confused. He had that ‘I want to get back to reality’ look in his face,” Zumbado said.
“He says his drug addiction … is beating him up, that he needs a lot of help, that he was very sorry for what he did, very sorry for the people he hurt – specifically his wife and children – and that he hopes everyone can understand how awful it is to be a drug addict.”
Zumbado said Strawberry told him he was returning from a rehab session at Health Care Connections Thursday night when he lost control.
“Something just snapped, the monkey on his shoulder just told him to turn around and he took off,” Zumbado said.
Strawberry told Zumbado the combination of the drug rehab and the chemotherapy treatments he is undergoing for colon cancer have worn down his willpower.
“The two of them are just beating him up,” Zumbado said. “He said he was doing very well in rehab and was trying very hard but the urge for the drug is too much for his willpower.
“His head snaps, his brain goes into that ‘I want drugs’ mode.”
Negron and Dock drove Strawberry, 39, to St. Josephs Hospital in Tampa, where he was met by his drug counselor about 6 p.m. His wife, Charisse, joined him there later, Zumbado said.
Police then showed up and put Strawberry under arrest and charged him with violating probation, said Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Debbie Carter.
Negron, a mentor to Strawberry when he played for the Yanks, would not give details of the rescue.
“He is alive and he is well,” Negron said.
John Parsons, whose Parco Productions is making the Strawberry documentary, said he spoke to the former slugger by telephone yesterday after he left his hideout.
“He said, ‘I’m OK. I want to know that people are going to still be with me.’ And I said yes, I thought they would be,” Parsons told The Post.
“He kept saying, ‘I’m OK. I’m going back.'”
Parsons said he was relieved to hear Strawberry’s voice.
“We thought today was really a dark day if we didn’t find him,” Parsons said.
“We were worried. This was the key day. Those friends of his have been searching nonstop. They really turned that part of the country upside down to find him.”