Report: Straw To Get Cancer Surgery

Friday, August 4th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Darryl Strawberry, the former New York Yankees slugger operated on for colon cancer in 1998, has a new cancerous tumor in his abdomen, the New York Daily News quoted his agent as saying Thursday night.

Eric Grossman told the newspaper that Strawberry, who recently left a drug rehab center in Florida, will return to New York for cancer surgery and treatment.

A tumor that developed out of a lymph node was found in Strawberry's abdomen, Grossman said.

``His cancer's back,'' Grossman said. ``It's been confirmed.''

The tumor is near the section of colon that was operated on by surgeons at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in October 1998, after the outfielder was diagnosed with the cancer that sidelined him just before the Yankees' World Series title run.

Strawberry could not be reached for comment Thursday.

He underwent tests Monday and Tuesday at Palms of Pasadena Hospital in Tampa, Fla., hospital spokesman Tony Ojeda told the Daily News.

``He came in very quietly and he left very quietly,'' Ojeda said.

In the 1998 operation, doctors removed a 2 1/2 -inch tumor from Strawberry's large intestine, a few days after he was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Followup tests showed the cancer had spread to one of his lymph nodes, which was removed during the procedure.

Strawberry, who started his career with the New York Mets and later played in Los Angeles and San Francisco, recovered from the surgery and chemotherapy and rejoined the Yankees last season. But he was suspended by the team for most of last season after his arrest in Tampa in April 1999 on drug and solicitation charges.

Strawberry pleaded no contest to those charges and was sentenced to probation. He was suspended from baseball for a year in February after he tested positive for cocaine in January.