Nicknamed “Nails,” Lenny Dykstra was known for his gritty play, aggressive mental drive, and tendency to don a dirty uniform, the universal sign of hustle.
It’s no surprise his commitment to winning extended beyond the white lines.
Last week, on "The Herd," Colin Cowherd’s FOX Sports radio show, Dykstra revealed the lengths he’d go to instill fear in umpires.
The former all-star oozed a cocky swagger that years of legal troubles and improprieties have not wiped from his smug grin. His commanding attitude and self-pride undoubtedly made for compelling radio, yet his cold detachment was off-putting.
Let’s unpack that.
League-Leader
In 1993, Dykstra posted career-best walk figures and led the Phillies to a National League pennant. After falling in the World Series to Toronto, Dykstra earned “the money” he referenced in his interview. The Phillies rewarded him for his stellar year which, despite not receiving an all-star nod after hitting .316 with 91 hits, 57 walks and a .416 on-base percentage in the first half, ended with the under-sized lefty second in MVP voting to Barry Bonds.
Despite still believing he deserved the MVP, his stats pale in comparison to Bonds’ numbers that grabbed the nation’s collective attention at the onset of the forearm-bashing steroid era. Bonds launched 46 homers, drove in 123 runs, received 43 intentional passes, and slashed .336/.458/.677.
Numbers back Dykstra’s claims about his advantage over umpires – not his MVP fantasies. His 1993 season is highlighted.
Cowherd attempted to clarify Dykstra’s claims.
“So you think-” Cowherd said, before being cut off. “I don’t think,” Dykstra calmly insisted, “I know.”
The year before receiving his extension, he led the NL with 129 walks, 40 more than his previous season-high. In addition to free passes, he also led in at bats, plate appearances, runs and hits. His season earned him a four year contract extension worth $24.9 million guaranteed, the largest check ever written to a lead-off hitter.
His reasoning behind hiring private investigators? He had to do whatever he had to do to win and support his family. His upper hand on umpires, however ethically questionable, may in fact have fattened his wallet.
The inherent irony of spending $500,000 dollars -- that your family could otherwise use to, you know, live -- in order to provide for them is astoundingly backwards thinking. His willingness to win at any cost, quite literally, paid off in 1994. His acclaim, reputation and behavior would, however, take a drastic turn driven by the same hunger to succeed and reckless abandon that marked his playing career. It was no longer jabs at umpires about their personal betting vices; this time he was holding the secrets, and the government held his laundry list of his secret transgressions.
Mental Capacity
Michael Lewis’ "Moneyball" follows Billy Beane, one-time first round pick, in his transformation into the brightest young MLB general manager, pioneering the most drastic shift in baseball thinking in the game’s history. Through the use of advanced analytics, Beane shirked conventional norms of scouting and player evaluation, finding answers to one of baseball’s eternal questions -- how to contend as a small-market team with relatively minuscule payroll -- deep within the statistics he felt baseball purists had only thus far scratched the surface of.
His struggle, being drafted out of high school, was mental. Taken directly from his scouting report, Beane was, “impressive…good tools - run, throw, power, glove…could be a good one.” However, the toughest, most abstract characteristic scouts are asked to judge is mental toughness. Here, Beane fell short in comparison to his professional counterparts.
Beane contrasts his raw talent, projected upside and mental immaturity to Dykstra’s intense mental fortitude. Author Michael Lewis writes:
"The point about Lenny, at least to Billy, was clear: Lenny didn’t let his mind screw him up. The physical gifts required to pay pro ball were, in some ways, less extraordinary than the mental ones. Only a psychological freak could approach a 100-mph fastball aimed not all that far from his head with total confidence. ‘Lenny was so perfectly designed, emotionally, to play the game of baseball,’ said Billy. ‘He was able to instantly forget any failure and draw strength from every success. He had no concept of failure. And he had no idea where he was. And I was the opposite.’"
Beane was a 6'4", 195 pound Mets first rounder in 1980. Dykstra was a 5'10", 160 pound 13th round selection, also by New York.
As much as that says about Beane, it speaks volumes on Dykstra’s tendency to ignore failure and remain focused on his next opportunity. After his retirement, that tunnel vision turned into a veritable blindness toward the concept of legality as lawsuits, arrests and prison time began piling up.
The Players Club
After his playing days, Dykstra’s desire to partake in the celebrity lifestyle spurred his newest venture. "The Players Club" was a financial lifestyle magazine and all-inclusive concierge and brokerage service for millionaire athletes, providing financial advice both during and after an athlete’s career. Ignoring print advertising revenue’s downward trend nationwide, his magazine, filled with ads for chartered private-jets and luxury cars, folded almost as quickly as it began.
Sprinkle in one economic recession, continually dropping print ad revenue, and the need for a magazine dedicated to advising athletic royalty seems, like hiring private investigators to spy on umpires, just a bit unnecessary. His life of luxury would likewise take a sharp downward turn, from which he has not returned.
In 2008, he reported his net worth to be $58 million. In 2009, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It was ruled a Chapter 7 case, liquidation, where all personal items or available assets became the main source of funds to pay off his reported $37 million debts. He trashed his $18.5 million mansion -- bought from Wayne Gretzky who had the monstrosity built in Thousand Oaks, Calif. in 2002 -- in spectacular fashion. His other mansion was uninhabitable due to toxic mold.
Directly from the Gretzky-mansion case: “The house was left by Mr. Dykstra in an un-showable state, with raw sewage escaping from the main drain line left undone…there were 2'5" deep holes in the floors throughout the house…the home was littered throughout with empty beer bottles, trash, dog feces and urine.”
In attempting to prove he needed $10 million for water damage, he destroyed the home. One slimy, last ditch, win-at-all-costs effort. It’s what made fans adore him. Now, it turned him against the world.
In 2012 he pled no contest to a grand theft auto scheme that tacked on charges for identity theft, filing false financial statements, and possession of controlled substances. Ecstasy, cocaine and human growth hormone, just for good measure. Later that year, he again pled no contest, this time to lewd conduct and assault charges after soliciting women on Craigslist for housework and forcing them to massage him. In one of the six reported cases, Dykstra held a knife.
While serving time for his grand theft auto conviction, he was sentenced to federal bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets, and money laundering. He admitted to taking memorabilia from his playing days out of his mansion to secretly sell under the nose of his bankruptcy trustee who looked after his estate.
Hung Nail
This is a man who brought joy to New York in their 1986 World Series win and a spark of hope to the 1993 Phillies pennant-winning effort. A man who punctured a lung, broke three ribs, his collarbone and his cheekbone drunkenly crashing his red Mercedes, with teammate Darren Daulton abroad, into a tree returning from John Kruk’s bachelor party. (Just six years earlier, the city mourned Flyers goalie Pelle Lindbergh, who died driving under the influence.) A man accused of providing betting advice to a former business partner during Philadelphia’s 1993 run. A man named in the Mitchell Report. A man who, according to a GQ article written by a former Players Club employee, claimed “nobody can call me racist - I put three darkies and a bitch on my first four covers,” which he so necessarily cleared up, referring to them further as “spear-chuckers.”
For the record, those covers consisted of Derek Jeter (half African-American, half Irish), Chris Paul (African-American), Tiger Woods (a mix of African-American and Asian descents) and Danica Patrick. He reeks of Donald Sterling.
It wasn’t until the end of the interview, when Dykstra drops a juicy plant for his new book, that it became clear. A man who had no qualms sending private investigators to spy on bi-partisan umpires would likely have even less of a problem writing a book about it 12 years later, using every talk-show invite to shamelessly promote his latest money making opportunity.
