Just when I thought I'd heard every possible Lenny Dykstra horror story, I came across this NY Post review of Nailed!: The Improbable Rise and Spectacular Fall of Lenny Dykstra, and I am completely blown away at the depth of Dykstra's narcissistic depravity. So depraved, in fact, that Dykstra inspired a 24-year veteran of the LAPD to describe him as "among the top three most egregious criminals he’s come across in his 24 years on the force."
Like most of you, I chuckled to myself over the various Dealbreaker takedowns of Dykstra as his behavior grew more and more bizarre. Randall Lane gave him the treatment in The Zeroes, detailing how Dykstra cheated him after engaging him to create a brand magazine for Dykstra along the lines of Trader Monthly. It was mildly entertaining to watch a guy once described by Jim Cramer as "one of the greats" spiral out of control, a willing victim of his own massive ego.
What I never realized was just how dark things got behind the scenes. I'm talking about stalking, forgery, extortion, and attempted rape for starters. According to the new book, he abused everyone he came in contact with, including his own mother and son. What I once found mildly amusing now seems pretty sickening.
His claim to fame on Wall Street was a deep-in-the-money option strategy he touted on TheStreet.com and several other places before starting his own newsletter. At one point the system supposedly produced 107 winners against only two losers, and that led to the public accolades from Cramer.
But the reality was that Dykstra was a racist, misogynistic sociopath who preyed on everyone around him.
But Dykstra — whose idea of fun was to “leave a large amount of feces in the toilet . . . so he could hear the shrieks of the hotel’s grossed-out maids” — heaped abuse on people far beyond the financial.His treatment of women was abhorrent. During a meeting with the female managing director of a financial firm, he responded to her questions about the company’s preferred partners by telling her how he had “impregnated three women in the same night and made them all get abortions.”
His attitude toward non-whites was no better. Behind their backs, baseball legend Willie Mays, a Player’s Club partner, was referred to as Dykstra’s “field n - - - er”; Derek Jeter and Tiger Woods were “darkies”; and when he instructed Frankie to write an article about the “baboons,” he meant tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams.
There's no doubt that Lenny Dykstra is a complete shitbag. He's a year into a three-and-a-half year sentence in state prison for bankruptcy fraud and grand theft auto. Yet something about the guy just fascinates me in a weird kind of Ted Bundy way. Maybe I'm just curious about how a guy goes from being on top of the world to hitting rock bottom in such spectacular fashion.
Anyway, I'll definitely be reading the book when it comes out in two weeks. I can't help myself. Anybody else feel this way about Nails? Is he just a symptom of the disease we all suffered in the last decade?
He's the real life Kenny Powers as a tragedy instead of a comedy.
I always thought of Kenny Powers as a bit of both..
Wow. Same thoughts exactly, I thought this dark little episode was funny, but even that little snippet above makes me sick. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because I watched the '86 Mets and the Steroid Phillies of '93, but I don't see any part of this guy's life where he isn't being a piece of crap.
Nails isn't fit to carry Willie Mays' jockstrap. Glad he's locked up.
"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. "
It's almost blasphemous to quote the Good Doctor in reference to Nails.
You know who's really got his shit together though? Scott Weiland.
Definitely not Tyrone. Shit Tyrone, get your stuff together!
I was about 10 years old living in the Philadelphia area in 1993 and Lenny Dykstra was my favorite baseball player of all-time (still kinda is, off-field stuff aside, tied with Chase Utley). Lenny was the type of player a northeast sports city could absolutely love. He left it all on the field and didn't take shit from anyone. The guy could lead the league in walks and runs and would do whatever it took to win (including abuse steriods to a degree that would make Canseco blush). Further, Dykstra was incredibly clutch, when the game was on the line he always rose to the occasion (batted .348 with 4 HRs in the 1993 World Series). I prefer to remember this Lenny Dykstra.
Curt Schilling on Dykstra: "I listened to Lenny Dykstra talk about hitting every chance I could get. I wanted to learn pitching from a hitter's perspective as well, and the Dude was the guy to talk to. I'll bet 30 times that year he told me exactly what was going to happen when he went up to the plate. He told me exactly how the pitcher would work him, and exactly what he'd be trying to do. Lenny was also the best big-game player I ever saw."
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