Outrageous story about Lenny Dykstra

Lenny Dykstra says he spent $500K on PIs to blackmail umps for better calls
Former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra says he hired private investigators to dig up dirt on umpires in order to pressure the umpires to call a smaller strike zone and consequently give him more walks.
In an interview with Fox's Colin Cowherd on "The Herd" Tuesday, Dykstra revealed that investigators were given a budget of $500,000 in 1993 to turn up information on umpires that he could then use to strongarm them into making a more favorable strike zone.
"Their blood's just as red as ours," Dykstra said, as quoted in The New York Daily News. "Some of them like women, some of them like men, some of them gamble, some of them do whatever."
He claimed in the interview that his blackmail attempts correlated closely with the fact that he led the National League in walks, hits and runs that year, in addition to finishing second to Barry Bonds for most valuable player and leading Philadelphia to the World Series.
"It wasn't a coincidence you think I led the league in walks the next few years was it?" asked Dykstra, who signed a multiyear contract worth almost $25 million after the season, making him baseball's highest-paid leadoff batter.
"Fear does a lot to a man. ... I had to do what I had to do to win and to support my family," he said.
An MLB spokesman told the Daily News the sport will look into his claims.
Dykstra, 52, who had a 12-year career with the Mets and Phillies, was sentenced in 2012 to 6½ months in prison for hiding baseball gloves and other heirlooms from his playing days that were supposed to be part of his bankruptcy filing. He already had served seven months in custody awaiting sentencing.
The prison term ran concurrently with a three-year sentence for pleading no contest to grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement.
Dykstra filed for bankruptcy six years ago, claiming he owed more than $31 million and had only $50,000 in assets.
After the filing, Dykstra hid, sold or destroyed at least $200,000 worth of items without the permission of a bankruptcy trustee, prosecutors said.
He pleaded guilty in 2012 to one count each of bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets and money laundering.

Thanks for sharing. An interesting read. I don't think Dykstra has much credibility left, but he does tell a helluva story.

Yeah. Very hard to believe anything he says. He's such a low life. But it's an interesting read. We'll see if the story has legs.

tomdevon said:
Thanks for sharing. An interesting read. I don't think Dykstra has much credibility left, but he does tell a helluva story.

Dykstra is a mess physically and mentally. He's also a pathological liar. I'm surprised that a radio show would give him a platform at this point.

jeffl said:
Yeah. Very hard to believe anything he says. He's such a low life. But it's an interesting read. We'll see if the story has legs.

tomdevon said:
Thanks for sharing. An interesting read. I don't think Dykstra has much credibility left, but he does tell a helluva story.

PTI talked about this yesterday ... They correctly pointed out that Jose Canseco had ZERO credibility and everything that he said was TRUE!

The night that he made the claim, one of his former teammates was covering the WS. His teammate said that he doesn't doubt Dykstra's claims at all. One other statement that Nails made that demonstrates to me that he he lacks any moral compass is that he doesn't get why the 3 best baseball players of all time are not in Cooperstown - the 3: Rose, Bonds and Clemens.

"It wasn't a coincidence you think I led the league in walks the next few years was it?" asked Dykstra, who signed a multiyear contract worth almost $25 million after the season, making him baseball's highest-paid leadoff batter.

He led the league in walks only once, in 1993. The next year ('94) he missed half the season and the year after ('95) he missed nearly 2/3 of the season. He was out of the league after 1996.

I, too, missed half the 1994 season. Who didn't? (Dykstra finished tied for third in walks that year.)

My initial reaction to this story: You'd think the umps would have had enough dirt on Nails to create a stalemate.

DaveSchmidt said:
I, too, missed half the 1994 season. Who didn't? (Dykstra finished tied for third in walks that year.)
My initial reaction to this story: You'd think the umps would have had enough dirt on Nails to create a stalemate.

Good point, but as a colleague of mine enjoys pointing out, when all the windows in your house are already broken there's nothing to stop you from throwing stones.

True, there is that.