Lenny Dykstra was resulting from play baseball at Arizona State but decided to go pro after being drafted by the Recent York Mets in 1981.
It turned out to be an amazing decision for the Thirteenth-round pick, who led the Carolina League in at-bats, runs, hits, triples, batting average and stolen bases to be crowned MVP in 1983.
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Dykstra became close with Billy Beane while playing Double-A together and the long run Hall of Famer saw loads of potential.
Beane claimed his teammate was “perfectly designed, emotionally” to play baseball and had “no concept of failure.”
He claimed that after watching pitcher Steve Carlton, who also wound up immortalized in Cooperstown, Recent York, Dykstra said: “S***, I’ll stick him.”
Many felt the prospect was too short to make it but after being promoted to MLB he earned the nickname Nails due to a no-nonsense, hard-running playing style.
The Mets won the World Series and Dykstra was an MVP contender.
Dykstra’s three All-Star nods all got here after he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1989.
He won the Silver Slugger in 1993 after hitting 19 home runs to assist the Phillies into the World Series, ending behind Barry Bonds within the MVP race.
What did Lenny Dykstra do after retiring?
Dykstra retired in 1996 on the age of 33 after fighting injuries.
By 2008, successful investments in a series of automotive washes had helped turn $24 million in profession earnings right into a net value of $58 million, per the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The hitter entered the league as a thin athlete who made up for it with scrappy determination, by the top of his time in Philly he was a stocky power hitter.
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In a 2016 interview with NBC Sports, he revealed that he felt pressure to show to steroids with a purpose to provide for his family.
“So I said, I would like to play,” Dykstra said. “I finally got traded to the Phillies in ’89, and I’m 150, 140 kilos. So I knew. [Then-Philadelphia general manager] Lee Thomas said, look, we’re going to offer you 1990. You may be our on a regular basis guy.
“So I knew ’90 was it for me. In order that’s why I went to the library in Mississippi and looked it up. Ben Johnson, remember? (Johnson, the 100-meter gold medalist within the 1988 Olympics was stripped of his medal when he failed a drug test for steroid use).
“I literally called up some doctor in Mississippi and told him the story I’m telling you. I actually have a family. I actually have a probability to make numerous money. It isn’t that I can not play. I do know tips on how to do this. You do not have to show me that.
“However the schedule is six months. I’m just not physically large enough to carry up. If I can just stay strong…”
Dykstra featured within the infamous Mitchell Report in 2005 as MLB tried to wash up its image and tasked Senator George Mitchell with investigating steroid use.
In line with The Recent York Times, Kevin Dykstra — Lenny’s brother and former business partner — was a key contributor.
How much money did Lenny Dykstra lose?
Lenny allegedly pulled his money out of the automotive wash business he ran with Kevin and refused to pay him $4 million that he was owed.
“He screwed us all out of cash. He didn’t do right by his family and we have sort of disowned him,” Wayne Neilsen — the uncle of Lenny’s mother Marilyn who also worked within the business — told the NYT.
Kevin — a former minor league umpire — claimed he was the source of the performance-enhancing drugs.
“Lenny’s whole thing was that he all the time desired to be greater, in every way,” he added within the Times’ report. “After baseball, he was just never glad with what he had.
“He had a $4 million house, but he needed to get Gretzky’s house. He had nice cars, but he needed to have a Maybach. He flew first-class, but he wanted his own private jet.”
Dykstra became a favorite of TV star Jim Cramer, who hired him to put in writing a column for TheStreet.com.
He was a stock tipster and other people paid almost $1,000 a 12 months to read his advice.
But Dykstra soon began chasing greater gains and tried to release a magazine called Player’s Club, which collapsed after one issue.
His losses mounted and he filed for bankruptcy.
In 2012, he admitted to stealing assets from his own estate and selling merchandise without disclosing the profits and was sentenced to six-and-a-half months in custody.
He was already serving a three-year prison sentence after pleading no contest to grand theft auto
Court documents revealed that he had often used Dexedrine, Adderall, and Vicodin during his profession and had developed an issue, switching to other medications, including Percocet, after retirement.
Alcohol was one other problem, the Recent York Times reports that Dykstra injured himself and Phillies teammate Darren Daulton in a automotive crash and was later found to have twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood.
Within the 2012 papers, he admitted to drinking a liter of vodka a day.
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Where is Lenny Dykstra today?
Dykstra overcame the percentages to make a profession for himself in MLB but struggled with among the trappings of fame.
He’s currently living in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and suffered a stroke in February 2024.
The 62-year-old has been working with pastor Dennis D’Augostine of Steamtown Church — a Mets fan who remembers the 1986 World Series — and desires to supply a pay-per-view variety show to assist other stroke victims find some joy.
“They will be pretty miserable,” he told the Every day Times. “I’m going to call it, ‘Different strokes for various folks.”