Lenny Dykstra never grew up
Remember this New Yorker profile of Lenny Dykstra’s “improbable post-career success story”?
Dykstra ordered a Coke and French fries with ketchup: “And I’m actually going to have that as my meal-might be the oddest order of the day.” (Healthy living was never his specialty.) When the Coke arrived, he sent it back, believing it to be Diet. After the fries were delivered, he made a show of extracting a “You’re welcome” from the waiter, who had since moved on to another table. “I pay a thousand bucks a night — actually, three thousand bucks a night — and people are discourteous,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s some point in life when you have to grow up.”
For many ballplayers, the growing-up point does not arrive until after retirement, when all the freebies vanish and equipment managers and hotel maids can no longer be relied upon for regular laundry service. Dykstra last played in the majors in 1996, at age thirty-three. Improbably, he has since become a successful day trader, and he let me know that he owns both a Maybach (“the best car”) and a Gulfstream (“the best jet”). The occasion for our lunch, however, was a new venture: Dykstra is launching a magazine, intended specifically for pro athletes, called The Players Club. An unfortunate number of his former teammates have ended up broke, or divorced, or worse. The week before we met, the ex-Yankee Jim Leyritz, himself twice divorced and underemployed, had hit a woman while driving home from a bar. He never grew up.
“You’ve got the ten per cent who are going to find their way no matter what,” Dykstra said of the athlete population. “And you get the ten per cent that are fuckheads no matter what— we’ll paste an ‘L’ to ‘em.” The rest need guidance, and Dykstra, who will write a regular column called “The Game of Life,” is prepared to give it. “This will be the world’s best magazine,” he said.
Since then, Dykstra has declared bankruptcy, divorced from his wife, was sentenced to three years in state prison for grand theft auto (and several other charges), and most recently was sentenced to nine months in jail for assault and indecent exposure. He’s also awaiting trial on federal bankruptcy fraud charges.
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