The Baseball Crank: SAVE LENNY (that con) !!!

Got enuf chaw there, Lenny?

If you ever saw Leonard Kyle Dykstra, AKA Lenny, "Nails," or "Dude," play Major League Baseball, you know that you'll never be able to forget him.

There is a classic line that I first heard describe a couple of hockey players in the NHL, when a teammate called these two (smallish) teammates his "little balls of hate." That was Lenny Dykstra in MLB, perfectly – he was a double dose ball of hate to anyone he played against, but a guy loved by the fans of the team he played on.

Anyone following baseball in the mid-1980’s into the mid-1990’s grew familiar with Lenny, first being a huge part of a New York Mets World Series win in the 1986, and later with the Philadelphia Phillies on the losing side in 1993.

Lenny was about 5’9", and 160 pounds of fidgets, scratching, and ugly hunks of chew falling out his mouth, but he was a great lead off hitter, with speed and (surprising) power, and a very good centerfielder.

Lenny's old roomie

Not long after the Mets drafted him in round 13 of the 1981 amateur draft, he found himself teamed with, and rooming with an outfielder the Mets had drafted at #23 over all, in the 1980 draft. (This was the year the Mets took Darryl Strawberry with the #1 overall pick.) Lenny wasn’t supposed to make it, but his roommate, by all accounts, was destined for greatness. 1^st round draft picks are supposed to become stars.

Turns out they both made it, though Lenny’s roomie, Billy Beane, ended up becoming famous as the General Manager of the Oakland A’s, and the man the Michael Lewis’s book "Moneyball," was all about.

There is an excerpt from Moneyball in which Beane describes himself and Lenny sitting in the Mets dugout, and Lenny asks Beane "Who is that big dumb ass on the hill (warming up to pitch)?"

Turned out Lenny didn’t know who Steve Carlton was, and didn’t care one way or another when he found out.

"Lenny," Beane said, "Carlton has heat and maybe the nastiest slider…ever!"

Just freakin' nasty

"I’ll stick him," was Lenny’s response to Beane’s incredulous answer.

That was Lenny, he didn’t care who you were, as he would impose his will, and you better get the hell outta the way. He had all the confidence in himself he needed, and about 5 other guys besides.

Dykstra’s commonly used nickname was "Nails," which was a good one, because he was a tough little SOB, but "Dude" was actually a better one.

Lenny was a SoCal kid, kind of part surfing stoner Jeff Spicoli, part Pig Pen from Charlie Brown, and part Bernie Madoff. No offense to the ‘other’ Lebowski, but Lenny is a classic example of a California dude – a clueless scuzzball that wants to have a lot of fun, with your money.

Best estimate I have found is that Lenny Dykstra made more than $36,500,000 in his MLB career. It is all gone, lost in any number of schemes that I won’t bother to describe, and there is a mountain of evidence he’s gone through a lot of other folks money too. In an effort to keep the dollars coming in, Lenny embarked on a number of enterprises that caught the attention of law enforcement in the State of California, as well as the IRS.

Currently, Dykstra is in jail in California awaiting trial on enough charges to almost ensure a fairly lengthy prison sentence.

I am not making the following up.

Lenny gets doubled up

There is an actual web site at www.savelenny.com where folks can donate money towards Lenny’s current bail of $50,000. It should be "save lenny that con" but I don’t want to pre-judge the Dude.

I have to admire the man’s confidence though, and the fact that through it all he still has friends (or accomplices?) that were willing to set this up on his behalf.

I have no clue if Billy Beane has kicked in any dollars to help bail out his old roomie, but I am pretty certain Steve Carlton won’t be.

I think that somehow Lenny will get through all of this, but even more than that, I can’t help but think Lenny will just pocket any of the money that may come into the savelenny web site.