Matt Taibbi, one of my favorite writers, just compiled a Field Guide to Sports Egos. It’s well worth reading, particularly the section about Charles Haley’s locker room sex crimes and A-Rod’s centaur paintings. However, he missed a fist-ballot asshole hall of famer in Lenny Dykstra. He’s a combination of A-Rod and Tim Durham. If you’re in the mood for unintentional comedy, I beg you to read the linked espn.com article about “Nails” Dykstra and tell me there’s a bigger sports/celebrity asshole in the entire world. Here are some choice excerpts:
Without being asked, the self-styled investment master — who, at this moment, is up to his thick neck in lawsuits — volunteers that he’s worth $60 million. His life beyond baseball includes acquisitions such as hockey legend Wayne Gretzky’s old house (“the best house in the world,” Dykstra says) in Thousand Oaks, Calif., which he bought for $18.5 million. He drives a black Rolls Royce Phantom with an extended wheelbase, and hires pilots to fly him around in his Gulfstream II jet. “It’s about living the dream, bro,” he says.
Just in the past two years, Dykstra has been the subject of at least 24 legal actions, including 18 since November. He’s even been sued by a die-hard Mets fan who was the best man at his wedding 20-some years ago.
An official with the Ventura County Tax Collector’s Office told ESPN.com that, as of April 21, Dykstra owes nearly $400,000 in back taxes on the Gretzky house as well as his own longtime residence in the same gated luxury community. And his cherished toy, the Gulfstream jet? A Cleveland-based aircraft service company refused to release the jet and filed suit last month, alleging Dykstra had failed to pay more than $227,000 owed for cabin upgrades and repairs.
Even members of Dykstra’s family are lined up on the list of those to whom he owes money. His older brother, Brian, has yet to collect a $12,000 judgment awarded by the California Labor Relations Board. His younger brother, Kevin, alleges Dykstra cheated him out of $4 million on the sale of the family-run car washes, though Kevin hasn’t filed suit. On April 16, Terri, Dykstra’s wife of more than 20 years and the mother of their three boys, filed for divorce. Through her attorney, she declined to comment for this story. The family rift runs so deep that until recently, Dykstra had spoken to his mother only once in the past three years, according to his brothers, and wasn’t allowing her any contact with his sons, her grand children.
Last month, though, on March 23, Dykstra picked up the phone and woke up his mother with a call at around 6 in the morning, according to Kevin Dykstra, his younger brother. Lenny was stranded in Cleveland. He wanted to charter a jet so he could get to a business meeting on the West Coast, and his credit cards were maxed out. He needed nearly $23,000 and asked his mother for it, Kevin says. His mother agreed to let him use her credit card.
But, after all these years, has his luck run dry? Is he broke? Is The Players Club already on its last leg, eight issues into its existence? “No, dude, the f—ers want more money,” Dykstra says about the lawsuits and the debts. “Dykstra has all the money.”
His 20-by-20 wood-paneled office is adorned with framed magazine covers, an array of baseball memorabilia and a heavy, sculpted bronze eagle that sits atop a cabinet behind his desk. The eagle is inscribed:
To Lenny and Terri
Thanks for all your help and support
Your friend
George W. Bush
December 2004
“I don’t talk politics,” he says when asked about the gift. His business plan is another story. He talks plenty about that during the early interviews for this story. Asked if the ambitious design to provide a handful of specialty services for pro athletes is in place, Dykstra says confidently, “Have I got a 12-inch c—, or what? Of course, it is all in place. It might not look like it, but everything I do is part of a plan.”
His ground rules are explicit: no discussion of “drugs or p—-,” the latter a reference to the female anatomy. He explains, “I’m 46 years old and don’t want to deal with all that.” Dykstra still lives in a world of juvenile clubhouse humor and politically incorrect comments. In a recent “GQ” story, he was quoted referring to several African-American athletes who have appeared on his magazine cover as “spearchuckers.” At his house on this March evening, he says this, unsolicited, about a CNBC guest: “They put a suit on that f–,” questioning the guest’s sexual orientation.
When race car driver Danica Patrick appears on a TV commercial, he pipes up, “I made her, man. Put her on the cover [of The Players Club] and made her.”
Asked about that lawsuit, Dykstra says, “The father and son? You mean the ones that stole my log books out of my hangar? The bottom line is there is a reason for everything, dude.”
But according to his then-driver, Paul Lee, Dykstra was so angry at Mark Malone that he suggested Lee should rough him up.
At about the same time, Lee says Dykstra was driving a Maybach, a German luxury car that sells for about $400,000. Lee claims Dykstra broached the idea of dropping off the Maybach at what he described as a chop shop run by the Russian mafia in L.A. Lee says Dykstra was behind on payments and suggested the car could bring a quick $150,000 — $100,000 of it would go to Dykstra, $50,000 would be for his driver. Even before the split, the brother and uncle claim Dykstra verbally abused them and threatened them with the loss of their jobs in a string of crude, vulgar e-mails. In a copy of one, provided to ESPN.com by Kevin Dykstra, Lenny Dykstra pleaded with his brother to have his “police friends” pay a visit to two former employees with whom he was in a dispute. The concluding line came with the directive: “DELETE THIS EMAIL IMMEDIATELY AFTER READING FROM ALL YOUR EMAIL BOXES TRASH, SEND, ETC.”
Tags: Assholes, field guide to sports egos, lenny dykstra, matt taibbi
March 6, 2010 at 3:02 pm |
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