Nail down debt, don’t run for cover
Lenny Dykstra was one of my favorite baseball players. He combined speed, hustle, plate discipline and a near-fanatical desire to destroy his opponents on the baseball field. They called him “Nails” for a reason.
Like numerous other athletes, however, Dykstra took the unfortunate slide into financial ruin after his days on the field came to a close. For many, this happens because they never learned how to handle their money and their spending habits begin to outpace their income. Lenny Dykstra was successful in business for a time, but similar bad habits and (according to a recent HBO feature) aggressive disregard for reality and financial obligations. Now he’s living in a fantasy world where everyone else is at fault.
Don’t be like Lenny Dykstra, people. Pay your debts. If you need a little help to keep from going into debt due to a small situation that could cause big trouble if left unchecked, consider a cash advance in Wisconsin or online payday loan.
(Not) workin’ at the car wash
Mark Kram reports for the Philadelphia Daily News that a new episode of HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” will feature an update on a story they ran back in March of 2008 on former Philadelphia Phillies star Lenny Dykstra. As correspondent Bernard Goldberg will remind us, the outfielder-turned-businessman has been the target of 20 lawsuits that have come as a direct result of his apparent dirty dealings and deadbeat ways.
Dykstra has lived the high life on the promise that “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Skipping out on checks, not paying for services employed and leading people astray in the stock market have become his pathetic modus operandi. Now the past has caught up with Lenny Dykstra, and he’s broke. To show just what kind of guy the chaw-gnashing, ex-car wash baron is, Goldberg will have a group of people appear during the segment who have been stiffed by Dykstra. According to Kram, one of these is a flight attendant who claims “Nails” pounded her credit card for $10,700 to reserve a private plane. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Things have been on the rocks for Dykstra (perhaps literally, if you listen to him speak), and he has a divorce from his wife of 23 years and upcoming foreclosure on his $18.5 million estate to show for it.
A crazy scene
Be prepared for an interview that resembles someone’s last known photograph. Or better yet, “The Lost Weekend.” Goldberg shows up at Dykstra’s unfurnished mansion, a place that used to belong to “The Great One,” Wayne Gretzky. After no one responds to his knock, Goldberg discovers that the front door in unlocked.
“Lenny? Anybody home? Hello? Mr. Dykstra?”
Nearly half an hour later, Dykstra comes downstairs. As Goldberg puts it, they launch into “something vaguely resembling a conversation.” Denials stain the walls like tobacco juice, including one that he doesn’t owe a penny of the $280,000 a magazine venture says he does. It goes something like this, writes Kram:
DYKSTRA: Who? Tell me who I owe?
GOLDBERG: Let’s go through a few people. The printers . . .
DYKSTRA: F— the printers. The printers are criminals.
GOLDBERG: The flight attendant?
DYKSTRA: F— the flight attendant . . . They all think they can come here and steal my money.
Not even plausible deniability
Just so you know that Dykstra still thinks he’s flying high (literally?), he flashes a wad of cash, similar to the silly graphics you occasionally find on cash advance in Wisconsin and online payday loan Web sites. Not here, mind you 
It turns out to be $75, which Goldberg points out doesn’t make him rich. But Dykstra replies “I never carry less than $1,000. But flying high? Looks like I’m still flying pretty f—— high. And by the way, I’m flying higher.”
Not according to one of the panel of victims Goldberg interviews. A former personal assistant for Lenny Dykstra claims that she was constantly “consoling” cursing people to whom Dykstra owed money. This same assistant wonders why people ever put their faith in her former employer to make stock picks with his “Nails on the Numbers” venture. They “fronted [Dykstra] with the hope that [they] could trust him,” she says
By the way, the assistant won a $7,400 small claims judgment against Dykstra. He hasn’t paid that yet, either.
And he thinks he’s the victim
True, no criminal charges have been filed against Lenny Dykstra as yet. But can that be far behind?
He probably thinks Senator George Mitchell has a vendetta against him, too. You see, the performance enhancing drug report Mitchell compiled for Major League Baseball in 2007 happens to have Lenny’s name in it. Thus, he is marked as a steroid user. But Dykstra will deny he used until his dying day.
Nails swung and missed a lot
Getting back on the horse after a failure is a good thing. But if you swing and miss continually, you should at least take a look at your bat to make sure there are no holes in it. Lenny Dykstra owned three car washes in southern California that he sold for a reported $55 million. Tax evasion charges played a role in that decision. Then came Lenny Dykstra the publisher and Lenny Dykstra the investment expert. In both cases, huckstery and dereliction followed him (remember, he’s the VICTIM, not the perpetrator). All the while, he was investing in private jets, $400,000 German cars and his now threadbare estate.
And if Dykstra’s responses to Goldberg are any indication, he has yet to learn his lesson. At one point, he flashes a picture of a dog he plans to buy for $10,000.
“That’s a world champion, that’s the only dog I’ll buy.”
Know how you get to be a world champion? Through hard word, honesty and sound decision-making. A cash advance in Wisconsin or online payday loan won’t make you rich and won’t make you poor, but used properly, they can keep a situation from pounding nails into your financial coffin.
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