dykstra declared bankruptcy.
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CAMARILLO, Calif. -- He's slumped behind a desk, looking frumpy in a sweater vest and tan cap. Tonight, he is living the life of an entrepreneur, pushing to get out the next issue of his glossy athletes-only magazine while he sneaks peeks at the financial news and stock charts on a bank of three super-sized computer screens behind him.
The scrappy old center fielder, remembered as "Nails" by adoring Mets and Phillies fans, is chasing money, lots of it -- "cheddar," as it's called in his SoCal lingo. 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.
This is how it goes for Lenny Dykstra.
In case you missed the HBO profile last year or the magazine stories that trumpet Dykstra's business acumen, 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.
His life in high finance includes street cred, too, at least for now. CNBC personality Jim "Mad Money" Cramer hypes him as a stock guru. On an investment Web site co-founded by Cramer, subscribers drop $999.95 a year to get Dykstra's options picks.
"People invested with me made 250-large last year. That's $250,000," Dykstra says, which if true should earn him a front-row seat in the Obama cabinet.
On this March evening, he talks up his purchase of a private jet earlier in the day, then eases off a tad. ("Just say we're getting close," he says.) He lets drop that he's chartering a jet to Cleveland later tonight to size up another Gulfstream. Then, it's off to Reynolds Plantation, an affluent golf community on the stretch of Georgia road between Atlanta and Augusta, to see if he can drum up some more business.
And before all that, there's a "wealth party" to crash a mile or so from his corporate headquarters, which consists of four partially completed offices in a private jet hangar overlooking the runway at the Camarillo Airport.
About his portfolio, Dykstra says: "They probably think I'm selling drugs. Got a house on the hill, couple planes. From what, hitting the ball where someone is not standing? What a wonderful world. But it's not coincidence. Like when I came to the Mets and took them to the World Series. I got to the Phillies, last-place team, and take them to the World Series."
[+] Enlarge
Mike Fish, ESPN.com
Dykstra says he's sinking $500,000 per month into The Players Club and isn't selling ads.
The smack has just begun.
Just ask about The Players Club, the year-old magazine started by Dykstra and geared to wealthy athletes. He ships 20,000 copies of each monthly issue free-of-charge to clubhouses and locker rooms, to agents and league offices. Along with stories profiling marquee athletes, its pages are filled with promotional displays for luxury rides, palatial digs ("trophy homes") and financial advice from Dykstra himself. In his grand scheme, Dykstra says, his parent company -- The Players Club Operations, LLC -- is about creating a lifestyle, making available to athletes a TPC credit card, a concierge service, a charter jet service and access to an annuity program to insure a recurring cash flow in retirement.
"It's about living the dream, bro," he says.
And after thumbing through a series of lawsuits that stretches from coast to coast and chatting up his business associates, you wonder if this aspiring financial Pied Piper is, indeed, living in a fantasyland. You wonder if the dream, built on glitz and greed in a time of economic uncertainty, is a teetering house of cards. You wonder if anyone this side of Bernie Madoff has ticked off more people -- business partners and family, alike -- than Lenny K. Dykstra.
The lawsuits suggest that one of two things is going on here: Either Lenny hates to pay his bills, or he's a financial train wreck.
Just in the past two years, Dykstra has been the subject of at least 24 legal actions, including 18 since November. Three suits hit the courts on Jan. 29. He's been sued by publishers and print companies, by three different groups of pilots and by a Maryland-based financial and litigation consulting firm that offered expert testimony on his behalf in an earlier lawsuit. He's even been sued by a die-hard Mets fan who was the best man at his wedding 20-some years ago, though that New York investor claims there is no bad blood.
One of the angry souls is Dr. Festus Dada, a Nigerian-born gastric bypass specialist, who filed a fraud/breach of contract suit and alleges Dykstra kept a $500,000 deposit after a deal fell apart to purchase a Southern California car wash and retail center then owned by Dykstra. Dada walked away from the transaction, claiming in the suit that Dykstra had made significant changes to the final escrow agreement, including the insertion of a five-year contract for Dykstra's old Phillies teammate, Pete Incaviglia, to serve as general manager under the new ownership.
"We had a closing date, but the good doctor thought there were no rules in this country," says Dykstra, pointing out that Dada himself has been a defendant in dozens of civil suits since 2000. "You'll see a laundry list [of suits], dude. OK, so much for Dr. Dada's credibility, huh?"
Dada's side of the story, not surprisingly, is different. He suggests the ex-ballplayer set out to rip him off, saying he believes Dykstra was desperate for cash and rushed to close on the $27.5 million deal within 30 days. Dada's attorneys say the property was so encumbered by liens that it was impossible to close so quickly.
"He thought he could keep my $500,000 and nobody would have the resources to go after him," Dada says. "But in this case, I am going after him. General surgeons are not intimidated by professional athletes.
"Like I told him, if I can cut somebody from the neck all the way down to the pubis with a scalpel, then I cannot be intimidated."
The claim by Dada, which with damages totals nearly $1 million, is just the tip of Dykstra's current legal and financial woes.
Two Players Club vice presidents filed claims for unpaid wages after they quit in January. The Minneapolis-based firm hired to design his Players Club Web site alleges Dykstra stiffed it on a $1 million contract, and then bounced two separate $125,000 checks.
In a particularly curious hunt for cash, Dykstra borrowed $250,000 from New York literary agent David Vigliano last May with an agreement to repay him $300,000 in November -- a robust 40 percent annual percentage rate. Vigliano filed suit after Dykstra didn't come up with the money.
The high-powered global law firm K&L Gates, which waged many of the legal skirmishes on Dykstra's behalf, withdrew its representation late last year because it was "not paid current," according to his former lead counsel, David Schack. To which Dykstra says, "Four million I paid him. What do you mean, isn't that a lot to you?"
The scrappy old center fielder, remembered as "Nails" by adoring Mets and Phillies fans, is chasing money, lots of it -- "cheddar," as it's called in his SoCal lingo. 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.
This is how it goes for Lenny Dykstra.
In case you missed the HBO profile last year or the magazine stories that trumpet Dykstra's business acumen, 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.
His life in high finance includes street cred, too, at least for now. CNBC personality Jim "Mad Money" Cramer hypes him as a stock guru. On an investment Web site co-founded by Cramer, subscribers drop $999.95 a year to get Dykstra's options picks.
"People invested with me made 250-large last year. That's $250,000," Dykstra says, which if true should earn him a front-row seat in the Obama cabinet.
On this March evening, he talks up his purchase of a private jet earlier in the day, then eases off a tad. ("Just say we're getting close," he says.) He lets drop that he's chartering a jet to Cleveland later tonight to size up another Gulfstream. Then, it's off to Reynolds Plantation, an affluent golf community on the stretch of Georgia road between Atlanta and Augusta, to see if he can drum up some more business.
And before all that, there's a "wealth party" to crash a mile or so from his corporate headquarters, which consists of four partially completed offices in a private jet hangar overlooking the runway at the Camarillo Airport.
About his portfolio, Dykstra says: "They probably think I'm selling drugs. Got a house on the hill, couple planes. From what, hitting the ball where someone is not standing? What a wonderful world. But it's not coincidence. Like when I came to the Mets and took them to the World Series. I got to the Phillies, last-place team, and take them to the World Series."
[+] Enlarge
Mike Fish, ESPN.com
Dykstra says he's sinking $500,000 per month into The Players Club and isn't selling ads.
The smack has just begun.
Just ask about The Players Club, the year-old magazine started by Dykstra and geared to wealthy athletes. He ships 20,000 copies of each monthly issue free-of-charge to clubhouses and locker rooms, to agents and league offices. Along with stories profiling marquee athletes, its pages are filled with promotional displays for luxury rides, palatial digs ("trophy homes") and financial advice from Dykstra himself. In his grand scheme, Dykstra says, his parent company -- The Players Club Operations, LLC -- is about creating a lifestyle, making available to athletes a TPC credit card, a concierge service, a charter jet service and access to an annuity program to insure a recurring cash flow in retirement.
"It's about living the dream, bro," he says.
And after thumbing through a series of lawsuits that stretches from coast to coast and chatting up his business associates, you wonder if this aspiring financial Pied Piper is, indeed, living in a fantasyland. You wonder if the dream, built on glitz and greed in a time of economic uncertainty, is a teetering house of cards. You wonder if anyone this side of Bernie Madoff has ticked off more people -- business partners and family, alike -- than Lenny K. Dykstra.
The lawsuits suggest that one of two things is going on here: Either Lenny hates to pay his bills, or he's a financial train wreck.
Just in the past two years, Dykstra has been the subject of at least 24 legal actions, including 18 since November. Three suits hit the courts on Jan. 29. He's been sued by publishers and print companies, by three different groups of pilots and by a Maryland-based financial and litigation consulting firm that offered expert testimony on his behalf in an earlier lawsuit. He's even been sued by a die-hard Mets fan who was the best man at his wedding 20-some years ago, though that New York investor claims there is no bad blood.
One of the angry souls is Dr. Festus Dada, a Nigerian-born gastric bypass specialist, who filed a fraud/breach of contract suit and alleges Dykstra kept a $500,000 deposit after a deal fell apart to purchase a Southern California car wash and retail center then owned by Dykstra. Dada walked away from the transaction, claiming in the suit that Dykstra had made significant changes to the final escrow agreement, including the insertion of a five-year contract for Dykstra's old Phillies teammate, Pete Incaviglia, to serve as general manager under the new ownership.
"We had a closing date, but the good doctor thought there were no rules in this country," says Dykstra, pointing out that Dada himself has been a defendant in dozens of civil suits since 2000. "You'll see a laundry list [of suits], dude. OK, so much for Dr. Dada's credibility, huh?"
Dada's side of the story, not surprisingly, is different. He suggests the ex-ballplayer set out to rip him off, saying he believes Dykstra was desperate for cash and rushed to close on the $27.5 million deal within 30 days. Dada's attorneys say the property was so encumbered by liens that it was impossible to close so quickly.
"He thought he could keep my $500,000 and nobody would have the resources to go after him," Dada says. "But in this case, I am going after him. General surgeons are not intimidated by professional athletes.
"Like I told him, if I can cut somebody from the neck all the way down to the pubis with a scalpel, then I cannot be intimidated."
The claim by Dada, which with damages totals nearly $1 million, is just the tip of Dykstra's current legal and financial woes.
Two Players Club vice presidents filed claims for unpaid wages after they quit in January. The Minneapolis-based firm hired to design his Players Club Web site alleges Dykstra stiffed it on a $1 million contract, and then bounced two separate $125,000 checks.
In a particularly curious hunt for cash, Dykstra borrowed $250,000 from New York literary agent David Vigliano last May with an agreement to repay him $300,000 in November -- a robust 40 percent annual percentage rate. Vigliano filed suit after Dykstra didn't come up with the money.
The high-powered global law firm K&L Gates, which waged many of the legal skirmishes on Dykstra's behalf, withdrew its representation late last year because it was "not paid current," according to his former lead counsel, David Schack. To which Dykstra says, "Four million I paid him. What do you mean, isn't that a lot to you?"
Yes, and he made about 50 million when he sold them. His options trading is what busted him out. They had him on 60 minutes last Sunday.
Mike Fish/ESPN.com
Dykstra was very good at baseball, but there are questions about his businesses.
Flying colors
One thing Dykstra particularly hates paying for is jet fuel. That's tricky because without it, his Gulfstream twin-engine "bird" will stay grounded and his vision of a charter service would be nothing more than a fanciful pipe dream. Even so, Dykstra fires pilots like George Steinbrenner used to fire Yankees managers. In some cases, he fires them on the spot after they refuse to pick up a refueling tab. In other cases, they simply leave in disgust, unpaid.
At least six pilots are party to three separate suits brought against Dykstra since January.
Thanksgiving weekend, pilot Sam Estrada was in Connecticut with his family and about to relocate to California when he says Dykstra called from Cleveland to say his credit cards were tapped out. Dykstra asked him to put a $7,000 refueling cost on his credit card.
"I said, 'Listen, I don't know what you are going to do, but I don't have the money,'" Estrada says. "At that point, he says, 'You might as well stay home. You're fired.'"
A month later, Estrada picked up the phone and heard Dykstra's voice again. This time, he was hot to check out a Gulfstream 550 up for auction. He wanted Estrada to fly him to Nice, France.
"I said, 'You're crazy, man,'" says Estrada, who filed a wrongful termination suit in January. "It was ugly. I will never deal with any athletes again."
Pascal Jouvence claims he parted company with Dykstra's operation minutes before he and Dykstra were to take off from Camarillo Airport for the East Coast.
"He wanted me to use my own credit card to put fuel in his aircraft," says Jouvence, who filed suit seeking $5,000 in back wages. "When I refused, he fired me on the spot."
Shortly after, Dykstra rehired a four-man crew that had previously quit over unpaid wages. To entice the pilots back, he signed an agreement Dec. 29 promising to pay the nearly $60,000 he owed them within two months, adding this handwritten notation at the bottom of the page: "But I will pay if [Gretzky] house sells -- immediately."
Dykstra didn't pay again, and is accused in a lawsuit of breaking the agreement with two of the crew -- Mark Malone and his son, Miles -- to serve as his pilot and co-pilot.
Dykstra was very good at baseball, but there are questions about his businesses.
Flying colors
One thing Dykstra particularly hates paying for is jet fuel. That's tricky because without it, his Gulfstream twin-engine "bird" will stay grounded and his vision of a charter service would be nothing more than a fanciful pipe dream. Even so, Dykstra fires pilots like George Steinbrenner used to fire Yankees managers. In some cases, he fires them on the spot after they refuse to pick up a refueling tab. In other cases, they simply leave in disgust, unpaid.
At least six pilots are party to three separate suits brought against Dykstra since January.
Thanksgiving weekend, pilot Sam Estrada was in Connecticut with his family and about to relocate to California when he says Dykstra called from Cleveland to say his credit cards were tapped out. Dykstra asked him to put a $7,000 refueling cost on his credit card.
"I said, 'Listen, I don't know what you are going to do, but I don't have the money,'" Estrada says. "At that point, he says, 'You might as well stay home. You're fired.'"
A month later, Estrada picked up the phone and heard Dykstra's voice again. This time, he was hot to check out a Gulfstream 550 up for auction. He wanted Estrada to fly him to Nice, France.
"I said, 'You're crazy, man,'" says Estrada, who filed a wrongful termination suit in January. "It was ugly. I will never deal with any athletes again."
Pascal Jouvence claims he parted company with Dykstra's operation minutes before he and Dykstra were to take off from Camarillo Airport for the East Coast.
"He wanted me to use my own credit card to put fuel in his aircraft," says Jouvence, who filed suit seeking $5,000 in back wages. "When I refused, he fired me on the spot."
Shortly after, Dykstra rehired a four-man crew that had previously quit over unpaid wages. To entice the pilots back, he signed an agreement Dec. 29 promising to pay the nearly $60,000 he owed them within two months, adding this handwritten notation at the bottom of the page: "But I will pay if [Gretzky] house sells -- immediately."
Dykstra didn't pay again, and is accused in a lawsuit of breaking the agreement with two of the crew -- Mark Malone and his son, Miles -- to serve as his pilot and co-pilot.
The more I read about this guy the worse it gets. He even owes his mom money.
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.
Kevin Dykstra says she has yet to be repaid.
"He had no money," says Lenny's brother. "He is on the phone, crying to my mom, saying he has got to get home and he is in Cleveland, Ohio. He asked my mom to put up her credit card for 23 grand. That is just sick, dude.
"The whole family is mad and she is all sad, saying he caught her off guard. She was asleep. He was crying to her, man."
About the use of his mother's credit card, Dykstra says, "Listen to me, the millions of dollars I've spent on them -- I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. That is why I can't talk to you no more."
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.
Kevin Dykstra says she has yet to be repaid.
"He had no money," says Lenny's brother. "He is on the phone, crying to my mom, saying he has got to get home and he is in Cleveland, Ohio. He asked my mom to put up her credit card for 23 grand. That is just sick, dude.
"The whole family is mad and she is all sad, saying he caught her off guard. She was asleep. He was crying to her, man."
About the use of his mother's credit card, Dykstra says, "Listen to me, the millions of dollars I've spent on them -- I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. That is why I can't talk to you no more."
Dykstra, for those who don't remember, was a hard-nosed ballplayer, who had a limited IQ (at least, when he spoke). When I heard several years back that he was worth $ 60 MM, my jaw dropped. I mean, this guy was a bumbling idiot, when he was interviewed as a ballplayer.
Well, apparently, things caught up to Mr. Dykstra. Lots of poor investments, unscupulous loans, etc. Sounds like a lot of unethical business behavior as well, from the posts on this thread.
Our local All-sports radio station in NY (WFAN), just recently said that Dykstra's seen a $ 110 MM swing in net worth.....he is now in debt $ 50 MM.
Well, apparently, things caught up to Mr. Dykstra. Lots of poor investments, unscupulous loans, etc. Sounds like a lot of unethical business behavior as well, from the posts on this thread.
Our local All-sports radio station in NY (WFAN), just recently said that Dykstra's seen a $ 110 MM swing in net worth.....he is now in debt $ 50 MM.
Because Cramer keeps touting him as some super options trading guru. Another fabulous Cramer pick.
You know, like many of you, I sit here with stupid CNBC on all day, as torturous as it is, and a couple of times when I am sitting here late and Cramer has come on I got sucked into playing a few of his picks in my long-term account - I know, I know - because I was bored and his sales pitch sounded decent. Every damn time I have touched something he touted I got smoked, not even normal hurt, really hurt on it.
And I know the guy is a tool too before I did it, just thought 'ahhhh why not' a few times. I wish that "gurus" like him had to actually publish their own stock account ledgers, I really believe he is about the worst trader (if you can actually call him that) on the planet.
Which makes it worse when you read that Dykstra actually was publishing his "picks", but scrubbing the bad ones out as if he never picked them, at least as some claimed in previous threads about him, which I believe. So many schmucks in the investment world, not sorry that one of them is exiting.
Why is TMZ able to scoop basically every media outlet?