Somebody Finally Arrested Lenny Dykstra

Once upon a time, Lenny Dykstra was a cool guy.

He had a fun nickname.  He ran around everywhere.  He wore hip hats for appearances on David Letterman.  He was “…always on base, always stirring up trouble,” as Harry Kalas put it.

And he went from second in NL MVP voting to an easy target for the bloggers faster than he could have said “What is a blog and why do you want to put me in one?” in 1993.  Just kidding. He’d have said, “Yes, put me in your blog.  It will cost you $3,000 and I get to come to your house whenever I want and get more money from you.  And also let me park my boat in your driveway.”

Sadly, the kind of trouble Lenny’s been stirring up in recent years is less related to leading the league in runs and more akin to grabbing federal bankruptcy laws and breaking them so hard the government had to take a second to catch its breath before proceeding with the arrest.  And just so we couldn’t take complete joy in his playing career, his name got dropped into the Mitchell Report in 2007, indicating that all those cool things he did were done under the guidance of his good friend, Performance Enhancing Drugs.

So, after a weird friendship with Jim Cramer, a dumb interview for some reason about Charlie Sheen, and naming his child “Cutter,” Lenny is finally, and deservedly, under arrest.

"“On Thursday, Dykstra was charged with a federal bankruptcy crime. The following day, he was arrested for investigation of grant theft.”"

It kind of makes you glad about guys like Dave Hollins and Jim Eisenreich who managed to naturally drift out of the spotlight and maintain their heroic status without ruining it with dumbass public statements or books about interdimensional travel.  Mickey Morandini seems to have figured it out; running a hardware store, taking over as head coach of the Williamsport CrossCutters, and not letting a minute amount of attention send him plummeting off the ridge of sanity.

Something about being “visible” turns these 1993 guys into living jokes.  They could all take a lesson from their future counterparts like Ricky Bottalico who turned his brief career as a Phillie with no real long term success into a shouting-at-the-camera gig for CSN.

So Lenny could go to prison for five years after trying to buy a stolen car for whatever was going to be his next business endeavor.  My guess is “Traveling trampoline salesman/alcoholic.”