the continued degeneration of Lenny Dykstra

The former baseball star is IN TROUBLE YET AGAIN. Reports have been rife in recent years of Dykstra defrauding various people in business deals (including his own mother, if memory serves). This won’t be the last time we see him in trouble, either. Dykstra’s compass is spinning.

The last case in sports I can recall that had quite the same repetitive magnitude was that of American football player and compulsive gambler/con artist Art Schlichter (pronounced “Shleester”). Schlichter’s activities were, if anything, even more bizarre than Dykstra’s so far.

But there’s one element about Dykstra’s case that’s slightly more bizarre. Schlichter would always do things secretively, but then when captured and punished would make courtroom speeches admitting what a rotten person he was. Dykstra is exactly the opposite. He’s always willing to talk about the most recent charges against him, but he never admits to having done anything wrong at all. It’s always everyone else’s fault. My sense is that Dykstra isn’t just trying to snow us all. I think he actually has less introspective insight than Schlichter, who is able to grasp the darkness within, whereas Dykstra seems to have convinced even himself that it isn’t there.

Strange. I think most of us remember Dykstra as a very electrifying and very tough young player (such as continuing to play after cancer treatment that had especially terrible side effects).

Lenny Dykstra:

Art Schlichter: