The Lenny Dykstra Saga Ends

Former Major League baseball star Lenny Dykstra pleaded guilty yesterday to bankruptcy fraud and other federal charges, according to THIS CNN article.  I'm not a big baseball fan myself, but I've followed this story for years because of all the unusual twists and turns that it has taken.  In addition to being a 3-time All Star, Dykstra apparently earned over $35 million during his playing days.  Athletes having financial problems after retirement is nothing new, of course, but I'd never seen one protest more earnestly during his long, Icarus-like fall that he wasn't crashing to the ground at all. He was actually paying insignificant millions to move the earth ever closer to him. You see, he liked the breeze.

"After retirement, Dykstra moved to California and started a profitable luxury car wash that he called The Taj Mahal. He expanded the business throughout Southern California and in 2007 sold it to investors, according to bankruptcy filings. As a self-taught financial analyst, Dykstra proclaimed himself a financial guru and began writing a stock-picking website column. His prominence soared as a sports celebrity, entrepreneur and popular guest on numerous financial news broadcasts. In 2008, Dykstra began publishing the Players Club, a glossy financial advice magazine exclusively for pro athletes to help them with wealth management and investment banking. But Dykstra seemed to lose control of his extravagant jet-setting lifestyle during the housing bust. His purchase of the palatial Gretzky estate in 2007 for $14 million occurred a few months before the mortgage market collapse."

That's the merest taste of this amazingly colorful story.  You can read more in THIS wild profile of Lenny Dykstra published in GQ three years ago, by which time the story was already well advanced.