Sounds like the guy might have some mental issues.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4084962
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4084962
Great read on Lenny Dykstra (link)
- Thread starter BR549.sixpack
- Start date
of partying with Lenny Dykstra. All I can say is that he was very cool around me. But at the same time I have heard many people say that he was an *******.
I'm really not surprised that he is good at playing the stock market. He's one of those people that when you meet him, you kind of sense that he is a genious, even though to look at him on TV, you think he is some bumpkin.
I'm really not surprised that he is good at playing the stock market. He's one of those people that when you meet him, you kind of sense that he is a genious, even though to look at him on TV, you think he is some bumpkin.
Great read. From what I could gather, it sounds like he basically feels that he doesn't have to pay off debts because he's Lenny mother17ing Dykstra. The part about asking his pilots to put jet fuel for his private jets on their personal credit cards is unbelievable.
Not only is Dykstra a terrible poker player he is also a government rat.
<div class="timestamp"> March 23, 1991 </div> <h1>Sports of The Times; Lenny Dykstra in That Game of Chance</h1> <div class="byline"> By Ira Berkow </div> <div class="articleBody">
One day a number of years ago in a Southern town, a well-dressed man in handcuffs stepped into the elevator in city hall, a building that also contained the jail house. The man was accompanied by several policemen. Getting off the elevator at the same time that the manacled man and his companions got on was the Mayor of the town.</p>
"Hey, Tony," said the Mayor, with a shocked look, "what's all this about?"</p>
"Hi, Mr. Mayor," said the man.</p>
"Tony?" said one of the policemen.</p>
"Tony Borelli," repeated the Mayor.</p>
"His name's not Tony," said the policeman. "He's Bobby Comfort, and he's an escaped convict. Do you know him, Mr. Mayor?"</p>
"Oh no," said the Mayor. "It's a case of mistaken identity."</p>
The man in manacles shrugged. The elevator doors closed and both parties went their separate ways.</p>
I was reminded of this incident when Lenny Dykstra, the Philadelphia Phillies' center fielder, admitted he had lost $78,000 in poker games in an illegal gambling establishment in Mississippi.</p>
"I had a couple of full houses," Dykstra explained, "and got beat by four of a kind."</p>
That Mayor in the South (not Mississippi) experienced bad luck in his card game, too, and soon learned why. Turned out he did know "Tony Borelli," because the night before they had been in a poker game, and the Mayor lost heavily to the man who was in fact Bobby Comfort, escaped convict, hold-up man, and soon-to-be notorious jewel thief. In 1972 he helped mastermind the $10 million jewel robbery of the Hotel Pierre in Manhattan.</p>
Comfort's talents extended beyond this. He was also a card mechanic. In the parlance of the society in which he traveled, a card mechanic is a card cheat. Comfort was a professional, though not quite as good as his brother-in-law, a man I'll call Flatbush Joe Gustino. Flatbush Joe was so good at manipulating cards that even when he was allowed to play in a card game with friends, they insisted that he wear gloves. Members of organized crime sometimes hired him to play in card games they had set up.</p>
Bobby Comfort and Flatbush Joe, both of whom have passed to that great casino in the sky, were adept at dealing "seconds," or knowing the top card and dealing from the bottom of the deck, until they needed that top ace. They were also slick at manipulating "coolers," or the duplicate set of cards that they had previously and meticulously arranged. They wore sport jackets with pockets sewn inside to contain the cooler. The sucker in the game shuffled the first deck, and handed it over for Comfort or Joe to cut, whereupon one of them switched the decks, and returned the cards to the sucker who dealt his own losing hand.</p>
I came to know Comfort and Flatbush Joe through my work as a writer, and not -- I will take an oath -- as a poker player. Even when they told you what they were doing with cards, it was nearly impossible to see them doing it.</p>
They often worked with others, such as with a friend of a mark they had lured into the game, and gave him a piece of the action. Sometimes friends can be rather unfriendly.</p>
Lenny Dykstra lost $78,000, at least, in several games of chance, which also included dice and golf. Dykstra testified for the Government in its case against Herbert Kelso of Ridgeland, Miss., to whom Dykstra had paid his losses. The Government contended that Kelso ran the betting parlor in nearby Indianola.</p>
Dykstra gambled there in 1988, 1989 and 1990, and had come to know some of the people in those games when he played for the Jackson Mets, a New York Mets farm team, in 1984. Dykstra was not charged with wrongdoing, and Kelso was acquitted on the charges.</p>
But the point is still clear: gambling for high-stakes can be dangerous. And the commissioner of baseball, Fay Vincent, understands this, of course, and the other day he put Dykstra on a one-year probation. He was right to do so, saying in effect: Next time, Lenny, don't be so stupid.</p>
Baseball is nervous to the point of nausea about its participants getting involved in gambling, and has been ever since eight White Sox players were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series while conspiring with gamblers, and nearly destroyed the game.</p>
Vincent expressed great concern that one thing can lead to another, and one devious man to another: owe a gambler more money than you can afford and his demands could jeopardize the integrity of the game.</p>
Netherworld networks certainly exist. A friend of Bobby Comfort's, for example, Jimmy (the Gent) Burke, whom Robert DeNiro plays in the movie "Goodfellas," was a friend of Henry Hill, who was the man behind the point-shaving bribes of the Boston College basketball games some 10 years ago.</p>
As a former Mayor of a Southern town now knows, anything is possible.</p> </div>
<div class="timestamp"> March 23, 1991 </div> <h1>Sports of The Times; Lenny Dykstra in That Game of Chance</h1> <div class="byline"> By Ira Berkow </div> <div class="articleBody">
One day a number of years ago in a Southern town, a well-dressed man in handcuffs stepped into the elevator in city hall, a building that also contained the jail house. The man was accompanied by several policemen. Getting off the elevator at the same time that the manacled man and his companions got on was the Mayor of the town.</p>
"Hey, Tony," said the Mayor, with a shocked look, "what's all this about?"</p>
"Hi, Mr. Mayor," said the man.</p>
"Tony?" said one of the policemen.</p>
"Tony Borelli," repeated the Mayor.</p>
"His name's not Tony," said the policeman. "He's Bobby Comfort, and he's an escaped convict. Do you know him, Mr. Mayor?"</p>
"Oh no," said the Mayor. "It's a case of mistaken identity."</p>
The man in manacles shrugged. The elevator doors closed and both parties went their separate ways.</p>
I was reminded of this incident when Lenny Dykstra, the Philadelphia Phillies' center fielder, admitted he had lost $78,000 in poker games in an illegal gambling establishment in Mississippi.</p>
"I had a couple of full houses," Dykstra explained, "and got beat by four of a kind."</p>
That Mayor in the South (not Mississippi) experienced bad luck in his card game, too, and soon learned why. Turned out he did know "Tony Borelli," because the night before they had been in a poker game, and the Mayor lost heavily to the man who was in fact Bobby Comfort, escaped convict, hold-up man, and soon-to-be notorious jewel thief. In 1972 he helped mastermind the $10 million jewel robbery of the Hotel Pierre in Manhattan.</p>
Comfort's talents extended beyond this. He was also a card mechanic. In the parlance of the society in which he traveled, a card mechanic is a card cheat. Comfort was a professional, though not quite as good as his brother-in-law, a man I'll call Flatbush Joe Gustino. Flatbush Joe was so good at manipulating cards that even when he was allowed to play in a card game with friends, they insisted that he wear gloves. Members of organized crime sometimes hired him to play in card games they had set up.</p>
Bobby Comfort and Flatbush Joe, both of whom have passed to that great casino in the sky, were adept at dealing "seconds," or knowing the top card and dealing from the bottom of the deck, until they needed that top ace. They were also slick at manipulating "coolers," or the duplicate set of cards that they had previously and meticulously arranged. They wore sport jackets with pockets sewn inside to contain the cooler. The sucker in the game shuffled the first deck, and handed it over for Comfort or Joe to cut, whereupon one of them switched the decks, and returned the cards to the sucker who dealt his own losing hand.</p>
I came to know Comfort and Flatbush Joe through my work as a writer, and not -- I will take an oath -- as a poker player. Even when they told you what they were doing with cards, it was nearly impossible to see them doing it.</p>
They often worked with others, such as with a friend of a mark they had lured into the game, and gave him a piece of the action. Sometimes friends can be rather unfriendly.</p>
Lenny Dykstra lost $78,000, at least, in several games of chance, which also included dice and golf. Dykstra testified for the Government in its case against Herbert Kelso of Ridgeland, Miss., to whom Dykstra had paid his losses. The Government contended that Kelso ran the betting parlor in nearby Indianola.</p>
Dykstra gambled there in 1988, 1989 and 1990, and had come to know some of the people in those games when he played for the Jackson Mets, a New York Mets farm team, in 1984. Dykstra was not charged with wrongdoing, and Kelso was acquitted on the charges.</p>
But the point is still clear: gambling for high-stakes can be dangerous. And the commissioner of baseball, Fay Vincent, understands this, of course, and the other day he put Dykstra on a one-year probation. He was right to do so, saying in effect: Next time, Lenny, don't be so stupid.</p>
Baseball is nervous to the point of nausea about its participants getting involved in gambling, and has been ever since eight White Sox players were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series while conspiring with gamblers, and nearly destroyed the game.</p>
Vincent expressed great concern that one thing can lead to another, and one devious man to another: owe a gambler more money than you can afford and his demands could jeopardize the integrity of the game.</p>
Netherworld networks certainly exist. A friend of Bobby Comfort's, for example, Jimmy (the Gent) Burke, whom Robert DeNiro plays in the movie "Goodfellas," was a friend of Henry Hill, who was the man behind the point-shaving bribes of the Boston College basketball games some 10 years ago.</p>
As a former Mayor of a Southern town now knows, anything is possible.</p> </div>
and he was never anything but great to my friends and myself. He lived in Jackson in my neighborhood for a while when we were younger and was a lot of fun to hang out with. He had a son around the same age and it was about the time we were in little league. He was really cool about teaching us baseball and the ins and outs of the game.
That being said, I never would have guessed that the guy had any chance of making money in the stock market. He seemed, for lack of a better word, slow. He didn't come off as a smart guy, more like a beer drinking, tobacco chewing, redneck that could easily have been taken for a walk by a slick salesman. I never remember him showing any signs of intelligence about anything other than baseball. Then again, we were young and didn't care about anything but baseball at the time.
I remember my buddies would come stay at my house and we would ride bikes by Dyksta's house to see if he was outside and they would ask him to sign the baseball cards they had of his. Nice guy, seemed dumb as a brick.
That being said, I never would have guessed that the guy had any chance of making money in the stock market. He seemed, for lack of a better word, slow. He didn't come off as a smart guy, more like a beer drinking, tobacco chewing, redneck that could easily have been taken for a walk by a slick salesman. I never remember him showing any signs of intelligence about anything other than baseball. Then again, we were young and didn't care about anything but baseball at the time.
I remember my buddies would come stay at my house and we would ride bikes by Dyksta's house to see if he was outside and they would ask him to sign the baseball cards they had of his. Nice guy, seemed dumb as a brick.
Back when he lived in Lake Trace? The guys I was friends with were all scared of him because the rumor was that he was an *** and charged for autographs. But we were four or five that was like a year before he moved.
