The_Hollywood_Reporter__February_07_2018

Lenny Dykstra, the ex-con and former major
league center fielder, relishes his wild man
reputation, and relishes running his mouth
about it even more. With roughly Pete Rose’s
chance of making it to Cooperstown, he’ll talk
about gobbling Human Growth Hormone with
his cereal during his playing days just as easily
as he’ll open up about how, in his mid-50s,
he’s developed a post-prison side gig as a silverhaired
gigolo to Beverly Hills grandmothers.
But over lunch in a corner booth at The Beverly
Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge, it’s another wild man,
more famous and even more hard living, once
his best buddy but with whom he no longer
speaks, who has him gabbing. Dykstra explains
that he believes his onetime friend Charlie
Sheen is on the verge of being prosecuted, in
a roundabout way, for knowingly spreading
his HIV — and that the actor is under federal
investigation for tax and wire fraud. What’s
more, Dykstra claims to know this because it
was his own semi-accidental whistle-blowing
to the government that got the Internal Revenue
Service sniffing around in the first place. “I
don’t know why Charlie doesn’t try to leave the
country,” he says.
Dykstra, 54, nicknamed “Nails” decades ago
for his relentlessness on the field — parts of five
seasons with the New York Mets and eight with
the Philadelphia Phillies — isn’t done. He goes
on to float that Sheen was involved in the sudden
death of a member of his own inner circle
and beat his pregnant ex-fiancee. The 52-yearold
Sheen, says Dykstra, is not simply the
drug-addled clown the tabloids have been feasting
on for years but is truly dangerous.
Dykstra is going public now with this new
info about Sheen, he says, because he’s genuinely
sickened by the worst of the actor’s
behavior. “I am not a saint, but I will not tolerate
a man beating a woman,” he says. Still,
under questioning, another motive emerges.
Dykstra was friendly with Sheen for more
than two decades, eventually joining his core
clique. Now he’s excommunicated. His allegations
against Sheen are telling; his willingness
to share them even more so. The doomed bromance
of Lenny and Charlie is a glimpse into the
hedonistic lure of a real-life Entourage, only sadder,
more desperate and ultimately damned — a
cautionary tale about Hollywood alpha-male
bonding at its most decadent and damaging.
The industry has always been a magnet for
guys like Dykstra: confident outsider-hustlers
who see opportunity in its chaos, imagining
that their accomplishments in other fields
mean they must have the wits, guts and guile
to conquer the gilded mayhem. But with Sheen
and his all-star team of professional handlers,
Nails met his match.
Like his ex-pal, Dykstra has a public reputation
so sullied that Newsweek referred to him
as a “scumbag” after he had a Twitter dustup
with Lena Dunham. Yet Nails, who speaks
with a lisp due to a jailhouse beating that left
him with many missing teeth, is self-aware
enough of his notoriety (and so eager to instill
confidence in his tale) that he insists on providing
the password to his personal email
account for full disclosure. “Look at whatever
you want,” he says. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Press Dykstra about his rationalization for
selling out his former friend, and he’ll tell you
that Sheen took his wise counsel for granted,
ignored it and left him with nothing to show
for it. No surprise, Dykstra is hoping to drum
up interest in a possible stand-alone Sheen
documentary project as well as a multipart
docuseries about his own over-the-top life —
he envisions it in the sweeping, kaleidoscopic
terms of O.J.: Made in America. “There are so
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many people to interview, from prison guards
to my [private plane] pilots to pussy,” he says.
If Dykstra’s actions mean Sheen gets
burned, so be it. “Charlie is getting what he
deserves,” he says. Sheen declined to speak
for this story. But Dykstra doesn’t appear at
all conflicted about publicly crossing his
ex-friend, even one who once warned him to
“watch your front side, watch your backside,
watch both sides.” Dykstra takes a swig of
Irish coffee, settles into his booth and alludes
to his time at the federal penitentiary in
Victorville, California. “When you’ve been
where I’ve been, I’m not afraid of anything.”
T
he bad-boy pair first hung out when
Dykstra’s Phillies were in Los Angeles
playing the Dodgers during the 1993
season. Sheen — who dreamed of being
a big leaguer as a kid and was then reprising
his role as reliever Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn
for Major League II — cold called him at the
clubhouse with an invitation to his Malibu
home. “I was a huge fan of Wall Street,” says
Dykstra. “Turns out he’s a serious baseball guy:
He has a cage lit up like a pro stadium. I told
him, ‘Dude, you can hit!’ He could.”
That first evening, Sheen uncorked a $3,000
bottle of red wine (“I spilled half”) and then,
once “hammered,” showed off what Dykstra
describes as his “legitimate fucking gunnery”
and suggested they fire off automatic
weapons together. Dykstra passed, but the two
became buddies. “He’s funny, he’s smart,
he knows about everything,” says Dykstra.
Dykstra, who last played in the majors
in 1996, retired at age 33 to a notoriously
checkered business career. He was involved
in car-wash dealerships, quick-lube centers,
jet charters and stock picking. By 2008, he
was worth $58 million. The following year, he
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had filed for Chapter 11 and was reportedly
forced to sell his Mets 1986 World Series ring
to help pay off more than $31 million in debt.
His problems weren’t merely financial.
Between 2009 and 2011, Dykstra was accused
by a former employee of making racist and
homophobic remarks, writing a bad check to an
escort and sexually assaulting his housekeeper.
He also was charged with indecent exposure,
drug possession, grand theft auto, identity theft
and filing false financial statements — and
eventually sentenced to three years.
Before going to prison, Dykstra reconnected
with Sheen in February 2011 after having
lost touch for some time. Fittingly, they ran
into each other at the UCLA baseball field, as
Dykstra helped his son Cutter, then a minor
league player (and husband of Sopranos actress
Jamie-Lynn Sigler), practice for the upcoming
season. “Charlie came running up to me,
DYKSTRA GROOMING BY LAURA COSTA AT ENNIS INC. SHEEN: GEORGE PIMENTEL/WIREIMAGE. HOUSE:
SPLASH NEWS. COURTHOUSE: MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ/LA TIMES/GETTY IMAGES. METS: AP PHOTO.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
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FEBRUARY 7, 2018