Dykstra nails Ron with suit
Lenny Dykstra’s lawyers came out swinging hard against his old Mets teammate Ron Darling.
The former Mets center fielder, in a vitriolic 13-page defamation and libel complaint, charged Tuesday that Darling’s new book “108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game” inaccurately painted him as a frothing racist.
“Merely to sell books and indulge in public self-promotion, Darling has sought to capitalize on plaintiff’s complicated past, and intentionally, falsely and maliciously portrayed plaintiff as a racist,” the Manhattan Supreme Court filing declared.
According to the book, Dykstra spewed a series of personal barbs and racial invective against Boston Red Sox pitcher Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd from the on-deck circle before Game Three of the 1986 World Series.
Dykstra was “shouting every imaginable and unimaginable insult and expletive in (Boyd’s) direction — foul, racist, hateful, hurtful stuff,” wrote the Yale-educated Darling. “I don’t want to be too specific here … but I will say that it was the worst collection of taunts and insults I’d ever heard.”
Darling went on to write that his teammate’s vitriol was “worse, I’m betting, than anything Jackie Robinson might have heard” after breaking the major-league baseball color barrier in 1947.
A rattled Boyd gave up a firstinning home run to Dykstra, leading Darling to note “the hero of Game 3 for us was also the a—hole of the game — Lenny Dykstra, one of baseball’s all-time thugs.”
Dykstra attorney Matthew Blit spoke directly about the allegation with Mets teammate Wally Backman, who recounted that he was “in spitting distance of Lenny the entire time” and never heard anything like Darling described.
The Darling book was “pathetic,” said Blit. “Darling and his codefendants knew Lenny is down, and stuck a dagger of lies into his heart. This lawsuit is aimed at removing that dagger and repairing the damage it has done not only to Mr. Dykstra, but others wrongfully hurt by this dime store novel.”
The label of racist left Dykstra with “an irremovable stain and permanent cloud which will forever diminish Mr. Dykstra, stalk him, and preclude him from unknowable professional and personal relationships and benefits,” the court papers alleged.
The lawsuit, in addition to exMets righthander Darling, names St. Martin’s Press and the Macmillan Publishing Group as co-defendants.
Dykstra’s “complicated” history includes arrests on drug and bankruptcy fraud charges, alleged steroid use during his 198596 baseball career, a six-month prison stint, bankruptcy, allegations of indecent exposure and making terrorist threats to a New Jersey Uber driver.
But the man known as “Nails” drew the line at Darling’s allegations: “Plaintiff has no choice but to bring this action to defend his name and reputation.” The suit didn’t ask for a specific amount in damages, instead requesting a jury trial on his request for punitive damages along with compensation for emotional distress and mental anguish.
Darling, in a tweet last week, declared that he stood behind “all recollections that were printed.”