House of Nails

by Lenny Dykstra

  So I began to let Davey know how dissatisfied I was, gently at first, but more and more forcefully as the days and weeks went by.

  On days I was not in the lineup, I would say to Davey, “Fuck this. Trade me.” In time, I was hammering Davey and the organization on a daily basis to trade me.

  The Mets were playing the Phillies in Veterans Stadium on June 18, 1989, a park in which I loved to hit. I was three for three in the sixth inning when Davey came over to me in the dugout and declared, “Lenny, that’s enough.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I said. “I’m going to get five hits today.”

  “No, that’s enough,” he said.

  Davey and I got into it, but he didn’t back down, and he took me out of the game. I stormed off to the clubhouse.

  After the game ended, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “Davey wants to see you in his office.”

  I walked over to his office, where I saw Davey sitting at his desk accompanied by Joe McIlvaine. I was not exactly sure what to expect.

  “We want to thank you for your services,” said Joe. “You helped us win a World Series, and you’ve been great, but we just traded you to the Philadelphia Phillies. Thank you, and good luck.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “You just said the Phillies. That’s the other dugout. That’s the team I just finished beating the shit out of today. Do I walk over there? Do I meet them at home plate? What do I do?”

  “Their general manager is coming to get you,” Joe said.

  And that was it. I was no longer a New York Met.

  10

  A SHOT IN THE BUTT

  Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.

  —LANCE ARMSTRONG

  Upon my trade from the Mets to the Phillies in mid-June 1989, I got exactly what I had asked for: an opportunity to play every day. As the season moved into August, I came to the stark realization that while my heart and head were ready for everyday status, my body was an unwilling participant. The daily physical grind was taking a toll on me. Davey platooned me in part because he didn’t think I could hold up for an entire season, and as much as I hated to admit it, I was beginning to think maybe he was right. Once August rolled around, my bat started to feel like a telephone pole, and my numbers started to decline.

  Obviously, I didn’t forget how to hit. I just wasn’t physically capable of performing at the same level for a full season. I needed to get stronger; my weight had dropped from 160 to 150 pounds. I took more amphetamines, hoping they would give me the jolt I needed to finish the year. On the contrary, they caused me to lose more weight that I couldn’t afford to lose, which only served to sap my strength even further. By the end of the season, I was physically spent, and it was evident in my performance.

  Despite my abysmal performance at the end of the ’89 season, the Phillies’ GM, Lee Thomas, assured me that I was still going to be his everyday guy the following season. “You have all of 1990 to prove to us that you can be the guy,” he said.

  What he was actually saying was, 1990 will determine whether you are a millionaire or taking orders from some Bozo.

  I had the opportunity I coveted, but I didn’t have all the tools I needed to cash in. Physically, I knew I was not built to withstand the rigors of playing every day for a full 162-game season. Moreover, I was certain the Phillies were now thinking maybe the Mets were right. Maybe he can’t play every day. I knew I had to do something fast.

  At season’s end, Terri and I returned to our home in Jackson, Mississippi, where her parents lived. Soon thereafter, I found myself in the Jackson Public Library one afternoon. Unfortunately for me, Google hadn’t been conceived then, so I had to grind through the ancient card catalogs and microfiche. Nonetheless, I came upon some great, insightful research on how to get bigger, faster, and stronger. I read with great interest about Ben Johnson, the Canadian sprinter, who had won the 100-meter dash in the Olympics due to steroids increasing his speed and making him stronger.

  A lightbulb went on in my head. This was the solution I was seeking. This would allow me to gain weight, maintain it, and stay strong so I could perform at the level I was capable of performing at throughout the torturous grind of a full season.

  I realize that players have taken a lot of heat for hitting the juice over the past couple of decades. I get it. And players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, two of the greatest players of all time, are still waiting to get inducted into Cooperstown because of steroid use. The critics—mostly in the media—have no clue about what it’s like to be a professional athlete, and all the pressure you’re under to perform. What are you going to do? Are you going to sit back and let the guy next to you do it, and then he takes your job, you get released, and you have to take some shitty job where you take orders from an asshole rather than rake in $10 million a year?

  No, not me.

  What I did next was call up a doctor—picked him out of the Jackson, Mississippi, Yellow Pages, in fact. I walked into his office and I told him the straight story.

  “My life is on the line,” I told him. “My . . . life . . . is . . . on . . . the . . . line. This next year is going to determine whether I’m going to be a millionaire, or whether I’ll have to get a real job. I need you to give me something that’s going to keep me durable and allow me to maintain my strength for six months. I need your help. I have a family to take care of, and I’m going to be one of twenty-six people in the whole world to start on a Major League Baseball team, playing center field.”

  Is this something I’m proud to say I did? No. But purely and simply, I did it for my family, and to be able to provide for them. The fact of the matter is that I wasn’t physically constructed to withstand an entire 162-game season, particularly with the way I play the game. I did it for my livelihood. It was the only way I could physically survive and perform through an entire season.

  The doctor wrote me a prescription for Deca Durabolin, one of the cleanest steroids there is. I went to my local Rite-Aid pharmacy and I stood in line like everyone else. Was I worried? Nervous? Paranoid that somebody would see me? Not at all. Because the fact was, steroids weren’t illegal in baseball at the time, and the doctor had given me a legal prescription.

  “After you get it filled, come back to my office, and I’ll show you how to inject it,” the doctor said.

  I went back to the office a few days later and the doctor pulled out a needle that could have taken out Moby Dick—the thing was a damn harpoon and it hurt like a motherfucker when he shot it in my ass. I was thinking, This had better be some magical juice to make sticking myself with this pole worth it. The doc also gave me the lowdown on timing to get the most results out of the steroids: every day for six weeks, and then be off it for two weeks.

  Now, I don’t want to come off as a bad example for the kids or anything, but I have to share three facts with you. One: I would go on to lead the Phillies to the World Series. Two: I would go on to make millions of dollars and live the dream of every boy and man in America. Three: I could not have done One and Two without using steroids. I would have fallen short, because no matter what anyone says, the baseball season has the toughest, most demanding schedule of any major sport, unless you are a starting pitcher. Don’t tell me about how hard football is. Yeah, it’s a rough, brutal sport, but they only play once a week.

  Now let’s get back to the pitchers for a minute. In baseball, they only play in thirty-five games (assuming they don’t go on the disabled list) and get to rest for four days after a start. Come on, man. If you’re a pitcher and you stay healthy, you have to play in a whopping thirty-five games, and if you’re in the American League, you don’t have to haul your ass off the bench to hit, which is the hardest part of baseball. Even in the National League you get pinch-hit for—or they put some fucking Windbreaker on you after you reach base.

  Furtherm
ore, you can give up four or five runs a game, play only six innings, and make millions and millions of dollars. My feeling about pitchers is the same as the guys who are making $20 million a year at some cushy corporate job. If you can get that gig, who wouldn’t want it? And if someone has a problem with that, well, it’s a free world. You try doing it. If you don’t have the talent, you’ll just have to get a real fucking job. Whose fault is that, the players’?

  Armed and ready to hit the weight room and take advantage of my special vitamins, I hired a personal trainer to push me, and keep pushing me, to put myself in the best position to succeed in what was the most important season of my life. Now let’s go back in time to spring training in 1990. I walked into camp—more like strutted into camp—with an ego just as big as my muscles. I weighed 190 pounds, cut up and ripped with not an ounce of fat on me. I looked like a fucking Greek statue. I walked onto the field like I had a fifteen-inch cock, and it was like, “Okay, motherfuckers, there’s a new fucking sheriff in town.”

  I’m a quick learner at everything I do, so I became a virtuoso with the pin; for you amateurs out there pin means “needle.” I wasn’t shy about it either. Sometimes I’d drop trou and load up right in front of the other players. Because the shit was so thick I had to use a big gauge needle. There were times I would show up at the yard the next day, forgetting to take the Band-Aid off my ass. It didn’t matter; everyone knew why it was there. But they didn’t give a fuck. They wanted results. They wanted to win. And Lenny Dykstra on steroids was going to give the Philadelphia Phillies a much better chance to win than Lenny Dykstra off steroids.

  That’s just the way it is. It’s all about results!

  With the help of my new regimen, I became an All-Star. I was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I was hitting .400 in June. A coincidence? I think not!

  All season long, through August and September, because of the steroids, I was able to play at the level I started at, not withering away like some kind of runt. It wasn’t like the year before, when I’d walk up to the plate at the end of the season knowing I had no chance because the bat felt like lead. There were times I felt so weak that it seemed like the pitcher was laughing at me. Look at this pussy. A year later, I was walking up there with a different attitude: “You really want some of this, motherfucker?” They knew I was on a whole different level than the other players. They knew I was loaded up. And they knew that I was going to find a way to beat them and make their lives miserable. Because on the baseball field, that’s what I do.

  So that’s what I did every fucking night I stepped on the field.

  11

  THE POLITICS OF STEROIDS

  I am not here to make money; I’m here to make history.

  —LENNY K. DYKSTRA

  The United States Congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Control Act in 1990, making the illicit use of anabolic steroids illegal. Moreover, criminal penalties would be assessed to violators, including athletic trainers who induced players to take anabolic steroids without a legitimate prescription. The following year, MLB commissioner Fay Vincent acknowledged in an official MLB memo that indeed anabolic steroids were a significant problem in baseball.

  While the purchase or use of steroids by a player without a prescription was declared illegal, there was no testing program in place at that point. Hence, without any testing program, the pronouncement that steroids were illegal had no teeth. In essence, the MLB memo was saying, “Gentlemen, if you’re taking steroids, and we don’t want to know, but by all means, please, whatever you do, don’t get caught.”

  The player lockout in 1994 resulted in the cancellation of the remainder of the season, including the World Series. In addition to losing their season, MLB lost a portion of their fan base, who could no longer relate to the greedy millionaires sparring in the headlines. The game was in desperate need of “a shot in the arm,” and steroids were more than happy to oblige, although the shot was usually in another part of the anatomy.

  Suddenly, in 1996, balls were rocketing out of parks throughout the league on a nightly basis. Moreover, it wasn’t just the usual suspects who were launching balls out of the yard; it was players who had a track record of rarely hitting home runs who were joining the party as well.

  Brady Anderson, usually a leadoff hitter, parked 50 that year. Ken Caminiti had 40 that year and won the MVP. In 1992, 3,038 home runs were hit during the season. When millions of dollars are at stake, it changes the way people think. It’s simply too much money to walk away from. To prove my point, during the 2000 season, a staggering 5,693 balls left the yard, which translates to an 87 percent increase from 1992. As for yours truly, prior to 1993, the most home runs I ever hit in a season was 10. In 1993, with a big boost from steroids, I hit 25, including the postseason.

  The sight of more balls landing in the seats put more people in those seats. Fans love majestic home runs more than anything else; the power surge fueled by steroids drove fans to the park to witness the barrage. Unequivocally, there would be a direct correlation between the increasing number of dingers and increased attendance throughout major league parks. Do you honestly believe MLB did not know what was happening? Come on, dude, I’m the one without any degrees. Dingers equals dollars, pure and simple.

  Around the year 2000, I received a call from Kevin Hallinan, who was in charge of security for Major League Baseball. Hallinan was one of the most powerful men in the league. Kevin and I would develop a special relationship, which is what led him to ask Terri and me to speak to FBI agents in Washington, DC, about fame—and everything that comes with it.

  During spring training, I would speak to many of the teams’ players about the perils of drugs, alcohol, and gambling, and how they could ruin your career.

  One day, sitting at home, I received a call from Kevin. “The big man wants to meet with you in New York next week,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Bud.”

  “What about?”

  “He wants to understand where the game is at when it comes to drugs.”

  Trying to help the game, I agreed to meet with MLB commissioner Bud Selig and his entourage at the presidential suite of the Four Seasons Hotel in New York.

  At the meeting, Selig asked me about cocaine, amphetamines, and all of the other shit that can help someone go north, south, and sideways, and every other kind of drug that can help a player check out, even if only for a while.

  “That’s not your problem,” I said. “That’s not even close to the problem. Because coke and the other drugs don’t help you make any money. The problem is steroids. They help you make money.”

  Attending the meeting were Bud Selig, his assistant Sandy Alderson, and Hallinan. I told them, “Steroids take you to a place where you can do things you can’t do without them. And when you do that, you earn more money. Money changes the way people think, so everyone is going to take steroids. You’d take them, too. Everyone in this room would take them, unless you don’t like money.”

  I asked them, “Who in here doesn’t like money? Because you can’t compete if the guy next to you is loading up. What are you going to do? Retire graciously? You’re going to use them, too, and start pounding the ball out of the park.”

  We all know what happened next. The big guys who didn’t need them, the studs, started loading up on steroids, which resulted in a fucking skyrocket show as balls were flying out of ballparks around the major leagues at an alarming pace. This led to players shattering records. In 1998, Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs and Sammy Sosa hit 66. Barry Bonds, who won two MVP awards for Pittsburgh long before he ever took a steroid, would soon start to hit home runs at a record pace for the Giants. Players hit more home runs than at any time since 1930, when the ball was juiced.

  Baseball had returned from the dead.

  By this time the job of the Players Association was to make sure nothing happened to the players who were taking the steroids. It dragged its feet as much as it could in light of what everyone saw was happeni
ng. In 2001, it allowed testing in the minor leagues, but not in the major leagues.

  That year, 2001, Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs. Sosa hit 64, Alex Rodriguez hit 52, and Luis Gonzalez, of all people, hit 57.

  Reporters began to write about how steroids had changed the game, and finally in 2003 the Players Association allowed anonymous testing. If a player was caught juicing, there was no penalty. The idea was to survey how many players were taking steroids. If 5 percent of the players were taking them, baseball would act.

  No surprise, more than 5 percent of the players were taking steroids. But MLB was still taking baby steps, not wanting to kill the golden goose.

  In 2004, the Players Association agreed that if a player tested positive for steroids, he would agree to get medical treatment. Still there was no punishment. The names of the players would not become public. So the players kept right on juicing. In December 2004, the union allowed for some minor penalties: a ten-day ban for the first offense, thirty days for a second, sixty days for a third, and a one-year ban for a fourth. This time the names would be made public.

  In March 2005, the federal government got involved. Exactly why it felt the need to do so, I haven’t figured out to this day. They said they were doing it because of the children. What a crock. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which was supposed to clean up the mess in government, decided it could get some cheap publicity by going after the steroid users in baseball rather than fuck with more important, lower-profile issues in Washington. On national TV they interviewed a group of players including Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro and asked them if they took steroids. McGwire refused to answer, as was his right under the Constitution, and Palmeiro denied any steroid use. It was on TV live, and I had to laugh when Sammy suddenly forgot how to speak English. The guy speaks perfect English. He kept saying, “No comprendo.” It was fucking hilarious.