House of Nails
Page 25
Warner Bros., 136
Washington Mutual, 265–69
Washington Nationals, 304
Weight gain, 98, 101
Wersksmen, Mark, 287
West, David, 150
Western Wall (Jerusalem), 214
Westlake High School, 29–30, 303
WFAN, 91
Whale, 185
Wheel of Fortune (TV show), 188
White, Devon, 158, 160, 162
Wilde, Oscar, 130
Williams, Mitch, 1993 season, 150
NLCS, 154, 155
World Series, 160, 162–64
Williams, Ted, 127, 254
Wilson, William “Mookie”
1985 disabled list, 46, 48–49
1986 NLCS, 64–65
1986 World Series, 71, 73–76
1989 season, 93
Winfrey, Oprah, 188, 280
Winning, 1, 2
Winokur, Larry, 142–43
Wohlers, Mark, 154–55
Wood bats, 23, 36
Wooden, John, 302
Woods, Tiger, 251
Work ethic, 1, 16
World Series (1960), 163
World Series (1986), 67–78
Game 1, 67–68
Game 2, 68
Game 3, 68–70
Game 4, 70
Game 5, 70
Game 6, 70–74, 93
Game 7, 74–78
New York City parade, 78
statistics, 78
World Series (1993), 157–64
Game 1, 158
Game 2, 158
Game 3, 159
Game 4, 159–61
Game 5, 161
Game 6, 161–63
Wrigley Field (Chicago), 118
Yachts, 229–30
PHOTO SECTION
My uncle, “Tough Tony,” helped the Red Wings win three Stanley Cups in the three years he played for them. He scored the winning goal in overtime in Game 7 against the Canadiens to win the Cup in 1954. I guess you could say grit and glory were in the blood.
The Dykstra brothers, Garden Grove, California, circa 1968—that’s me, on the top right. A few years after this photo was taken, alarmed neighbors called my dad at work, begging him to come home and break up a fight that had been waging between my older brother and me for two hours outside our house.
Senior year at Garden Grove High School, 1981. Baseball was my golden ticket out of the middle. When I was drafted by the Mets in June, there was no way I wasn’t going to cash it in.
Young guns: me, Doc Gooden, and Darryl Strawberry hanging in the dugout before a game against the Padres in San Diego. (George Gojkovich/Getty Images)
With my man Straw (aka Soul Pole).
Never knew I could jump that high. This game-winning home run in the 1986 playoffs against the Houston Astros put me on the map. My do-whatever-it-takes-to-win attitude made me a fan favorite in the Big Apple! What a feeling! (Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)
Headed to the series! Celebrating our NLCS victory over the Astros, October 15, 1986. (Richard Mackson/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)
Down two games to none in the 1986 World Series, I led off Game 3 at Boston with a home run off Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd. Keith “Mex” Hernandez watches from the on-deck circle. (Paul Bereswill)
Sliding headfirst into home to score a run in the 1986 Series. Notice Rafael Santana signaling me to get down. (Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
Celebrating the World Series victory (October 26, 1986) with teammates Doc Gooden, Bobby Ojeda, and Rick Aguilera. The cocktails were flowing freely! (Ronald C. Modra/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)
Fresh off the 1986 World Series win, this NAILS poster turned out to be a big hit. By the way, this is me “all-natural.” (Costacos Brothers)
With my wife, Terri, waving to the crowd at the tickertape parade to honor our World Series championship win over the Boston Red Sox. The date was October 28, 1986, a day I will never forget. The streets of New York were filled with cheering fans. (D. Ross Cameron)
It all came together in 1990, during my second season with the Phillies. I was hitting .400 in June, as celebrated by this Sports Illustrated cover. With a little help from the “good vitamins” (wink, wink). I finally figured out how to hit over the 162-game schedule. (John Iacono/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)
A Greek fucking statue! Deca Durabolin at its finest! (John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)
Kicking Rick Dempsey’s ass at home plate in Dodger Stadium, 1990. Rick Dempsey was brownnosing the umpire the whole game, so I said, “Let’s get it fucking on.” We did, and I dropped him right at the dish!
Bulked up, badass, and on a “mission of mercy”! Bring it! (Peter Power/Getty Images)
My teammates, Curt Schilling and John Kruk, greeting me after I scored a run to win a game. (Tom Mihalek/AFP/Getty Images)
This was one of the farthest balls I ever hit. It was in the 1993 World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, in Toronto. Down 5–0 with two men on base, I connected on a Dave Stewart fastball and hit it to the fucking moon! (Rick Stewart/Getty Images)
This was the 1993 NLCS in Atlanta, top of the 10th, two outs, nobody on base—I hit the game-winning home run off Mark Wohlers. One of the most satisfying moments of my career. (Check out the smile on third-base coach Larry Bowa.)
I loved silencing the crowd on the road. This home run put an end to the Braves. (William Glover/Associated Press)
At the Hôtel Ritz Paris after the 1993 season. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to send me to Europe as an ambassador for Major League Baseball, so I flew across the pond and fucking loved it. (Lane Stewart/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)
Once I got a taste of the good life as a professional athlete, I was hooked when my playing days ended. Here I am living large at a $5,000-a-night presidential suite at the St. Regis, on the corner of Fifty-fifth and Madison in New York City. If you only knew what happened between those walls!
Entrance to my Simi Valley car wash—the Taj Mahal of car washes and the source of my postbaseball wealth. Inside the complex, I built a saltwater shark tank and displayed world-class sports memorabilia. We would wash about one thousand cars on a Saturday!
Luke, Cutter, me, and Terri living the dream at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California, one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the country. If you had to ask how much it cost to join, you weren’t invited.
This is Wayne and Janet Gretzky’s former mansion, which I bought for a smooth $17.5 million. The compound sat on top of a hill on ten acres, if you add in the mountains that came with it. This place may be as close to heaven as I’ll ever get.
My Gulfstream, the biggest swinging dick of private aviation! Tell me that doesn’t get you hard?
The interior of my customized Maybach Gulfstream.
With Jim Cramer at the Players Club launch party on April 1, 2008. Cramer was the only person who got it right when he went on national TV and said, “Lenny Dykstra is one of the great ones.” At the time of that interview with Bernard Goldberg on Real Sports, my win-loss record was 110 wins and 0 losses. Since Cramer made that ballsy call about me, my win-loss record has soared! My website NailsInvestments.com has since accumulated 570 wins and 1 loss. The numbers don’t lie! NailsInvestments.com is still going strong today. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
A sample of covers for Players Club magazine.
The end of an era: With fellow Mets greats celebrating the team’s last season at Shea Stadium, September 28, 2008. Shea would be demolished a few short months later; the wrecking crew came for my life next. (George Napolitano/Getty Images)
Pearl Harbored! Taken into custody, June 6, 2011. If they want you, they get you, period. The end! (Michael Robinson Chavez/Getty Images)
The House of Pain!
Pictures taken after the beating I took from the deputies at Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail. The inmate abuse was so widely known that, after a five-year investigation, the FBI arrested,
prosecuted, and put in prison numerous deputies who abused inmates on a regular basis. Sheriff Lee Baca’s guilty plea capped off a string of prosecutions beginning with low-ranking officials and working all the way up the chain of command. Numerous deputies willfully entered my jail cell and proceeded to beat me to the point of unconsciousness. I am lucky to be alive.
Happy to be free, and now ready to be a factor again in this game called life! (Carlos Delgado Photography)
My awesome grandson Beau Kyle Dykstra. A future All-Star!
My son Cutter and his new wife, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, with my grandson Beau Dykstra at their wedding.
A couple of sharp-dressed men: My adopted son Gavin and my grandson Marshall at Cutter’s wedding.
#4 lives on: My youngest son, Luke Dykstra. He was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the seventh round out of high school and is on his way to being a star.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LENNY DYKSTRA manned center field for the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies from 1985 to 1996. He was a three-time All-Star, and won a World Series with the Mets in 1986. Since his playing days ended, he has been active in a number of business ventures, including publishing a magazine geared toward professional athletes.
@LennyDykstra
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CREDITS
Cover design by James Iacobelli
Cover photograph © AP Photo/Doug Mills
COPYRIGHT
Unless otherwise indicated, insert photographs are courtesy of the author.
HOUSE OF NAILS. Copyright © 2016 by The Third Chapter, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-240736-8
EPub Edition JUNE 2016 ISBN 9780062407382
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